For decades, baby care in India has sat apart from the usual rules of consumer behaviour. When it comes to children, price sensitivity weakens, experimentation slows, and trust becomes non-negotiable. What is changing now is not that instinct, but its economic expression. A growing body of industry evidence suggests that premiumisation in kids care is no longer confined to products such as diapers, lotions or food. It is expanding decisively into education, nutrition, clothing, wellness, content and even lifestyle choices, reshaping how Indian families allocate income across categories.
The question for brands, investors and agencies is no longer whether parents will spend more on their children. That behaviour has always existed. The more important question is whether kids care has become the emotional and economic anchor of India’s next premium wave, quietly setting the stage for adjacent categories to scale alongside it.
From protected spend to portfolio behaviour
What distinguishes kids' care from other consumption categories is not just emotion but intent. Parents do not see spending here as discretionary. It is framed as responsibility, prevention and long-term investment. That mindset is now translating into structurally higher spends across a child’s ecosystem.
Amarpreet Singh Anand, Founder and CEO of Good Monk, sees this shift playing out most clearly in nutrition. He points out that parents are consciously trading up for their children even as they delay upgrades for themselves. The premium, he explains, “is no longer about price but about value at that price. Clean formulations, transparent sourcing, macro and micro nutrient balance, and convenience that fits into everyday life are what parents are paying for. Nutrition, in this context, is no longer viewed as a supplement but as an investment in a child’s health, forcing brands to raise their own benchmarks.”
That intent shows up in behaviour. At Good Monk, repeat purchases have grown by 30% over the last 12 months, a signal that parents are not merely trialling premium products but building habits around them. Anand notes that once a brand earns trust in one aspect of child care, parents are far more open to investing in adjacent categories. The caveat is that these purchases are deliberate, researched and expectation heavy. Spending is slow to start but sticky once confidence is built.
A similar pattern is visible in kids fashion, where durability, safety and fabric quality are driving premium adoption. Swapnil Srivastav, Co-founder and CEO of Kidbea, a sustainable children’s fashion brand, says families today do not hesitate to spend more on their children if they see tangible differences in quality and longevity. “At Kidbea, around 55% of current growth now comes from higher priced premium products, up from roughly 30% a few years ago. The strongest signal,” he says, is repeat buying. “Once parents experience the value, they rarely trade down,” Srivastav points.
What is important here is that premiumisation is no longer episodic or confined to gifting moments. It is becoming embedded in everyday decisions, from clothing and food to sleep routines and daily essentials. Kids care is increasingly behaving less like a category and more like a consumption portfolio.
The expansion of wallet share
As trust compounds, wallet share follows. Brands across nutrition, clothing and wellness are seeing parents move laterally across categories once a relationship is established. This is where kids’ care begins to look like an anchor rather than a silo.
Srivastav describes baby care as the starting point of a much longer journey. “Once a brand becomes part of a child’s early years, it naturally extends into other needs tied to comfort, wellbeing and daily use. These are not opportunistic extensions but long-term growth areas built on continuity.”
Anand echoes this view from a nutrition lens. He argues, “when parents invest emotionally and financially in a child’s health, conversations across categories become inevitable. The challenge for brands is to ensure that new offerings integrate seamlessly into daily routines rather than feeling like additional effort.” Convenience, he notes, is becoming as critical as credibility.
This lateral expansion is not limited to metros. Demand from non-metro cities is rising sharply, driven by awareness, aspiration and access. Both Good Monk and Kidbea emphasise that premium positioning does not need dilution to scale beyond urban India. Indian consumers, Anand points out, are value conscious rather than merely price sensitive. Ingredient transparency, sourcing and safety cues travel just as well across Tier II and Tier III markets when communication is clear and educative.
How communication is catching up
If consumption behaviour is evolving, communication is racing to keep pace. Sunitha Natarajan, Director of Digital Strategy at Social Panga, observes that the emotional language of kids care has shifted from sentimental reassurance to informed reassurance. “Five years ago, the category rode heavily on natural and herbal cues amplified by the ecommerce boom. Today’s millennial and Gen Z parents demand transparency, research backed claims and specificity around their child’s needs,” she shared.
Credibility, she notes, has decentralised. “Online reviews, parent communities and creators now play a critical role in shaping trust, forcing brands to sound more real and evidence-led. Visually too, parenting is portrayed differently, with more equal parenting cues and everyday realism replacing idealised tropes,” Natrajan highlights.
This has profound implications for marketing strategy. Natarajan argues that performance marketing in kids care cannot mirror discount led D2C playbooks. Conversion here is driven by fear of making the wrong choice, trust in the source and confidence in long term outcomes. She further explains, “the category has moved from buy now to believe first, with creator led education, proof cues and routine based product clustering reducing anxiety before purchase.”
A category that resists shortcuts
Founding partners Sameer Joshi and Anindya Ghosh of Sam & Andy caution against over attributing this shift to generational change. According to them, “the emotional core of child care has always been premium. Parents have historically prioritised their children disproportionately, even when incomes were lower and choices fewer. What has changed is visibility and articulation.”
They share, “premiumisation in kids care is not a new economic behaviour but a semiotic one. Old instincts are now expressed through cleaner packaging, medical validation and science backed reassurance. Performance marketing, therefore, must be relational rather than transactional.” “Trust,” they argue, “is the real funnel.” Every touchpoint either compounds or erodes it.
They also challenge agencies to rethink measurement. In kids care, the most meaningful metric is not short-term return on ad spend but anxiety reduction. Brands that simplify decisions and provide continuity of reassurance win over time through repeat purchase and advocacy.
Why kids care may anchor the next premium wave
Taken together, these signals point to kids' care emerging as the emotional and economic anchor of India’s next premium phase. Not because parents have become more aspirational, but because the architecture around their instincts has expanded. Choice has multiplied, access has widened, and discovery has accelerated. As a result, spending that was once fragmented or invisible is now structured, tracked and scaled.
For businesses, this creates a powerful flywheel. Trust earned early in a child’s life unlocks relevance across years and categories. For adjacent sectors such as education, sports, mental wellness and content, kids care brands are setting the tone for how premium value is defined, communicated and justified.
The implication is clear. India’s next premium wave will not be led by indulgence or status signalling. It will be led by responsibility, prevention and long term thinking. Kids care sits at the centre of that shift, not loudly, but decisively. For brands that understand this, the opportunity is not just to sell better products, but to become part of a family’s evolving life system. That is a far more durable position than any seasonal spike can offer.