Why Your Child Pulls at Their Puja Outfit (And How to Stop It)

Go and look at last year's Ashtami photographs.

The child is tugging at their collar in every single one.

It is not the child. It is the outfit. And it is almost always the same three things — all of which you can spot before you pay.

The short version

• Sheer fabric on bare skin itches within ten minutes.
• Zari and stones at the neck and cuffs sit exactly where a child moves.
• A fixed waist and a full plate of khichuri do not get along.

Why does festive wear itch?

Net and organza. Gorgeous in a photograph, unbearable by the second pandal.

Anything sheer needs a soft cotton lining — not a synthetic one, which is just a second itchy layer with better manners. Check the inside of the garment before you buy it. Ten seconds, and it decides the whole day.

Where should the embroidery sit?

On the skirt and the yoke. Never at the neck or the cuffs.

Those are the two places the garment rubs a child all day long. A gorgeous zari neckline is the reason your daughter is in tears by lunch.

The feature nobody checks

The waist.

Children eat continuously for six days. An elasticated or drawstring waist is the single most useful thing in a kids' festive outfit, and almost nobody thinks to look. A fixed waistband that fit in the shop will not fit after khichuri.

How many outfits do you actually need?

Four. Not six.

Two proper ones and two comfortable ones. Children get photographed on Ashtami and Dashami — everybody knows it, nobody admits it. The other four days can be a cotton kurti and nobody will notice or care.

• Ashtami: the real one. A kids lehenga or a kids gown.
• The walking days: kurti suits and palazzos. They survive a pandal, a plate and a nap in the car.

Everything is in kids ethnic wear and kidswear.

Two things parents learn the hard way

Buy a size up. You are shopping in September for a mid-October festival. Six weeks is a long time in a growing child.

Old shoes, not new ones. New shoes plus eight kilometres of pandal-hopping is the most reliable way to end a Puja evening at nine o'clock, carrying a crying child and a pair of sandals.

The rest of the family's plan is in the six-day outfit guide.