Kid's Briefs (Underwear & Socks)

A brief cuts straight across the top of the thigh with no leg at all, making it the smallest piece of underwear a child owns. Sizes run 2T-3T, then 4, 6, 8, 10-12 and 14-16, and those bands overlap. The waist measurement is the only figure that separates them.

Cotton jersey at around 95 percent cotton and 5 percent elastane does most of the work. Elastane is the stretch fiber also sold as spandex. 5 percent is enough to snap a leg opening back after a squat without gripping the thigh. Waistbands are either covered elastic folded into a fabric casing or an exposed printed band. Leg openings tell you more about price than the waistband does: covered elastic there lies flat for years, while a raw overlocked edge curls after about ten washes and then rubs a line into the thigh. Some briefs carry a functional fly, a short vertical opening at the front, which saves seconds at a school urinal and does nothing at all for a child who does not use one.

Boxer Briefs run the same body with three to six inches of leg added. Training Pants take the same shape and sew an absorbent panel into the crotch. Tights cover from waist to toe and have to come off from the shoulders down. Undershirts handle the half of the body a brief never touches.

School trousers and leggings are where briefs win, since no leg means no visible line and no fabric bunching behind the knee. Hot weather favors them for the same reason. Children just out of potty training manage them fastest, because there is less to pull down and less to get caught. Skip them for a child whose thighs have started to rub together, where a longer leg stops the chafing, and skip them under a short skirt on a climbing frame.

Hold the waistband and stretch it hard: it should come back flat, with no ripple along the edge. Buy in packs of seven at minimum, because pairs disappear at school and one bad wash can take out a whole set. Wash warm as routine and hot only when a pair actually needs it, since heat above roughly 105 degrees Fahrenheit is what turns a waistband slack. Chlorine bleach yellows white cotton and destroys the elastane at the same time, so reach for oxygen bleach instead.