In the world of baby clothes, there are several brands out there that offer high end options for an occasional indulgent splurge!

Two of our favourites are Petit Bateau and JoJo Maman Bebe. We’ve been lucky enough either to have been gifted items from these brands by family or to have bought a special item of clothing ourselves as a one-off for our special little girl.

So, how do these two baby clothing brands that edge towards the more expensive side of things square up against each other?

JoJo Maman Bebe

JoJo make some lovely clothes. In particular, they do some excellent gender neutral clothes, although they do fall down somewhat on the sizing of their items.

Our baby was born weighing 6lbs 13 yet didn’t get close to their 0-3 month size for some time. They do try to explain their sizing on their website but to anyone who is expecting their first baby (probably the case if you are shopping at JoJo!), this isn’t that helpful.

Essentially, the majority of JoJo Maman Bebe clothes tend to be on the large size, so you might end up waiting a while to get your little one into the items bought.

Compared to Petit Bateau, JoJo does offer a ‘basics’ range and cheap delivery prices (often free). The clothes are well made and the overall shopping experience (in store especially) is enjoyable. This is particularly the case if you receive vouchers from anyone as you can end up purchasing a whole variety of essential items e.g. sleeping bags, scratch mittens, and even Sophie the giraffe ! We even bought a wonderful (if not rather cheesy!) Christmas outfit for our little girl.

Overall, the fact you can go to the shop to see the items before you commit and the fact that there are plenty of gender neutral clothes on sale hands JoJo a great advantage for those expectant parents who aren’t in the know about the gender of their baby.

There are a lot of great items on sale at JoJo, but the top pick for us is the newborn baby sleeping bag (we got a couple of these and found them to be invaluable for the first few months).

Petit Bateau

My big criticism of Petit Bateau is that outside London you don’t really find any of their actual stores. As an excellent luxury brand, this seems more an opportunity missed by them rather than a great loss to parents as you can still order their products online or pick items up from a range of independent shops (for example Milk & Honey in Harrogate).

In my opinion, the clothing from Petit Bateau is superior in design to JoJo Maman Bebe. The JoJo clothing and outfits are wonderful, but the elegance of the French themed clothing at Petit Bateau really does offer you the chance to indulge your desire to dress your little one in the most gorgeous of clothes.

We bought a wonderful baby pink jacket for our little girl that was practical (reversible and had decent thickness for autumn/early winter) and looked really, really cute on her.

There are downsides though. First of all, delivery charges are obscene (up to £7.99 for a standard robbery – sorry, I mean delivery!). Secondly, as you are likely to be buying online, you then have to deal with the faff of posting back any returns and making sure you don’t miss your delivery. Also, this might seem obvious but when you are buying off an internet image alone, you can find that you aren’t always getting what you previously expected.

It should also be said that costs are hefty for clothes (even for newborns) so this really is a one-off special occasion shop rather than a place to buy clothes every time your little one moves up a size! On top of this, it’s worth noting that clothes are a little on the tiny size, unlike the JoJo sizing.

My biggest negative when it comes to Petit Bateau is that they don’t really offer practical or affordable ‘other’ items for little ones. In particular, the swimming gear isn’t great.

On the plus side, the maternity gear and older children’s clothes are very stylish.

Conclusion

All in all, both brands are luxury brands that you can indulge in to spoil your little one or to buy special gifts for other people’s bundles of joy. However, JoJo does offer that little something extra to make it a tiny bit more practical for getting you kitted out before your little one arrives.