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Grow with Me Pants for Cloth Diapered Babies

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Grow with me pants fit for a longer period of time than regular baby pants. These two pairs were made with the Maxaloones pattern from Max & Meena

Grow with me pants: What they are and why you might want to consider them for your baby. Find the patterns so you can sew them yourself or buy them from a small business.

This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to make a purchase, I may get a commission. Thank you.One of my favorite discoveries since I began sewing is the existence of grow with me pants. They’re super cloth diaper friendly as they tend to give extra area in the bum for the bulkier cloth diapers and the bum circles are extra cute. The best part though is that the pants work for several sizes, allowing you to keep using a favorite pair of pants for quite some time. As a sewist, I like this because when I use expensive fabric, it’s nice to be able to get some wear and tear out of it… not have baby outgrow it in just one month. I have only made pants with the Maxaloones pattern so I can’t speak to some of the other patterns available, but I wanted to mention them all.

What are Grow with Me Pants?

Grow with me pants are pants that can fit for several sizes and ‘grow with’ your baby. The waist band rolls down for the smallest size and you unroll the band as baby grows. Similarly, the pant legs roll into cuffs for the smallest size and you can unroll the cuffs as baby gets taller.

It seems like a common feature on the grow with me pants is a bum circle to make the bum area larger. This allows for more room for cloth diapers or babies with a bigger back side.

These grow with me pants are made from knit fabric- if you’re not familiar with fabric, knits stretch… similar to yoga pants. It allows them some ‘give’ for when your child grows. The waistbands of these pants need to also have stretch as well as the ability to recover well.

Some fabrics, like the Doodles fabric from Joanns, don’t have good recovery (they don’t bounce back after being stretched out) so that fabric should not be used for the leg bands or waist bands- but you can use the Doodles for the main part of the pant and use a coordinating knit for the bands.

Companies with Grow with Me Pants Patterns

If you want to make your own Grow with Me Pants, there are a couple of pattern companies that make them. These are relatively easy to sew (as pants tend to be).

*Sizes for the pants are approximate as all children grow differently.

Supplies for Sewing Grow with Me Pants

If you love sewing, don’t forget to check out the Sew Organized phone app!

Can’t Sew? Buy Grow with Me Pants on Etsy.

Grow with me pants: Maxaloones using dark bands and moon of my life custom fabric from a co-op.

Pros and Cons of Grow with Me Pants

I really loved the idea of grow with me pants. LOVE them. But there’s definitely some good points and some bad points.

The benefits to using them include:

  • Being able to make a bunch of pants with custom fabrics that the baby can wear for months instead of for days.
  • They’re a great use of custom fabric (expensive fabric).
  • They are easy to make.
  • They fit over a cloth diapered bum.
  • Super cute.
  • You can make lots and lots of them because you don’t need to worry about them outgrowing them immediately. This is fun.

Things I don’t love:

  • You know how to use them, but nobody else does. I always get my kids back from other people with the waist band up to the baby’s armpit, haha.
  • The extra waistband rolled up is fairly warm for baby when they’re at the smallest size. I think these would be uncomfortable during the summer. They work well in the cooler months though.
  • The waist and leg bands sometimes come unrolled. Not my favorite thing to be fussing with.
  • They use a lot more fabric to make than a normal pair of pants in your child’s size. This is okay because you get more wear out of them, but you have to be aware so you don’t get caught with too little fabric to finish your project- like I did below with the earth day pants.

The first Maxaloones that I tried to sew. Not 100% successfully but they work.

Tips for Sewing Grow with Me Pants

  • Buy a coordinating fabric for the bands. Something plain. It’s hard to get a patterned fabric in the right direction for the bands (impossible?) and it’s a lot cheaper to use a plain fabric for the bands and use your good fabric for the body of the pants.
  • Make sure your stretch is going in the right direction- mess this up and they won’t fit. The bands need to be able to stretch left to right as baby grows.
  • Make sure to top stitch your bum circle so you won’t pop a seam.
  • Don’t cloth diaper? You can leave off the bum circle on the Maxaloones apparently. I add it anyways because it’s cute.

What do you think? Are you a fan? 

Here’s some more pictures of the Maxaloones I’ve made. Make sure to check out my tutorial on how to convert a onesie into a t-shirt… this is a great way to extend the life on your onesies so they fit, even over a cloth diaper.

Here’s a pair that I made for Christmas last year.

Maxaloones with Christmas fabric- Doodles

Make sure to check out my post about Grow with Me ROMPERS!

Love them? Spread the word about these awesome pants!

Maxaloones worn by a 9 month old in the 85% for weight and height.Handmade grow with me pants, made to grow with baby.

Grow with me pants fit for a longer period of time than regular baby pants. These two pairs were made with the Maxaloones pattern from Max & Meena
Yield: 1 Pair

Grow with Me Pants for Cloth Diapered Babies

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Active Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Estimated Cost: $10

Sew your own grow with me pants for your cloth diapered babies.

Materials

  • Knit Fabric
  • Pattern for grow with me pants
  • Coordinating fabric for waist band

Tools

  • A serger and coverstitch machine 

Instructions

  1. Start with your pattern in the appropriate size.
  2. Cut out your knit fabric using the pattern.
  3. Use your sewing machine and coverstitch to sew the knit fabric.
  4. Sew in the coordinating fabric for the waist band.
  5. Topstitch the bum circle.

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