German kids are like little onions. And I mean that in the best way possible.

I love seeing pictures of my American friends' kids on Facebook, especially the infants. They look so happy, wiggling around in their onesies, kicking fat bare legs. My Rebecca was never so lucky, because she was a baby in Germany, and she was dressed accordingly. "Dressed accordingly" meant wearing a diaper, cotton tights, lined pants, socks over the tights, tee over the onesie, sweatshirt on top, accessorized with a smart little three-cornered scarf on top of it all.

In warmer spring and fall weather, unlined pants were acceptable, and the top sweatshirt could be foregone, but the rest of the layers were mandatory. Rebecca was often barefoot at home, and I could feel German guests looking at her little piggies, not quite understanding why they were right there, squirming around instead of inside tights, where they belonged. You are never fully dressed without a pair of tights.

For the record, the little boys wear tights, too. (I thought putting tights on boys was completely practical in the winter and something we Americans could definitely learn from the Germans.) Oddly, at home when it's warm, instead of getting crazy and not wearing tights, the tights are actually worn in lieu of pants. 


And then there are the snowsuits. The SNOWSUITS. The name itself implies the existence of snow, right? Well, no. Not here. Kids will be in snowsuits as soon as it gets chilly. Fair enough, they are being pushed around in strollers, and you do get cold when you aren't moving around. But putting a child in a snowsuit when the weather dips below 50 degrees just seems excessive to me, somehow. You will see sweaty kids throwing fits inside, probably due to the seven layers of clothes they are wearing while swaddled in a bunting in a stroller and sitting in a warm store.

If your child goes to a German preschool, be prepared to be told you aren't dressing him or her thickly enough. To me, this was a clear "pick your battles" situation, so I threw another layer on Rebecca (in our case socks over the tights, within her house shoes) and called it a day. An extra layer goes a long way around here.

Once I learned to dress my daughter correctly indoors, I was ready to take her out. I will never forget the day she was finally able to sit up and run her fingers through the sand, and we headed down to the Hofgarten in Düsseldorf. I plucked her out of her stroller and sat her in the sand. And that's when I noticed it: the German kids had special attire for this. I can best describe these outdoor playpants as thick lined overalls made of plastic tarp material. They are pulled on over kids' clothing to keep it clean and dry while kids play outside. Sometimes there is a matching jacket. It's entirely practical, and it was completely foreign to me.

If your child attends Kindergarten here, you will probably be asked to provide a set of these pants & jacket sets to be left at the school. However, my daughter's school didn't force the kids to wear them, so ours always just hung there unused, year for year, to be donated at the end of the year without ever having been worn. Rebecca also had a pair of rain/sand boots for the school playground. Optionally, you can bring a snowsuit in the winter, provided your child will be willing to wear it. (I assume younger kids are forced right into them, while the older kids have to put them on on their own – or not, in Rebecca's case)

If you are looking to buy them, they are called Matschhosen or Buddelhosen. The discounters usually have them before school starts, and you should try ones that are thicker, almost rubberish, rather than the thinner ones made of "windbreaker" material (unless that is your thing, in which case, knock yourself out.) Most of them have reflective strips, for whatever reason. I've also seen most kids wear those stirrup straps outside the boots, while I put Rebecca's over her feet because I couldn't figure that out.

FYI, this is one of those items that will have the moms lined up in front of Aldi or Lidl at 8:00 a.m. the day they go on sale, so you need to be quick. Otherwise, they are seasonal products at stores which carry products for kids. Also, because everyone else's mom also queued at Aldi to get them, make sure to label them with your kid's name,

When buying playground boots, look for the ones that have a lining with a drawstring at the top. These can be closed up so they don't fill up with sand. I think they are far more practical than the ones without the lining.

And now, just imagine that German moms are probably ironing all of these layers of kids' clothing. Wow.

(Images shown are Lidl Matschhosen and Tchibo boots, both now out of stock)