What's wrong with zips?

Any Mum spends a considerable amount of time doing up presstuds, poppers and buttons on a baby's clothes. In my life it sometimes feels like I spend the majority of the day doing this task. This in itself is no mean feat with 2 almost toddlers who would rather do anything than having their clothes changed.

2 morning nappy changes means undoing all the poppers on 2 fleece sleepsuits, 2 babygrows and 2 vests. For some reason I often do the vests and  and babygrows back up so that they can eat breakfast in their pyjamas and allowing them to be covered with cheerios and toast crumbs.

After breakfast we have to remove these 2 layers of clothes to put on fresh vests (at least 3 poppers each), and clothes. Dresses, tops, trousers, dungarees - pretty much any item of clothing has poppers, buttons, toggles, occasionally velcro but never zips.

I do often look at the lovely baby boutique vests that don't need to go over their heads but are made in a crossover style. Great for not annoying a baby by pulling a tight vest over their heads, not so great as it takes 3 times as long to do up. These are the sort of items that were designed by someone with no children. Don't even get me started on the French designer vests with ribbons that need tying up - there are simply not enough hours in a day.

When we go out it's not just a case of putting the girls into the car, grabbing my bag and the keys and leaving, oh no I have to first put their coats on. As pre-walkers all my kids spend a lot of time in snowsuits as I like to ensure they are cosy from top to toe. I invested in rather snazzy 2 piece snowsuits for my girls and
remarkably the way the feet piece and the jacket piece are connected is with poppers! I have got it down to a fine art and now it only take 8 minutes to get 2 girls into 2 snowsuits with all the poppers attached correctly so that each girl only has one leg down each leg hole.  I haven't managed to find another family member that can get Baby A and Baby E into them so swiftly.

At the end of the day with just a couple of nappy changes in between we remove the daytime clothes and get back into vests, babygrows and fleece sleepsuits.

In just one day I have worked out that I do up a minimum of 110 poppers/pres studs and buttons. Not only do I need to teach Baby A and Baby E to walk and talk, I really need to get them adept at self-dressing. Failing that they are going to spend the next few years wearing leggings and tops and I have made a promise to only buy sleepsuits and coats with zips.