New parent not sure what to think about the endless pinkness.

You can like pink and hate the pinkification of girls. I hate the way babies are immediately labelled on this way. It's disturbing. That's not pink itself, it was a 'boy's' colour in Victorian times, it's the way society is using pink to denote girl.

On a practical note, I get stuff from h&m as they do fun bright colours rather than pink/blue shit

Why not just buy "boys" clothes? We found the same thing - too much pink for girls - so we bought clothes we liked without looking at the gender labels. We now have a dd who climbs trees in her trainers, star wars t-shirts and trousers and a ds who loves wearing pink rugby tops :)

I'm expecting my first baby in a few days - a boy - and am both concerned and very bored with the gender stereotyping of so many baby products. Not just clothes, but a quick potter around John Lewis will show you 'princessy' or 'trains' baby sleeping bags/baby baths/bed clothes. Our baby will be wearing handmedowns in a variety of colours (previous owners boy and girl babies), including some pink princessy things, and brightly-coloured all-purpose cute things we've bought ourselves - I couldn't care less whether the general public erroneously believes he is a girl or a boy, and he certainly won't, aged two months old!

We specifically asked our families not to buy gendered baby clothes as presents, but everything my mother has sent us is blue and covered in trains, cars, tractors or I'M A BOY! She genuinely believes men and women are more or less different species, and I think she's worried that our baby may catch some odd ideas from my interest in dismantling restrictive gender boundaries. I was sorry to have told family that he was a boy (although we sat on it for quite a lot of the pregnancy), because of the spate of unbelievably gendered comments. He would kick, and there would be a chorus of 'Oh, he's a little footballer!' or 'What a little thug!' which got immensely tiresome.

Congratulations :)

I hate the sea of pink, too. I don't hate the colour pink, I hate the message that my daughter is being sent from day 1 that there is only one way to be if you are a girl or a woman.

Girl's clothes are hardly ever about doing anything or going anywhere. No cars, no rocketships, no boats, no sports, no trains, no 'cheeky' this or 'trouble' that. Boys do things and go places. Girls are for looking at, and so girls' clothes are about decorating the ornament. That's the message.

I buy a lot of dinosaur, animal and train motifs (she's a toddler now, and these are all things she likes) from the boy section, and from the girl section on the odd occassion that they can be found there. NEXT's current collection is pretty good, lots of blue and yellow and orange and green, and cars on babygros for baby girls. There's a girls' dinosaur t-shirt too (but it's pink!).

I don't buy any pink stuff for dd at all except for the aforementioned dinosaur shirt from NEXT. It's not that because I have a problem with her having some pink or 'girly' things, but because she gets so much of that from others - every single gift she has ever gotten from friends and family has been overtly marketed for girls only, and about 90% of it pink - that the only way to have some balance at home is to provide the contrast rather than more of the same.

just log onto amazon and buy 'cinderella ate my daughter' by peggy orenstein instead.

and congrats, obv.

I know a woman who had a similar aversion and she went out of her way to buy neutral colours for her daughter?s clothing and bedding and even bought toys that weren?t typically aimed at either sex.

Six months down the line she got a bit pissed off with people asking ?How old is he?? or commenting ?Isn?t he a bonny baby?? etc. That clearly stung more than the pink issue because sure enough, on went a little headband with glittery butterflies.

Like you, I'm not entirely sure about the sea of pink but I guess I've come to accept it.
amistillsexy is right, it goes both ways. Boys get khaki and grey. I think that baby clothing manufacturers have figured out that if you can separate boys and girls clothing completely (and not offer unisex, multi coloured, hand-me-downable childrenswear) they will sell double the amount of clothing. My strategy is to only ever buy stuff that I can use for either gender. It's not because of gender-politics though, it's for economic/environmental reasons.
I never buy 'Princess' (always in pink, for girls) or 'Here comes trouble' (always aimed at boys) clothes because they are tasteless I think they encourage dreadful stereotyping.

You will be innundated by pink for many years.

Retailers have jumped well and truly onto that particular bandwaggon and are very reluctant to get off.

Boys get endless sport or army motifs that piss me off just as much as the pink.

I got all white for my babies. It made washing much easier, and they looked soooo lovely in it! They all wore white everything till they started crawling and the white turned grey!

Once the white phase is over with, independent suppliers, fair trade retailers and second hand shops are your friends!