You can't have enough onesies! Caidens not even 2 weeks old and I can't tell you how many we've already gone through and we DO laundry at least every other day just to keep up. We have a ton...short sleeve, long sleeve and my favorites, the ones you don't have to put over their heads..it has a few buttons up the front and 3 on the bottom..so easy! But all together we must have 50 or more. I know, it sounds crazy but we've used so many already!
I'm not sure what the "gowns" are...but we have these sleepers that are long sleeve fleece and zipper up all the way, almost like a sack. So we dress him in a warm onesie and than put the sac over it. So at night when were half awake we just unzip and do 3 buttons and thats it! Its so much easier than those sleepers with all those dang buttons. Their fine for during the day, but not at night when every minute of sleep counts! We have 5 sacks and about 50 footsie outfits. Their nice and warm and they can move their little legs around and dont feel constricted. We have a ton of clothes...had 2 baby showers, have 2 obsessive sets of grandparents who buy him everything and than there's me who buys too much! But it's nice to not have to do laundry...I just choose to do it to keep up.
The only advice would be...don't buy too many newborn things. Thankfully we didn't because lil Caiden was over 9 pounds! But so often people buy the small cute clothes and than there baby is a bit on the bigger side and doesn't fit into any of it! So I would buy more in the 3 month range :) Just coming from experience!
I agree with Joy Renee, we didnt have gowns either. I think just one....but that is because we liked the sleepers with footies better. my daughter had several of those.
But onesies, oh my gosh, I dont know how many we had. Way too many!!!!!! My daughter had enough for two babies! (Now I am preg with twins so this time we should have the right number. ha!)
Sorry, I didn't help with the numbers question. I am pregnant and my memory has gone. I cant remember. I just remember we had WAY too many.
Don't like the gowns! Baby can kick their legs out of it and it bunches up around their hips all the time.
Onesies--- probably 2 dozen.
the dh and i had twins. so we had onsies coming out the a$$ and we didn't have gowns but we did have tons of little footie jammies. and still do. wal mart, target, babies r us...places like that have really good ones. they were in preemie sizes until they were about a month old...then started on the regular sizes.
for the sizes it's going to have to be a wait and see. if you dd grows fast don't get to many newborns. if she doesn't grow extremely fast then go ahead with the newborns.
Re: Zipper footie pjs
The ones I got for Jaiden are Gerber brand, 0-3 month sleepers ... I know Target has them (they have the store brand too ... Circo, I think). They are just a little big on him right now, so there's lots of room for him to grow. And, like houseofgirls said, the zippers are a *ton* easier to do than all those little snaps on a sleep n' play! =D
I agree about the onesies...you can't really have too many! I would buy more of the 0-3 month ones though over the newborn ones. My babies grew out of the newborn size pretty quickly. I never liked the gowns so can't help you there. I will say, I try and buy sleepers and such with zippers not the buttons! Having to snap all those little buttons with a squirmy fussy baby is not very fun. Zippers are so much easier! Its harder to find them in the newborn size, but once they start getting into the bigger sizes it gets easier to find the ones with zippers.
We currently have 3 gowns, probably about 6 or 7 onesies, 3 footie sleepers (which I freakin' love!), and 2 sleep n' plays (they're a bit like the footie pj's without the footie part!). My mom's sending me a bag of 0-6 month clothes she picked up the other day, so I'll have s'more soon! But I usually end up doing laundry about 2 or 3 times a week to make sure J has something to wear!
Like someone else said, they will 'leak' often, so having a decent supply will help. J tends to leak more pee than poop. I can't tell you how often I pick him up to find his back wet. >.>
The gowns we got are a little annoying. I thought they'd be great b/c they're convenient, but the elastic band never stays down around his feet, and I'm always having to pull it down (it rides up to his belly). J's pretty long tho (around 22 in ... maybe more now), so it might work for a smaller baby.
I hear you on laundry ... mostly I hate doing it because our dryer is acting up, so I can never get it done when I want. I finally got a good bit of laundry done over the past couple days tho! Yay!
I had about 5 gowns I would say, Noah spent most of his newborn weeks in button or zip up outfits. Once again I think I changed his clothes about 3 times a day due to explosive poo.
I probably used at least 10-12 onesies for my babies and 5-6 gowns. I loved the gowns, so easy to do diaper-changes!
I personally think you can never have too many onsies, babies poop through their diapers a lot causing lots of wardrobe changes. One good thing about onsies is that they stretch so even if your baby is growing the onsies should still fit pretty good. Noah is 2 and can still fit into 3 month onsies without them cutting in, mind you he is small (26 pounds) but still...
I hear you on the laundry thing, I live in the 2nd floor apartment and out laundry room in the basement, I HATE going down all those stairs and believe me you will hate it even more when the baby comes.
LOTS of onsies. you'll always use onsies. If you're breastfeeding, you may need to go through several a day.
DD hated the gowns. She was a mover and kicker from day 1 and they really restricted her.