For men, women, and children alike – comfort is the name of the game when it comes to popular pajama styles. Night clothes worn by our grandparents decades ago were pajama tops with matching bottoms and nightgowns that were so big and baggy that just turning over in bed was a minor project.

Nowadays, our daytime clothing may not too too different than our evening sleepwear and lounging or relaxing clothes. It didn’t take long for just about everyone to figure out that simple pants and shorts with elastic waists, paired with T-shirts and tops, were the perfect items to hand around in and hit the sack without changing into something new. We have our choice of materials, styles, and colors that all say the same thing: comfort.

Women have fought for years for designers to take new lifestyles into consideration when designing nightwear. They have taken “active wear” from the gym to the living room, the office, and to the bedroom. Pure necessity has turned major retailers from “lingerie stores” into stores whose clothing lines can be adapted to various activities from cooking breakfast to picking kids up from daycare.

For the most part, women have completely replaced their tiny teddies with active wear tops and bottoms. That doesn’t mean “sexy” has left the bedroom, though! Most men are just as happy to see their wives in shorts and camis. This style change can be seen in retailers as they swap sexy lingerie for cotton basics in their mall window displays.

As designers heeded the call of change from the women, they also took men’s style into consideration by designing lines of sleepwear that resembled their own active lifestyles. Some styles actually make it difficult to differentiate between the daytime outfits and the sleepwear – and that was their intention. Men were happy to adopt these new styles once they saw the flexibility and the comfort.

Although styles have changed fairly drastically over the years, fabrics are pretty much the same. We still love flannel for those cold winter nights, and cotton remains the summer staple for lighter weight pieces. Technology, however, has made these fabrics much softer over the years. Unlike cottons of yesterday that were stiff and almost too rough to wear until multiple washings took their toll and all but wore out the fabric, we now have brushed cotton that is almost like silk.

With all these style updates, children’s pajamas haven’t changed much at all. They still want to wear their favorite super heroes and sports figures, and footed jammies are still to be found all over for winter wear.