Mumsnet Talk

DD is 9 months old, although 6 months corrected age (3 months premature) and looks only about 3 months old. She has little hair, and I'm aware that it's very difficult to tell the gender of little babies.

So... I make it easier for people - pretty much EVERY day, DD wears something pink - it may be a pink top with trousers, or a pink coat, or a pink and white striped hat. You get the idea.

Today, she was wearing a gorgeous brown check DRESS with a white long-sleeved top. She also had a turquoise and pink coat on. I had about 5 people ask me how old my SON was!!!

I am beginning to get very bored with people asking me about 'him'.

So, AIBU to think that I have given enough hints as to her gender, and the least people could do would be to work it out!

YANBU
When dd1 wAS 18 months old, I remember her being dressed toatlly in pink and her hair in bunches and 2 different people asked me how old my son was!
People are ignorant.

When my DD was a (very bald) baby, two old women came up and said,

'ooh he's lovely what's his name?'

me 'It's (insert obviously female name)'

them 'that's a funny name for a boy'

me 'she's a girl'

Them 'Ooh do you hear that Gladys He's a girl'

People are very strange.

Ignorant of gender stereotypes you mean? When dd was little I frequently dressed her in blue because it happens to be my favourite colour. Dd had the most feminine little face you could well imagine on a baby. Yet people were forever assuming that she was a boy. Does that mean that the people I met were not ignorant but totally clued-up?

It might be the hair. Last November, my then ds was 5.5 and he was mistaken for a girl in the dark, despite boy clothes, simply because at the time he had shoulder length hair (wanted to grow it long like daddy ).

So he decided he wanted it cut to look like a boy. I get so cross with all this gender stereotyping.

Then again, as a baby I was dressed in pink, and because I have an unusual name that was virtually unheard of (in Britain) when I was born, kept being mistaken for a similar sounding BOYS name.

Both my boys are/were constantly referred to as girls, until they got to 4/5 (the oldest) and had a shorter haircut for school and starting to lose the chubbiness. Ds2, 2 is still often referred to as a girl. I think it is because they both have very golden blond hair which is often a bit long and curling around their ears. I try to take it as a compliment because they are little cuties! In your case, I am sure it is just the lack of hair - I think old ladies in supermarkets (the worst offenders) maybe can't see very well and all they go on is hair length!

Not that I am trivialising how annoying it is btw, but it has happenned so much that I just laugh now!

I think you're right about the hair, fab. My ds (9) has very masculine features, talks about traditional boy subjects in traditional boy fashion, wears football shirts and is still mistaken for a girl simply because his hair is shoulder length.

I had this with DD1. I actually had the following conversation with an aquaintance who was seeing her for the first time:

"What's his name?"
"Er it's ...... (girls name)"
"oooh I thought you'd had a boy. Are you sure?"

Er - yes, I'm quite sure my daughter is a girl, thanks

I get ridiculously over-excited when I find blue dresses which look gorgeous on my blue-eyed (but pretty much bald) 8-month-old daughter.

Given that when DD1 was a similar age people always thought she was a boy I shouldn't have been surprised when an old man stopped me in Sainsbury to admire my, "lovely little boy". I replied that actually she was a girl and that I dress her in blue deliberately to cause confusion.... he certainly looked confused!

I deliberately try not to dress my dd (7mths) in pink at all. She is ginger, so doesn't suit it, and I also HATE gender stereotyping with a passion.

So I have dd wearing her brother's multi-coloured hand-me-downs, while he (2.11) walks about with a flower on his head, pretending to be Fifi. Very confusing for old ladies!

I think it is a hair thing too. My baby boy is 18 months old with very curly hair and despite being built like a rugby player, he is often mistaken for a girl.

Lady in supermarket remarking on upset DS sitting in trolley seat: I'm sure she'll get use to shopping.

Me : Yes, HE will

DD is one, the most feminine face in the world, always in dresses/skirts/pink/girly stuffd ds is 31mnths and very boyish, always in jeans and top/hoody, usually browns or blues, proper boys boots etc typical boy BUT has shoulder length hair and looks gorgeous!

I am soo fed up of people peering round into the buggy asking what ive got under there (phil and teds buggy) and i say a boy and a girl, NOT ONCE has anyone got them the right way round, despite the winter meaning they have a PINK and a BLUE buggy snuggle FFS makes me mad, and ds gets sad too!

YADNBU!

Ah, at least they only get annoying confused about the gender. Why not try being asked on a daily basis whether or not you're your child's mum and being met with incredulous looks when you say that you are?! I can almost understand why people do it (pic on profile), but it doesn't stop it majorly pissing me off being mildly annoying.

Oh, and to cap it off, I'm always told what a pretty little girl I have, despite my so-called "girl" being dressed head to toe in blue. Some people I think do it to be deliberately obtrusive.

My Ds has LOADS of dark hair that's starting to curl at the ears and really long gorgeous eyelashes so is alway's mistaken for a gorgeous little girl.

The thing that really gets me though is when people insinuate that I'm lying about his age. I get this conversation almost every time I go out with him.

THEM: Aww how old is she?

ME: HE's 10 months.

THEM: Are you sure? I would say he's more like 18 months.

ME: Yes I'm very sure.

THEM: well he's the same size as my 17/18/19 month old grandaughter/son, neice/nephew so I wouldn't have thought he was much younger than that. Oh well. If you say so.

mumofnearly 2, i have that all the time too, people insisting mine are twins, prem ds is 2, OD dd is 1 so theres not alot in size difference, just she has a teeny petite head/face he has a typical boys huge head!

When mine were babies they were ALWAYS mistaken for girls. I think it was the big brown eyes, the long eyelashes and the full head of hair. (they were both born with long black hair)

- oh and the twin thing, I used to be asked that as well! when they were in the double pushchair, we were frequently asked if they were twins. I just used to blink and say no, there's 15 months between them.

But in their case, the size difference was HUGE! so my 15mth apart boys were often girl twins. <sigh>

although, ahem, once I did dress ds1 up in a frilly pick dress and an orange headband, because <shuffles feet> I was bored and had a bag full of girls clothes my sister had given me when I found out I was pregnant but before we discovered it was a boy.

Asana, you and your DS are both just gorgeous!

<<develops little crush>>

Find it so funny when people talk about babies have masculine or feminine faces. DS is 5.5 months, and when he's dressed in 'boy' clothes I get told 'oh you can really tell he's a boy, he's got boy's features, so masculine'.

But put him in anything neutral, and I get 'what a lovely little girl!'

I had this with dd1 when little always in dresses and we had people come up to us asking how old he was, also with ds he had long ringlets and a very feminine face at a year so he was dressed in very boyish clothes blues and dark colours and I had little old ladies telling me she'd dropped this that and the other in the end I had is hair cut broke my heart.

my niece[9] and eldest[4] dressed him in dresses and bunches though thank god no-one took any photo's.

Oh Asana! He's cute cute cute! And what a gorgeous dress you're wearing!

Thanks for the replies. I'm glad it's not just me with this issue! I think I find it hard because we also get the confusion about age. I'm asked how old she/he is and say 9.5mo and people look confused and say 'Are you sure?' So then I have to go through the rigmarole of 'Yes, well, she was 3 months prem and so really should be 6.5 mo... blah-de-blah.'

One day I'd love people to use a bit of common sense! Maybe I'm asking too much.

We have the same - dd is 14 months but still has quite fine short hair. I don't put her in pink but often in red or dresses, and the key surely should be pink shoes, but people still talk about her as "the little chap" or "isn't he sweet". Telling them her name (definitely a girl's name) makes them look confused. I think a lot of people of our parents' generation upwards simply default to babies being boys for some reason, as if they never had girl babies so can't be expected to identify them. Sigh. In fact just remembering back to a chap I met at work, he said "so what is it?" (!!) and I said "she's a girl, I'd have thought the dress was a giveaway" and he stuttered and went all "well you never can tell, boys might wear dresses".

kurri at those old ladies...

Asana- You're both so gorgeous!

DS1 was mistaken for a girl until he was about 4 (he's 4.5 now)- Lovely long eyelashes and curly hair.

A friend of mine has a lovely DS with longish curly hair. They were on the beach and he was STARK NAKED- Somebody STILL asked her what her name was.

A friend of mine was asked if her twins, one boy and one girl, were identical! Some people are just very dim.

dd2 has very short hair as a result of trichilotomania (sp?)

even in everything sparklyist and pink, frilly and girly she is thought of as a boy