Find free second hand items for babies and young children within your local area.

Hand me downs is dedicated to help you find free second hand items for babies and young children within your local area. These items have been gratefully donated by other users of the site who simply wish to pass on the things they no longer need.

Get free second hand baby stuff.

Babies and young children grow out of things so quickly, so there’s always a steady stream of goods in excellent condition entered on the site. The term ‘hand me downs’ implies a notion of community and friendship – qualities we hope will be extended through this site.
Pass on items you no longer use.

If you are a parent with a treasure of things gathering dust, then please feel free to add something onto our map. It’s free to do so and will only take you just a few seconds to offer your item to someone else.

I try and buy decent brands for the first child. This is because I noticed that they last through 2 kids much better than cheaper brands, and I mean *much* better, especially now that they’re getting older.

I avoid those character printed t-shirts like the plague unless they’re embroidered or screen printed. That ironed on stuff just comes off in the wash and it comes off if they happen to go in the dryer by mistake. Then you get stuff happening like half of Scrat (Ice Age) hanging off the t-shirt and looking unseemly.

I buy similar colours for both of them so that the hand-me-downs work well with newer bits of wardrobe for the younger one. If you have mainly neutrals you can always pop in a few colourful accents bought new in the seasons to help pep it up a bit.

We have a problem with them growing at different rates though so one is out of season to the other one – horrible when you have a 50 euro winter coat to hand down and the little one has grown out of it by the next winter. So, if you’re going to plan for hand-me-down clothing expect some things not to work.

I don’t hand-down shoes. They’re always uncomfortable for the second child.

I keep all outgrown clothing in a box with a computer printed list on the top so that when someone needs something i can consult the list first before consulting my credit card

When I take something out I cross it off the list on top, and periodically I update the list (end of summer, end of winter) on the computer and print a new one. If I buy new stuff on sale that is a few sizes too big still I note it on the list too.

The list on top of each box specifies what the item of clothing is, the season its for and the size.

Just had to send in my opinion on your dilemma.

If you know someone who will use and love the clothes you give them I would give them as much stuff as possible. So often people are quite picky about what their kids wear, so even if you have great clothing to hand down it might sit in a closet if the person has even slightly different tastes.

Also, if your brother-in-law doesn’t need hand me downs he may not want them. (Sad to say, I know!) We have friends who are the last of the lot to have a baby and they’ve mentioned that they wish they didn’t get so many hand me downs because they feel uncomfortable not using perfectly good clothing, but that they never get to pick out anything new that they love for their son.

Good luck with everything!

I also have a nearly 3 year old son. I dealt with my initial disappointment over not having another daughter by seeking out (and managing to find) the highly unusual in terms of clothing for my son (courtesy very much of ebay designers, thank you all!). So far, I have handed down his outgrown clothing to a friend with very little money whose son is a year younger. But now my brother-in-law has married and plans to have children.

My dilemma is this – should I save my son’s beautiful clothing in case my brother and sister-in-law have a son in the near future? Or continue to give it to my friend, whose finanical need is greater, but who never goes anywhere (she is about to have baby number two -a girl) and may well end up with a very overdressed little boy.

My friend has given back the stuff that she’s used and no longer needs so far, and I’ve told her that if stuff gets written off in the course of her son using it, then so be it. But she says that she doesn’t want anything else that we might want passed back eventually, she doesn’t feel up to being organised enough to keep track of all the stuff (or having to store it – she lives 800 kilometres from me). I want her to have the use of it rather than it possibly sitting around in a box for ages – my brother-in-law may not be able to have children, or may have girls – but I guess I’d like to be able to pass it on to my brother-in-law too! Can’t have it both ways…

My husband couldn’t care less what I do – he doesn’t care for his sister-in-law particularly, and he knows that my friend’s chances of being able to ever buy nice clothes for her son are about zero. And I’ve been happy to pass stuff onto her…but as my son’s clothing has entered the hand-embroidered area of clothing, I think that I now feel a bit more ‘clingy’ about it (and no, I’m not insane in dressing him like this, a lot of it’s turned out to be very, very durable!). I guess that I want someone to have it who will really love it – but I do not know anyone who shares my obsession for little boy clothes.

So for those of you who have received, or hope to receive, hand-me-downs from family members, any suggestions?

My answer to Sarah’s dilemma above (an often-encountered one amongst my circle of friends!) is that yes, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask if your circumstances change, just phrase in the “if you don’t need it anymore?” way.

Cathi.