My house is stocked full of Gerber baby products – from food, to bottles, and now even Gerber clothes! No, I don’t think Gerber clothes are perfect, but they certainly get the job done. Perfection does not exist in human made products, but I do want to give credit where credit is due. Gerber has been producing quality baby products for nearly 90 years. Sure, some of these have been more successful than others, but over the years they seem to have honestly tried to improve where they can and make the lives of mothers and fathers easier. While Gerber is probably best known for their baby food, they do offer an entire range of other baby related products, including an adorable line of clothing for newborn boys and girls. While outfits can be bought individually, they also sell them in sets, which usually follow a theme and color scheme. When I had my son Nathan nearly 3 weeks ago, my mother-in-law bought him the Gerber 19-Piece Newborn Essentials Set in blue (the set includes greens and whites, but blue is the major color). I had known that Gerber makes baby clothes as well, but didn’t have any of theirs until I received this set, so I figured I would share my thoughts with you about this specific bundle from Gerber!

Gerber Logo

Gerber Baby Boys’ 19 Piece Essentials Gift Set Overview

The Gerber 19-Piece Newborn (0-3 months) Boy Essentials set includes 5 onesies, 2 snap-front sleep ‘n play bodysuits, 5 caps, 3 bibs and 4 flannel receiving blankets. These all feature bright and cheerful green and blue solids and prints with added heat transfers, applique and embroidery details. The items are individually packaged into five separate gifts which is really nice, allowing flexibility in wrapping options, etc. You can even gift some of the set onwards if you don’t want it all. For softness and comfort on your baby’s tender skin, the apparel items and flannel blankets are made of 100-percent cotton, and the bibs are made of 80-percent cotton and 20-percent polyester. What’s fun about these sets are that you can mix and match the different pieces in the sets to create different looks.

Gerber Baby Boys’ 19 Piece Essentials Gift Set Review

Without a doubt, one of the most convenient articles in a baby’s wardrobe has to be the onesie. The term ‘onesie’, believe it or not, is a trademarked term by Gerber, but many people just commonly use it to describe any baby one-piece. Gerber’s Onesies are simple cotton t-shirt with snaps at the crotch. These leave the baby’s legs fully exposed. The great thing about onesies is their versatility. They can be worn alone during warm summer months, it can serve as part of an outfit when donned with pants/shorts, or it can also work as an undergarment or layering when temperatures start to drop. The onesies with logos look especially cute when paired with jeans and baby sneakers. I mean tiny sneakers, come on! They were created to make people smile. All of the onesies in this Gerber set have a head opening at which the front and back overlap slightly at the shoulders, which allows for more give as the shirt is pulled over your baby’s head, so  there is less chance of their noggin getting stuck or squeezed. Thinner cotton is used in these affordable multi-pack Onesies, making them great for babies that are a little messier and require multiple changes in one day – in other words, all of them.

Gerber Baby Boys’ 19 Piece Essentials Gift Set

The bodysuits are long-sleeved, long-legged pajamas with feet attached commonly worn by infants. I know for a fact that some wardrobes of babies’ born in the wintertime consist entirely of these for the first few months. As the baby gets older, the piece is usually reserved for bedtime or cooler evening weather. New parents will quickly become amazingly quick with the zipper and snaps of the onesies and bodysuits after a little practice! These easy solutions for baby’s everyday clothes are a must-have for every parent and make a great shower gift (one can never have too many Onesies!) They come in various sets, from 3 pieces all the way to 16. There are designs for boys, girls and even unisex colors like yellow and green. In general, I do really love the set, though I find that Gerber clothes seem to run 1 size small. Also, they seem perhaps best suited best for long slender babies. So if you have a larger baby you might have to go up a couple of sizes. This can be annoying, but then again, they are really affordable, so going through sizes quickly isn’t that terrible.

The five simply adorable caps have roll cuffs for the perfect fit. As with all ages, babies lose heat rapidly through their head and it is important to keep that cranium of theirs well insulated when it get cooler. With these on, they’ll look stylish and super cute. The three bibs are 2-ply for extra absorbency with soft neck closures. They are certainly large enough for little ones of that age, and they’ll clean up fine in the wash.

The four receiving blankets are 30″ x 30″ and suitable for any indoor/outdoor activities. I found them to be not as soft as the other items in the set and they weren’t quite as large as I might want, but they serve well all the same. They are essentially all-purpose little blankets that are not overly thick so that they can be easily wrapped around the baby to help maintain their body heat. Newborns actually need to preserve their caloric intake for proper weight gain and can waste calories maintaining their own fragile temperatures. They have many other uses as well, including: substituting for a changing mat in a pinch, functioning as a burp cloth, shading a sleeping baby in a car-seat, a covering for a nursing mother, providing a clean surface for the baby to lay down on, as well as other uses. However, one of the most popular uses of the basic receiving blanket is to swaddle a baby for sleep.

Gerber Onesie

Newborns have become accustomed to sleeping in a very cramped environment within you, and there are researchers that suggest that mimicking these conditions can help babies sleep better and adjust to life outside the womb. There are many hospitals instruct new parents on how to swaddle their newborns as part of the discharge process, and although it may sound somewhat like a form of torture to adults, babies actually enjoy being swaddled because it eliminates the startling reflex, increases the feeling of security, emulates the womb, and helps the baby stay asleep at the various points in the sleep cycle. Because swaddled babies sleep on their back, it also decreases the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and swaddling reduces colic by allowing the babies to self-soothe. Finally, it allows mothers to nurse their newborns more easily without having to contend with flailing infant limbs, since the new baby does not yet have motor control. Our little ones might grow quickly, and you’ll be in the market for new clothes at the 12-24 months and 24 to 36 months ranges, but this is still a heck of a gift set.

Pros

• Has bright, cheerful colors, and an overall adorable look.
• Soft and comfy cotton materiel.
• Machine wash and tumble dry for easy cleaning.
• Perfect baby shower gift.
• Comes in five separate packages so you can keep some, and re-gift the others if you want.
• Finished edges for added durability and to prevent fraying.

Cons

• The color fades a little with repeated use.
• The graphics are decals that also come off after some use.
• The apparel is sized a bit small, so keep that in mind.
• Can shrink further.
• Isn’t the highest quality cotton (though the baby obviously won’t be able to tell the difference).

Conclusion

Adorable, affordable and comfortable for the baby, this complete set makes for a perfect baby shower gift or a purchase for your own baby’s first wardrobe. You can find higher quality clothing, but you’ll be paying the equivalent price, and let’s be honest, they won’t be wearing them that long. They will be getting these clothes dirty, so you’ll enjoy having a bunch of them to swap out. They machine wash and tumble dry, so cleaning them is a cinch. Parents really appreciate the little things that make life easier with a new baby. A set like this full of really practical items, such as onesies and one-piece bodysuits which are wonderful, versatile articles of clothing, and hats and bibs that you will certainly find yourself needing, really makes things simpler.

Want more baby product reviews? Check out our VTech Sit-to-Stand Learning Walker and VTech Touch and Swipe Baby Phone Reviews, here at EduMuch!