Infant and baby blanks: buyer's guide

Baby pieces come into a decorating business a few different ways. Some shops run a keepsake or gift line. Others get an order for a baby shower, a birth announcement, or the "littlest fan" add-on to a team order. You might be screen printing, running DTG or DTF, or stitching a name in thread.

Whatever the job, you're choosing a bodysuit. Fiber decides which decoration methods work. Knit and weight decide how it feels. A few styles also add a detail, like a flutter sleeve or a printed fabric, and that changes which jobs they fit.

Which bodysuits are in this guide?

There are seven, and they split into 100% cotton styles and 60/40 cotton/poly blends.

• Rabbit Skins Infant Fine Jersey Bodysuit - Extended Colors (4424EX): 4.5 oz, 100% ringspun combed cotton jersey. Best for print-led keepsake lines, since all-cotton jersey takes screen print, DTG, DTF, and discharge cleanly.
• Rabbit Skins Infant Baby Rib Bodysuit (4400): 5 oz, 100% ringspun combed cotton. Best for a soft retail piece that prints cleanly by any cotton-friendly method.
• Rabbit Skins Infant Flutter Sleeve Baby Rib Bodysuit (4439): 5 oz, 100% ringspun combed cotton, flutter sleeves. Best for gift and keepsake designs that want a dressier shape.
• Rabbit Skins Infant Fleece Bodysuit (3421): 7.4 oz, 60% cotton / 40% polyester fleece. Best for embroidery, since the heavier, structured fleece holds stitches better than anything else here.
• Rabbit Skins Infant Baseball Fine Jersey Bodysuit (4430): 4.5 oz, 100% ringspun combed cotton. Best for baseball-themed fan orders printed by screen, DTG, or DTF.
• Rabbit Skins Infant Football Fine Jersey Bodysuit (4437): 4.5 oz, 60% cotton / 40% polyester. Best for football-themed fan orders with HTV, DTF, or a simple print.
• Code Five Infant Star Print Bodysuit (4329): 4.5 oz, 60% cotton / 40% polyester jersey with a star print. Best for jobs where the star pattern does most of the work and you add a small transfer or vinyl hit.

Cotton or a cotton/poly blend?

Pick by decoration method. The 100% cotton bodysuits take screen print, DTG, DTF, and discharge cleanly. With no polyester in them, there's no synthetic dye to bleed into your ink. So if your line runs on DTG or discharge, start with cotton.

The 60/40 blends work for screen print, DTG, and DTF, though DTG holds a little less fine detail than it does on pure cotton. They aren't suited to discharge, because discharge inks need all-cotton fabric to work. The blends are also 40% polyester, so the garment's own dye can bleed up into a print. On dark colors, plan your screen-print inks the way you would for any poly blend. A low-bleed ink or an under-base keeps light designs from picking up the garment color.

Can I sublimate on any of them?

Not well. None of these is a true sublimation blank. The blends are only 40% polyester, so a sublimated print comes out faded. The all-cotton styles won't take it at all.

How soft and how heavy should it be?

For a print line, most of the styles in this guide sit at 4.5 or 5 oz. Every style is ringspun and combed, either in 100% cotton or a 60/40 cotton-led blend. The all-cotton styles, jersey and rib alike, give DTG a smooth surface to print on.

Want a retail piece a shopper picks up and handles before buying? Look at the two baby rib styles, both 5 oz. In general, rib knit has a slight vertical texture and more give across the body than plain jersey.

The fleece bodysuit is the outlier at 7.4 oz. It's the heaviest of the seven, and that weight means it stretches and sags less than any of the other bodysuits. That heavier, more structured fabric holds stitches, which is why it's our pick for embroidery.

Which one for embroidery?

Use the fleece bodysuit (3421) when the job is stitched. Its 7.4 oz structured fleece supports stitches better than any other style here. The jersey and rib styles handle a small left-chest mark with proper backing. For a name across the chest or a dense design, go to the 7.4 oz fleece.

Will the colors match across a big order?

Place a large order as one run if every piece must match. Solid colors can vary a little from one dye lot to the next. On the cotton/poly blends, the two fibers also take dye differently. The Baseball bodysuit (4430) is the one most likely to shift color from one dye lot to the next. Heather colors blend fibers that can take dye differently from batch to batch. That's why mismatches tend to show up when you top up an order later.

Will they shrink?

Test before you commit. Wash and dry one sample of the style you've chosen and measure it, then lock in your size breakdown. Baby clothes get washed constantly, and a parent will notice if a size runs short after the first load. One blank spent here can save you from reprinting a whole order.

What about matching pieces for parents and siblings?

The adult side of a matching set has its own choices. For tees on an event run, see our core value t-shirts guide. For softer retail tees that pair with a keepsake bodysuit, see the premium blank t-shirts guide.

Which bodysuit for which job

• Keepsake or gift line, printed DTG, DTF, or discharge: Rabbit Skins Infant Fine Jersey Bodysuit - Extended Colors (4424EX)
• Soft retail piece with a little texture: Rabbit Skins Infant Baby Rib Bodysuit (4400)
• Dressier gift or photo-shoot design: Rabbit Skins Infant Flutter Sleeve Baby Rib Bodysuit (4439)
• Embroidered names, monograms, or stitched logos: Rabbit Skins Infant Fleece Bodysuit (3421)
• Game-day fan orders: the Baseball (4430) or Football (4437) bodysuit, matched to the sport
• Patterned piece with a small vinyl or transfer hit: Code Five Infant Star Print Bodysuit (4329)

If you stock one bodysuit for a general baby line, make it the 4424EX. It's all-cotton jersey, so screen print, DTG, DTF, and discharge all go down cleanly. There's also no polyester in it to bleed into your ink. So one blank covers every print method except sublimation. Add the 3421 fleece for stitched orders, and most baby jobs are covered.