Boy babies are not cute

I was always being told what an intelligent little baby boy I had when I went out with very chatty and vocal little DD1. I thought she looked really cute too, with her little red curls and alert expression. She wore a lot of white and yellow. She would never be mistaken for a boy now, 20 years on. They were all right about the intelligence though.

With DS, who had long curly eyelashes, and big blue eyes, plus a very charming manner, I got many compliments on my beautiful baby girl. DS used to smile and bat his eyelashes in a very coy manner. He was also wearing the same white or yellow clothes that DD1 had grown out of.

The people making the comments tended to be old ladies, and I figured they would have very set opinions on what constituted acceptable boyish or girlish traits. Younger people could always find something more appropriate to say.

I think boys and girls have different shaped foreheads, and the eyes are somehow slightly different too.

When we're out people are almost always remarking on how cute my DS is. Of course yo get occasional days when you only meet miserable people and they don't That's what happened to you on the blue outfit day.

I make a point of always trying to compliment any babies I meet but in non-gendered terms - eg how smiley, cute, alert they are, lots of teeth etc.

My 3DSs got as many lovely comments as my 2DDs. My twin boys were constantly getting attention as babies/toddlers.

If you can't tell whether a baby is a boy or a girl, you can just avoid using pronouns almost indefinitely, though. "Oh, how gorgeous... what an alert little baby you are... how old?..." Etc. etc. etc. And sooner or later one of the parents will let a pronoun slip.

DD used to get more attention when she was awake (because of the big blue eyes, I think) whereas DS used to get more attention when he was asleep (because he was generally screaming when he was awake and people were running in the opposite direction...).

I think that most small babies look like aliens to be honest (mine certainly did!). Some baby outfits are very cute though

I admit, I do worry a bit about that, saggy - my DH was a gorgeous cutie when he was a baby (although not as lovely as my DS) but he was a dead ugly teen! He's one of those whose face changes with age though (like his Dad, another ugly teen who got good looking in his twenties/thirties). DH looked like a male version of his mum in his teens, not a look that suited him - now he's almost a carbon copy of his Dad at the same age.

My 14yo smelly, hairy, dirty oik, was the most gorgeous blue eyed, golden haired angel on the face of the planet. Everyone used to stop and call him gorgeous. I just wish he was the remotest bit 'cute' anymore! Enjoy every second they are sweet sweet babies, and dont worry about them being gorgeous enough! Who cares what anyone else thinks anyway? It was a bloody pain if you ask me, it took ages to go anywhere! No one looks twice at him now, they leg it as soon as the smell hits them!

interesting point there elvis!

I have to say, I had lots of comments about how cute DS is, so I refuse to believe they are not.

Mind you, he still gets called a little girl about 50% of the time - apparently boys aren't able to have blond hair and blue eyes - and that's despite wearing blues and browns and looking like a boy!

Oh and some babies are just fugly anyway.

Oooh...see,I don't think any babies are cute until they are a month or so old and stop looking spotty and wrinkly and squashed...I am 35 weeks pregnant, not good eh!

Ryoko,
Boy babies are gorgeous.

Although, can I let you into a sales trick my husband learned. HE was taught that if you go to an important customer's house and you can't tell if their baby is a boy or a girl, always ask if its a girl because that's more of an overall compliment than assuming its a boy (when it could be a girl IYSWIM).

BUt the fact he had to be taught that shows that in actual fact neither are cuter than the other, but its a social construct for us to believe girls are cuter.

Yep Elvis is right. Everyone knows newborn babies all look the same anyway To everyone but the parents anyway.

People are more like to notice an unusually / well dressed baby or one with unusual hair.

I think Elvis is right too, it's the outfit that gets the comments.

I think elvis is right - people tend to comment on the clothes not the baby. Also, random stangers aren't going to say that you're baby is cute everytime you leave the house.

Having said that DD had a lot more 'cute' comments than DS. It may have been something about his size though!

We have 5 children Girl, boy boy boy, girl.

DD1, DS3 and DD2 basically have the same face. DD1 used to wear blue and red, and I never put her in dresses or girly things. Nobody ever commented that she was cute, pretty or anything else.

DS3 had strawberry blond hair and people always commented at how adorable he was.

DD2 wears pinks, girly frills and pretty clothes. People always comment at how lovely, pretty, cute she is. It is the clothes they are commenting on, not DD2.

i once went out with a tiny dd in a grey sleepsuit with pink bits on and a huge pink blanket which has her name on
After a lot of cooing i got "what's he called?"
"erm...alice"
"Alex?"
"no, alice"
"funny name for a boy"

well, I'm not so sure. I had 3 ds then 1 dd. I got noticably more cooing comments over dd than I did over the boys, fo sure.

Maybe it was just that the black and white sleepsuit was more unusual and people thought it was more worth commenting on?

DD and DS both get called cute a lot. I've lost count now. I was slightly taken aback to hear DD being called a gorgeous little boy on Saturday. She does have bobbed hair and was wearing trousers but is 3 and a pink obsessive. Her response - I'm not a little boy, I'm Darth Vader .

Although alot of people did tell me Ds2 was far too beautiful to be a boy.

My 2 ds got as many comments as my dd got when she was a baby.

It's more likely that people noticed the black and white suit more than the blue because it is less usual.

DS had a grey sleepsuit that people really seems to comment on, yet he got very little attention when wearing blue. I put it down to blue not really suiting him.

That being said, when he was about 18m a woman asked me what her name was. I told her (they long version, as shortened it's a unisex name) and she said, "Oh, I though he was a girl. He's much too pretty to be a boy!"

I put that one down to being embarrassed about having got it wrong and saying somthing even dafter to explain (I do that all the time.)