to think it's daft that these "girl's" babygrows are a slimmer fit than "boy's" babygrows from the same shop?

[ikeaismylocal]

Ds is 19 months and just grew out of his 12-18 month babygrows, we dug out the 18-24 month babygrows we had bought. We had 2 packs of mothercare babygrows with 3 babygrows in each pack, one pack would be classed as more girly as they had pink and purple hearts on them, the other pack had tractors and stripes.

The tractor and stripes babygrows fit perfectly but the other pack are all too tight, the babygrows with hearts on are thessame length as the tractor ones but a couple of cms less wide.

Ds is on the 50th centile for height and weight so not massive, are little girls generally slimmer than boys? The little girls we know are mostly quite sturdy little things, I'm sure many of them are wider than ds.

Possibly it's just a manufacturing fail, the packets were exactly the same so I assumed the clothing inside would be the same in all but pattern.

Aibu to think there shouldn't be a difference? Has anyone else noticed this?

Presumably there must be a difference on a population level otherwise the Red Books wouldn't have different centile charts for boys and girls?

That's actually quite scary isn't it?

Most baby girls I have known have been slighter in build compared to their boy counterparts, so I imagine the manufacturers are catering for this.

I know it's the done thing in mumsnet but curious as to why you would buy pink and purple hearts for a boy. I get it if they are his sisters old ones and you are using them just to sleep in. But why buy them specially?
To answer your question boys do usually weight more than girls in average.

The clothes are made by people, not robots. Sometimes they get sewn differently.

Soon I assume it's for any number of reasons, including them being in the sale so heavily discounted, or the ds choosing for himself? Mine is a similar age and perfectly capable of choosing something like this for himself (he picked hos own wellies from a selection in a shop recently)

Don't want to jump on you all aggressively Soon but seriously? Why shouldn't a boy be suited to pinks and purples and hearts? We all have feelings and mushy emotions, why start the gender exclusion from when they're born! Any baby looks cute in purple hearts :)

It's the same everywhere. Had to boy boys trousers for chubby DD's legs as a baby!

larger / smaller I could understand maybe but "slimmer fit" sounds odd. Surely toddlers are just scaled up or down, toddler girls aren't more slender than toddler boys are they? Surely toddlers come in a range from slender to rounded whether male or female?

Dunno!

Errmahgerrd weird.

I would have thought there was little difference. My DD, and my niece's are all slightly bigger than my nephew and are all similar in age. What really irritates me is the current trend for skinny jeans for girl toddlers. My DD is 3 and I'm struggling to find any soft waisted jeans that aren't skinny so I've bought the 'boy' ones. Skinny jeans are no good for my rough and tumbly dd.

I didn't realise there was a big size difference between boys and girls, we don't have red books here, they all look pretty much the same size to me, some tiny boys and girls and some bigger boys and girls, but not lots of tiny girls and lots of huge boys.

I bought babygrows with pink and purple hearts on because I thought it was a nice pattern, we bought them just after Christmas so ds wasn't old enough to choose them himself but when opened the packs ds was very excited about them and kept saying "wow! Lovely!" I don't limit my child's clothing choice bassed on his genitals.

Why not write to mothercare and ask? It would be interesting to know if it's intentional.

I've found this with clothes as well. I laid a girls t shirt in age 4-5 on a boys t shirt age 3-4. The boys t shirt was much wider, at least 2", than the girls one even though it was a smaller size.

Its ridiculous. Looking at the way clothes are made, boys should be short and wide while girls should be long and thin.

DS had skinny jeans that were a great fit on his lean frame. One pair was grey, one purple. It wasn't until I saw the labelling at home that I realised they were intended to be for girls.

He had some girls baby grows in age 2-3. I thought neon pink was fine for a boy at night. The choice in that size is very limited. I didn't spot a size difference.

DD and DS followed almost exactly the same growth curve for height and weight as small children - I certainly haven't noticed baby girls being a different shape from boys.

But I have noticed that when looking for clothes for older children, things meant for girls are a much more fitted shape (e.g. shirts with more of a waistline, skinny jeans, shorter, slimmer-fitting t-shirts etc) presumably for fashion reasons, while boys' clothes are more baggy and comfortable if you are running around and climbing things. I ended up buying DD a lot of boys' clothes or giving her hand-me-downs from her brother for that reason. I think it's crazy if the fashionably-slim thing starts with baby clothes, it's bad enough when they are four or five years old.

Soontobesix tell me you're joking please?? That's crazy talk.

I noticed this with sleepsuits from Sainsbury's. I accidentally bought girls sleepsuits - I didn't realise giraffe print was feminine until I took it out of the packet and noticed the frill round the neck. They were too narrow for DS2.

Yes girls clothes from about 4 are definitely slim fit AKA tight compared to the corresponding boys clothes which is for fashion reasons I guess but it is a bit sad that girls = clothes that show body shape more starts so so young.

I'm genuinely shocked if it's happening with babygros.

The centile charts seem to suggest that boys are generally heavier right from birth (as in 50th centile on boys chart is heavier than 50th centile on girls) so it might be based on that but I have noticed massive differences in the sizes between shops as well so might be down to it being a different factory that makes them not necessarily down to gender. For instance I've noticed asda baby grows for both genders seem to be made for short chunky babies but m&s for long thin ones.

according to WHO, a 50th percentile 19 month old boy is 11.1 kilos and girl 10.4. So there is some difference, but I don't think this translates into a couple of extra cm.

I found this with H&M clothes in particular. My DS 4 is slim (20th centile for weight) and he fits the girls clothes much better there than the boys. When I compared the sizing, he could fit into the boys 2-4 tops but needed 4-6 in the girls because the fit was so much tighter. The boys 4-6 clothes are all far too wide and baggy for him.

Most of his female 4 yr old friends are chunkier than him and would find the 4-6 girls tops a tight fit from there.

My ds has always been very light and skinny. He wore a lot of girls trousers when he was younger as they were slimmer. I assumed it was the design/style thing rather than an actual sizing thing. He is now 3 and has chunked up a bit. We still seem to struggle with tops as he often needs the next size up for length, but then they look ridiculously wide.