To wonder why hardly anyone keeps the gender of their baby a surprise until the birth anymore?

[Kel1234]

First of all let me say that this is not a judgemental post at all. I know that it's a personal choice, and everyone has the right to decide if they would like to find out the sex or not.
However I truly do not understand why so many people actually want to know. People asking others to guess what they are having from the scan pictures, and people even calling the 20 week scan 'a gender scan' as though the main reason for it is finding out the sex, even though it's not. Then there is the lengths people will go to reveal it as well - these 'gender reveal parties'.
I know some of the reasons are: people don't want to wait 9 months when they don't have to, they want to decorate the nursery (my lo doesn't have a nursery because we don't want him in his own room yet), they want to know if things they have from previous children can be used for the new baby. Also because they want to get everything ready, and want to buy gender specific things before the birth.
I think it's just as easy to get neutral things before the birth, and then simply keep the money aside and then get everything else after the baby is born. (Obviously I know that not everyone will be able to do that though). But that's what I did, got neutral clothes and crib bedding, and the pram and car seat were neutral (I preferred that), then I kept the money separate and went and got the rest of the stuff afterwards.
If you want a gender specific nursery it may be more difficult to wait though.
Having a preference for a specific sex could be another reason, but even so what can you do about it? I had a very strong preference for a girl, but had a boy.
I know another reason is baby showers (personally i hate them, I never had one and would never dream of having one), but for those who do want one you can have neutral ones.
As I said I'm not one to judge anyone, but I am genuinely wondering why people are so keen to find out before instead of waiting until the birth. Surely it's much more special to be told "it's a girl/ boy" at the birth and then have your baby placed in your arms or on your chest. Rather than be told "it's a girl/ boy" during the scan and then be given a picture to go home with.
I simply couldn't imagine not waiting. I had no desire to know at all, I never considered it, even for a split second. And I was so glad I waited. Why do so many people spoil one of life's greatest surprises?

This is number 4 and the first time I've said I want a surprise. Two separate sonographers after being asked to keep it a secret have slipped up and told us. The first time I thought maybe I heard wrong but nope.

NRTFT, just first page and think you've had a hard time OP. I agree with you, it's nicer to know when baby comes out IMO I've never had any desire to know with mine.

I think that the whole "we want to know so we can buy a million pink things" attitude can actually be damaging in terms of gender stereotyping. People kit out nurseries and clothing in "gender specific" colours when it's still a foetus, and we wonder why a few years later there's ony pink things and toys in the girls aisle and blue/macho stuff in the boys aisles. People even believe their boys is trans if he wants to wear pink or have nail varnish. If we didn't have all the gender specific shite from so early on it would be interesting to see how children's attitudes towards these things changed

Have to say i agree with OP. I didnt find out with any of mine mainly because i had had 9 miscarriages and basically didnt want to know what i had lost. My way of dealing i suppose, each to their own.

It is magical though. My birth plan requested my husband find out after delivery and tell me the sex, that way he had a first experience with the baby. I also let him have first cuddle too.

I can see why people do it but everyone who asked me if i knew what i was having was genuinely pleased when i said i wanted a surprise x

I can't see the advantage of not finding out before the birth and presumably many other people feel the same. I say that as someone who didn't know the gender of my children before birth (they couldn't tell on the scans).
What makes you think that people ever "chose" not to know the gender so it was a surprise. It's more likely they just didn't get the chance to find out. Being able to know the gender with any certainty before birth is relatively recent.

I wasn't going to find out, but as a new mum I have enough unknowns in this that I wanted to control what I could, so i found out I was having a boy and I could then pick a name and pick out some cute outfits ...

I haven't the time to read the whole thread, but I found out both times and haven't regretted it. It helped me to bound and plan.

What I find a bit odd is some people naming the baby and telling everyone before the birth. It might not look like the name and then the parents might feel pushed into keeping the name as personalised stuff has been bought and also there is no mystery.

Bond

I didn't find out with either of mine, loved the waiting, the guessing, the anticipation! Loved the excitement of going through labour not knowing what we were having!

I waited with DS1 and found out with DS2. We wanted to know so we could prep a nursery and budget for possible new clothes etc if it was a girl. But our main reason was to help DS1 bond with the baby. He named the bump a boys name, picked a few new baby boy outfits, new teddy he thought a boy would like etc.

It's each to their own.

Plus gender neutral clothing is DULL! White, cream or beige...

YABU no way is better its just different. I found out I was having a second DD which I had already guessed anyway and it was lovely to refer to her as ' she' instead of 'it'. We could plan names and imagine a gorgeous new DD. Most importantly my older DD desperately wanted a sister and it was lovely to tell her so she could get excited about her new sister. She would talk to my tummy and I think it helped her bond. That said it would have been fine if we had waited.

I have no DCs and don't plan on having any but I definitely know I would want to know the gender/sex so I could imagine him/her growing in the womb more accurately. I would say also that I could start to get to know his/her personality but I wouldn't want to be accused of gender-stereotyping a foetus.

This thread (and a couple of others today) remind me that where motherhood is concerned, there is no right way. There are bloody millions of wrong ones though, and for everything you do there will be someone who thinks you are an unfit mother. So little of this shit actually matters.

I thought it more fun to wait. A work colleague had had two kids and both times had announced they were girls and what they'd planned to call them so when born there was only the weight to announce.

My ex was desperate to know. I actually saw something on the screen the first time so had a good guess but kept it quiet and didn't ask the sonographer for confirmation. I don't know why I just thought it more fun not knowing - I suppose the anticipation. Of course everyone should do what suits them but I tend to agree with the OP.

I waited with both DSs. In fact on both occasions nobody told me what arc the baby was, I found out when the boys were put on my chest. It was a wonderful experience. Would it have been less so if I'd already known they were boys? Most probably not, but saying oh look DP it's a boy/another boy was a lovely part of our having a baby story :)

Ffs. Sex. How did it autocorrect to arc? Bloody phone!!

We waited both times. Didn't want to know. It's the only real surprise in the world.

I'm 32+4 with my third baby. We found out with our other two children because I wanted to. I promised my husband after we had our second that of we had anymore we would not find out as he hadn't wanted to know with the others. I've kept my promise, eben though he said if I really wanted to know I could, just felt it was fair so didn't find out. I'm glad in a lot of ways, looking forward to the moment I find out being at the birth. Would I have surprise again though. Nope. Ive got a neutral travel system, would have had the same one either way (cosatto firebird, its awesome) , neutral cot etc. Basically all the big things are neutral. The clothes thing is annoying the life out of me though. I've bought unisex sleep suits and vests, enough for when I first have the baby. Also got a couple of hats, a.snow/pram suit and a few other little bits like mittens. With my other two children I had their wardrobes full, babies is empty. Some mumsnetters don't like it but I have mine in outfits/'proper' clothes from day 1 if out and about. They wear sleep suits at home and for bed but an outfit if I'm out, which is often. The outfits are always comfortable and its just my preference. I've not been able to buy one because I don't like the unisex ones at all. Ive got some money aside to go shopping after the birth but yeah, would have been easier to have it done!

I also hate that sometimes baby is called it because we can't say he or she.

Ummmm saying that you're not being judgemental, doesn't make it true. An extremely goady and judgey post. Get a life. Does it make you a better person for not finding out.... um actually, no. Of all the things to be concerned about. And you chose this. A personal choice that affects no one else but the parents of the unborn baby. Wow. Get over yourself OP.

I didn't find out with my first. I was so out of it after labour that I don't even remember who it was that told me he was a boy. So no, it wasn't a particularly special moment for me.
This time I found out at my scan, with my husband right next to me in a calm and happy manner. We were also able to tell our eldest whether he's having a brother or sister, which I think is going to help him get used to the idea of having a sibling.
Everyone has their reasons, I don't think there is a right or wrong thing to do in this situation.

There's nothing particularly special about finding out at the point of birth rather than earlier. The only reason people used to find out at birth was because the information wasn't available before.

Completely agree with this. Plus - one of life's other great surprises, before the age of routine scans, was finding out that your baby was healthy. There are all sorts of things you find out before birth now thanks to huge advances in technology. To my mind, it's totally arbitrary to refuse one particular piece of information; given your sonographer will know the sex of your baby, why would you not want to know that too? I'm not very sentimental generally, so the whole "magical surprise" thing falls very flat with me. It's one of two outcomes of a broadly equal probability. Neither outcome would be surprising.

Totally agree with the "we know but we aren't telling anyone" comments. One colleague said that to me so smugly that I was very tempted to say "I was just feigning polite interest for the purposes of small talk. In reality, my level of interest in sex of your unborn child is absolutely minimal". But I'd have looked like an arse, so I didn't.....

See, I didn't want to know. But I am fully aware that I an unusual and into delayed gratification. I can understand why people would want to know, but if I had been told I was carrying a boy i may have thought it was a bit of an anticlimax as I wanted a girl. When he was born though all that went out the window and I fell in love.

Because I felt I was struggling to bond with this stranger in my belly, and finding out made all the difference. It's the same second time round - I will be finding out this week hopefully.

In hindsight I am still 100% happy with my choice - labour was traumatic for me personally and a couldn't have given a flying fuck about having this Hollywood 'surprise!' moment at the time; I was in too much shock and not myself. It was much nicer to have this lovely celebration between DH and myself after our second scan and give the revelation it's own moment.

I suppose we are all different, and do things differently. Not sure it's hard to understand really?

When I had ds it was relatively unusual to know the sex, but one of the mums in our antenatal group had had a high risk pregnancy and so had had early scans. I found it really weird when her and her husband referred to their baby by name. Our baby was really just a bundle of potential at that point, we had no idea what sort of person he was going to be, naming him before we met him just seemed very strange.

To me that's the issue with finding out the sex before everything else, it makes it much more important than it should be. Apart from affecting the range of names to be chosen from what real difference does it make to know whether you are having a boy or a girl (setting aside things like genetic anomalies)? We bought or inherited a bundle of baby clothes and other stuff, in a range of colours and patterns. They weren't girl/boy specific because babies are all pretty much the same shape, but they weren't all white, cream or yellow either. We had spots and stripes, stars and flowers and other stuff that appealed to us. After that we bought clothes in colours and styles that suited their colouring, and not particularly coding for sex. It just seems to me that all the early finding out has done is to exaggerate gender identification for no ones benefit except marketers.