Custom Baby and Toddler Clothing: What to Get Right
By The Velocity Wear Team
Custom baby and toddler clothing is easy to produce and unusually strict to get right. The garments are small, washed hot and often, and worn against skin, so print softness and wash durability matter far more than on adult wear. The safety points around cords, small attachments and nightwear flammability are what you cannot improvise on: work from current official guidance and the relevant standards, not a supplier's summary.
Small Garments Are Not Scaled-Down Adult Ones
A 0-3 month bodysuit is light single jersey, usually around 150-180 GSM, with an envelope neckline and popper legs. Both exist for a reason: the neck has to stretch over a head that is large relative to the body, and the legs have to open for changing. Neither likes a stiff print across it. The usable panel on the smallest sizes is only a few inches wide, so a logo balanced on an adult chest becomes a slab.
A thick ink deposit also stiffens light fabric more than heavy fabric, because there is less material either side of the print to absorb the difference. The same plastisol build that feels fine on an adult tee can feel like a plastic panel on a babygrow.
The Safety Points to Check Before You Design Anything
These come up repeatedly in children's clothing, and they are design decisions rather than production ones. Sort them at the sketch stage.
- Cords and drawstrings: hood and neck cords are the classic hazard, and BS EN 14682 is the standard covering cords and drawstrings on children's clothing. Design them out rather than trying to make them safe.
- Small attachments: buttons, poppers, bows, sequins and appliqué patches present a choking risk on garments for the very young. Attachment strength is a real test, not a formality.
- Nightwear flammability: children's nightwear sits under its own flammability and labelling requirements. Treat it as a separate product category, not a pyjama-shaped t-shirt.
- Labelling: fibre composition and care labelling obligations apply, and who carries them depends on whether you manufacture, import or resell.
- Currency: standards get revised. Check the current version directly, including against anything here.
We print and embroider garments; we are not compliance consultants, and none of this is legal advice. If you are placing goods on the market rather than making a handful of gifts, work from current official guidance on GOV.UK and the current text of the relevant standards, and get proper advice where anything is unclear. The rules change, and a stale blog post is a bad thing to rely on.
Which Decoration Methods Suit Babywear
DTG is the natural fit for pale cotton bodysuits. It sits in the fabric rather than on it, so a detailed illustration prints softly and washes without a raised edge. DTF handles blends and stronger colours with no per-colour setup, useful when you are running several designs in small numbers. Screen printing wins at volume, provided you ask for a soft-hand ink and a thin deposit rather than an opaque build.
Embroidery is durable but has a reverse side. The back of a stitched area is stiff, the backing can feel rough, and on a tiny panel there is nowhere for that stiffness to go. Keep it off areas that sit against skin, and keep the design simple: fine detail and small lettering rarely survive being scaled down for a 6-12 month front. Sublimation is essentially out, because babywear is overwhelmingly cotton.
Placement on a Panel That Barely Exists
Map placement against the actual garment, not a flat mockup. The front of a bodysuit is interrupted by the popper placket, the shoulders are crossed by the envelope seam, and the back is what the baby lies on all day. A raised back print on a sleepsuit is worth questioning for that reason alone. Chest-left placements read well on toddler tees and stay consistent across bands where the front panel changes size dramatically.
Age Bands, Growth and How Deep to Order
Babywear is sized in age bands rather than S, M and L: typically 0-3, 3-6, 6-12, 12-18 and 18-24 months, then 2-3 and 3-4 years. Gift buyers habitually buy a band up, because a garment that is briefly too big beats one that is already too small. That skews demand towards the middle bands more than first-time sellers expect.
Velocity Wear works to a 20-piece minimum per order with sizes mixed freely, so you can spread across bands in one go. Spreading 20 pieces across seven bands leaves two or three of each, which is not a range, it is a sample set. Pick three or four bands and go deeper on those.
“"Parents will forgive a plain garment. They will not forgive a scratchy one."”
Wash Durability Is the Real Test
Baby clothes are laundered far more often than adult clothes, frequently hotter, and often with stain treatments. A print that would survive twenty gentle washes on an adult tee can look tired within two months on a bodysuit. Cured screen prints and good DTF hold up well. On dark cotton the white DTG underbase does most of the work, and a badly cured underbase is what cracks first.
Ordering and Turnaround
Velocity Wear is an online supplier rather than a shop: you brief, proof and order online, and the goods are delivered. The free Design Studio lets you lay out artwork on the garment first, which is worth doing on small sizes where scale is easy to misjudge, and the instant price calculator updates live. Bulk discounts reach up to around 40% as quantities rise. Production begins at artwork approval, not order placement: allow around 10-15 working days for screen printing and embroidery, plus UK tracked delivery of typically 2-5 working days.