Children's Infant & Toddler Pants Guide

Pants are the bottom half of the separated wardrobe - the garment that takes over from the one-piece as babies sit, crawl and stand. The infant and toddler pants family runs from the soft leggings and pull-on knit pants of the first year to the miniature jeans, cords and chinos of the toddler wardrobe, and beyond young children's sizes lies the wider world of pants types, which is where this category eventually leads: the toddler's first jeans are the family's first step into ordinary trousers.

Through all its forms, the baby pant is judged at three points: the waist, which must hold without hurting; the knee, which meets the world first; and the change, which must not require the pants' complete removal and reassembly five times a day.

The Pants Family by Age

First-year pants are soft by definition: cotton knit and leggings with full elastic waists, footed pants for the pre-mobile months (the bottom half of the sleeper idea), and lined or double-layer crawling pants whose knees are built as sacrificial fabric. Cuffs that fold down add a band of growth to knit pants, the one honest growing-room feature in baby bottoms.

Toddler pants diversify: pull-on twill and denim with elastic or adjustable waists, joggers with ribbed cuffs that stay clear of tripping hems, and leggings continuing as the girls' wardrobe's foundation and under-layer. The toddler-specific demand is self-management - a waist the wearer can pull down and up unaided is a toilet-training feature, and any pant that defeats it is benched for those months regardless of its looks.

Fit: Waistbands, Knees and Length

Fit the waist over a diaper at its fullest, sitting and bending: the band should recover instantly and mark nothing. Mock flies, fixed buttons and belt loops on baby pants are costume, and costume at the waist costs a caregiver time at every change; the honest construction is elastic all the way around, with drawstrings, if drawn at all, short, secured and decorative rather than functional.

Length is judged standing and crawling: knit pants can puddle slightly at the ankle of a non-walker, but a walking toddler's hem must clear the ground or cuff up, because a stepped-on hem is a fall with a date on it. Knees deserve a pre-purchase rub test - the fabric's hand tells you whether it will survive a crawler's month; thin fashion denim fails where a modest double-knee knit sails through.

Care and Wear Economics

Pants take the dirtiest washing in the wardrobe after bodysuits: knees carry the playground home. Wash warm, treat knee and seat stains at the door, and expect the knees of crawling pants to thin as their designed sacrifice. Sweatpant-style and legging knits pill at friction points; that is cosmetic, and a pilling pair still serves until the fabric itself thins.

Because pants are outgrown by length and waist on a predictable rhythm and are cheap in multi-packs, they are bought in the working multiples of the wardrobe - four to six per band - and handed down selectively: only pairs whose knees and elastic pass inspection, because a handed-down pant with a dead waistband is a falling-down accident looking for a staircase.