Hooded Towel Rant

My Prejudice Against Animals For Drying Off

• What: Cutesy hooded towels for Infants
• Why: Never the right size
• Where: Amazon

Almost everyone I know with kids owns several infant hooded towels. They seem to come as part of the baby package par for the course. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, a traditional hooded towel has a triangle sewn into one corner of a square or rectangle towel, with the intention of the triangle acting as a small hood for baby’s head.

While I get the idea – let’s keep heat from escaping through the head when baby is naked after a bath – I can’t stand the actual product. I don’t see the point, beyond cuteness of course. Isn’t your baby cute enough without disguising them as a cuddly animal? If you want to keep a baby warmer, wrap a full size towel around them several times.

Now most stores offer a zillion variations on the hooded towel theme and you can get them in almost any animal and some popular characters. But I’ve always found the hood too big for most infants, so it never stays put, and falls off entirely or over their eyes. For toddlers, it works better, but they still step on the edge of the towel and trip.

Then again, I don’t see much of a point in baby towels either. The tiny size never lasts long because it isn’t big enough to dry off even a modest size toddler. I’d buy a regular towel over an infant towel any day. My six year old is still using his super luxurious towel that I bought for him before he was born (see below for my favorite made from bamboo). The few hooded towels I inherited didn’t last half as long.

Have I mentioned folding a hooded towel? It will never look like that yellow duck one again. I’m convinced they cut the rest of the towel off to get a decent image for sales. You can KonMari Method that thing all you want, but towels with tails and hoods defy not only folding but storing well in the linen closet. None of the animal towels I had, however briefly, played well with the rest of my towels when not in use.

I freely admit I’ve bought one in the past six years. If you can’t picture having a baby that’s not wrapped up and hooded, I will be the first in line to buy you  your preferred hooded towel from your registry at Amazon, Target, Pottery Barn Kids, or wherever else you covet baby things. But for me? I’d rather have a useful towel any bath day of the week.