The suit is more along the 18mon size than 12 mons; my son is just fitting into 12 mon outfits and he was able to wear the costume but was a little long in the limbs.  The costume did shed, the first time I tried it on him I had on a black fleece and I was covered in blue fur.  The top of the hood is heavy so it does fall forward or to the side a bit as he sat.  The costume says it's dry clean only, but we had an accident and had to wash it in a pinch and it turned out just fine.  I let it air dry and then ran it through dryer to fluff with no heat and I thought it came out great, maybe even better because it shed less after the washing! We've washed it twice and it's looks as good as it did on day 1.