Patagonia Baby – Patagonia Quilted Puff Jacket and Patagonia Baby Synchilla Cardigan

Drew Thayer

Patagonia Baby clothes – the Patagonia Quilted Puff Jacket and Patagonia Baby Synchilla Cardigan are two of Baxter Thayer’s favorites.

You just can’t deny how stinking cute babies are in miniature versions of grown-up clothing. Babies in jeans… babies in little boots… babies in suspenders! That one kills me every time. Not surprisingly Patagonia makes some darn cute jackets for kiddos, and the sizes go all the way down to babies which can be hard to find.

As expected the price tags are high, but so far their clothing seems very durable, like I fully expect to pass these jackets to our next child, so that’s some pretty solid value if your family is going for more than 1. These garments also hold up well enough that they make excellent hand-me-downs and gifts in their used state, which is a statement I know the company would endorse seeing as how they are pushing their “worn wear” program – encouraging people to re-use things that have already been made! https://wornwear.patagonia.com/ If only that ethic could expand across our economy… I digress. 

Patagonia makes shirts and pants and all that, but I’ll focus on jackets here. My son (16 months old currently) tends to turn any shirt he’s wearing into a soggy, smudged mess by 11 AM so I tend to buy shirts by the value-pack at Target. However it’s starting to get cold here in Colorado, and having some high-quality jackets really supports our project of having him outside as much as is practical. So when it comes to kids clothing I tend to put my money into shoes and jackets and let cheap stuff and hand-me-downs fill in the rest. 

Patagonia Baby Synchilla Cardigan – $69

https://www.patagonia.com/product/baby-synchilla-fleece-cardigan/60093.html

I think Baxter wore this every day in October? Whether on the way to school or asleep in the backpack carrier on some hike, this colorful fleece seemed to be wrapped around him all the time. It’s a simple design: a straight-up zippered fleece with stretchy cuffs and a hood. The hood is nice because he tends to take his hat off, but we can keep his ears from freezing with the hood. I’m definitely a fan of the full-zip jacket for babies and toddlers – less wrestling to get it on and off. 

This jacket just seems really durable. It hasn’t gotten pilly like cheap fleece. It’s thick enough that when he spills water, milk, etc on himself we can get away with wiping it off with a splash of water and it doesn’t soak through. I’ve found it’s easy enough to clean this “on the fly” with sponges, wash-clothes, etc that I can usually make it through the week before laundering again, which has become a pretty big deal for us, especially for jackets. You don’t want to need two of everything and you also don’t want to need to do laundry every day. Durable clothes are a winner for us. 

This fleece comes in some bold solid colors and some pretty cool patterns. Sizes range from 3M to 5T, which covers a lot of years of life! My son is kinda tall for his age and fit the 2T at about 14 months in a kind of baggy, snowboard-bro fit. He’s fitting it nicely at 16 months now. 

Patagonia Quilted Puff Jacket – $89

https://www.patagonia.com/product/baby-quilted-puff-jacket/61330.html?dwvar_61330_color=NENA

Now it’s November and 34 degrees when I bike Baxter to daycare. This quilted puffy jacket is awesome. The material choices work well for toddler life: the inside is super fuzzy while the outside is slick nylon that wipes off very easily (yogurt, peanut butter, snot, all of it). It’s filled with 100 gram Thermolite polyester insulation so it’s pretty warm. Patagonia is making a solid effort these days of using recycled plastic in their materials (this has 70% in the shell, 92% in the fill) which is a step in the right direction that I hope more manufacturing will follow. 

The best thing about this jacket is that it’s really built to bundle up your kid and wrap them in warmth. The off-set front zipper has a very generous (several inches wide) storm flap on the inside; this overlap means no cold wind gets through the zipper at all. You can also close the zipper quite high up the neck without worrying about pinching tender throat skin (quite a hazard with a toddler thrashing their head) because all that fuzzy velour inner liner acts as a nice barrier between zippers and child. When I wrap and zip Baxter up into this thing I know he’s going to be very cozy. 

This is also available from sizes 3M to 5T, although in my opinion, it has much more utility on toddlers and older children who are moving independently.