To get annoyed with people thinking my DD is a boy?!

[JessieEssex]

My DD is 10 months old and is IMHO a gorgeous little girl. She is however always getting called 'he' by well meaning strangers. She is quite round with not much hair... I don't dress her in particularly 'girly' clothes, but they are still girls' clothes IYSWIM.
I often correct people and never get cross (why would I?) but it really winds me up, and i'm not sure why. I've always been of the mindset that all children should be treated equally and given the same opportunities regardless of their gender, so why am I now so desperate for people to say 'what a lovely little girl'?!

Aww I always tend to say what a lovely little baby...just to be on the safe side

In the same way I always ask a probably pregnant woman if she's having any more children...just incase she's not actually preggers at all

DS2 is 3.9yrs old and I have lost count of how many times in the last 6m I have been told "She has gorgeous curls" "She is a big robust girl" "ohh isn't she so pretty" My reply ? "Yes HE is"

My neighbour asked me why on earth I had dressed my dd in blue, she is a girl afterall . She was dressed in a white with pale blue dress with matching knickers, a blue cardigan and little blue padders on her feet (found them in stuff from ds'). She was laying in a pram with pink sheets and pink teddies. My mum got a bit frustrated when she was dressed in the same outfit, but minus the pink teddies in the pram and everybody that peeked in the pram said isn't HE gorgeous, I found it amusing! TBH it is difficult to tell the sex of a baby unless what they are wearing is very 'girly'.

We have the opposite; our three year old DS is often mistaken for a girl, as he looks quite "pretty" - big eyes with long eyelashes, and curly hair.

I wouldn't bother getting annoyed about it, I never do - it's not worth the effort - especially as she's still really a baby - and with lots of babies it can be hard to tell.

So much in society about gender is demarked by colour - but there is no reason why you have to stick with that; I'm all for trying to be different, rather than feeling you have to conform.

Bebe doos!!!! Now I've seen it all, I thought those awful headbands were the worst crime against taste but Euphemia, I take my hat off to you!!

Oh my poor eyes...those babies look errrrr strange, very strange

I used to get it all the time with my DD1, always in girls clothes and to me looked like a girl. People used to tell me that she was a handsome boy. She is now 10 and never mistaken for a boy! DS often gets mistaken for a girl but he does have quite long hair and long thick dark eye lashes.

Euphemia I am almost tempted to order one of those just to wind my mum up as she isn't keen on the whole headbands on babies thing, which I am not either but it would be fun to see her reaction :o

Bebe Doos! Maybe that's the answer. I agree that it's hard with a lot of babies (particularly the bald ones) to tell their gender, but as I know she's a girl, I can't imagine that she looks like anything else. The thing is, she's so confident and lovely natured and bright (again, IMHO) that I shouldn't care less, but I do...

Lol those poor baby girls!!

No you're not. My dd didn't have any hair until she was about 5. Even when dressed in pink I'd still get people asking how old he was and commenting on how lovely he was. I used to get really annoyed.

At 10 months old babies don't exactly look female or male, do they?

My DH sent some pictures of her to a friend in Australia and got a reply saying 'what a little bruiser; a real boy's boy'

I have the same problem, jessie. I tend to dress her like a tomboy (I find dresses so impractical on a toddler) but still... she is however a very pretty little girl -I reckon these are the girls who are going to be supermodels ;-)

I also had the opposite - once I got told my son (then about 9 months) was too pretty to be a boy .

My 4yo DS is obsessed with having pig tails - bebe doos for his birthday then! When people would mistake my DS as a DD when he was a baby (before I had the brainwave of putting his locks in pigtails for a giggle one day and it backfired big time) I'd simply nod and smile as I didnt want to offend anyone saying my baby was gorgeous :o
Or say yes - he's a lovely girl, isnt he?

what a little bruiser; a real boy's boy

Aside from that being a frankly ridiculous thing for anyone to say, it shows how much we project ideas onto babies who don't look like anything; they just look like babies.

If the friend doesn't know if your child is a boy or a girl they also probably odn't know how old your child is, so this "bruiser" could actually just be 3 months older than they thought.

Trillian he is a bit of a moron to be honest, and not someone who's opinion matters to me... He had been told she was a girl, but had forgotten and taken an 'educated' guess I presume.

My sons (until very recently) they are 12 and 7, were always being mistaken for girls...

While standing in line recently,an elderly gentleman asked me(after talking to them for 10 mins) "Do you have any sons"

Those bebedoos are TERRIFYING!

When DS was 5 months old, I took him out in a white babygro with pumpkins and spiders on as it was Halloween. We went in Currys, and I got stopped by an assistant who cooed over him, and asked how old "she" was - when I replied that HE was 5 months, she stared at me angrily and asked "why on earth would you dress a boy in white? That's just asking for people to make mistakes"

Well exCUSE me.

DD is heading to 3 and still hasn't got long enough hair to warrant a haircut. I avoided excessive pink when she was wee so often had the 'Oh what a lovely boy' comments while pushing her around in a red coat with flowers on. I used to put it down to their dodgy eyesight and agree .... until they asked 'his name' and they had to compute an obvious female name with the 'boy' in front of them. Quite amusing to watch.

I can understand it being annoying though - you want them to appreciate HER, not her male clone.

JessieEssex... Would you prefer it that people just didn't bother to comment about your baby at all? I think you're being a bit silly... you spend all your time with your DD and you know she's a girl. On cursory glance, to some people, she obviously looks like a boy. It's not going to harm your DD any and when she's older it will be more obvious. Why don't you put something 'pink and girlie' in the pram with her?

Either that or run in the opposite direction if you see a likely 'admirer' coming your way...

You're being completely and unabashedly unreasonable...

Some people just don't look properly. For example, when I was pushing my 19 month old with his newborn brother in a double buggy, several people said "ooh, are they twins?".

I had short hair throughout childhood, I was often mistaken for a boy.