To put my son in girl's clothes?

[Embarassed123]

I'm a SAHM to DS who is 4 months old. He was an unplanned but very wanted addition to the family. We also have an older DD who is 3.

Finances are pretty tight at the moment, as although we did eventually plan to have 2 children, we weren't expecting to quite this soon! So far, I've been dressing DS in white babygros, but it's looking like he'll need new clothes soon.

I have all of DD's clothes from when she was a baby, and I was wondering if it would be mean to put DS in them? They are perfectly good clothes (no dresses as I find them impractical on small children, but loads of flowery tops and some trousers.

WIBU to put DS in some of the least offending outfits instead of spending money I don't have buying him a whole new wardrobe? I know random strangers would assume he's a girl, but in that case I could just roll with it.
Honest answers please, I need to know if I'm being mean even considering it.....

[AlecOrAlonzo]

I have a baby boy who wears a few "girly" things. Pram suits and expensive things like that particularly. Also vests, tights, babygros. I didn't go mad for pink with my older girls anyway. Mostly though I swapped clothes with a mum who had an older boy and a baby girl. Round here we just all pass on clothes to each other.

[velourvoyageur]

Funny how many of you saying 'no girls' clothes for boys' would probably profess to be anti-transphobia.
When really you're part of the ideology making life incredibly difficult for e.g. male people who want to wear these clothes.

[OneStepSideways]

I don't see why not. You're actually being very modern and gender neutral, you can always say you're doing it for green/ethical reasons if anyone asks.

I have quite a few friends who dress their toddler sons in 'girls' clothes because they like the prints. Think Maxomorra crocus prints, pink tops, bluebell and bunny prints etc. It's become trendy to dress boys in florals and pink. As a society we're moving towards a more unisex way of dressing and I think that's a good thing. Traditional gender roles and gender stereotyping are outdated now. I cringe a bit when I see little girls in pink frilly dresses and little boys in sailor suits.

I buy mostly unisex clothes for my DD, so they can be passed down to a boy. It's shocking how many girls leggings and tops are decorated with ribbons, frills, glitter and capped sleeves etc.

[Duckies]

Even if he were old enough to care, boys like flowers. People will say 'she' but most of the time with strangers there isn't any need to correct. My DD gets 'he' about 50% of the time. Babies don't have gender.

[AsAProfessionalFekko]

As long as the clothes don't have slogans like 'daddy's little princess' or 'future WAG' on them.

[Iamnotacerealkiller]

I have deliberately bought more pink stuff for my new born son then i would have if he had been a girl. Something about putting girls in lots of pink really irks me, but on a boy i am challenging social steriotypes so all for it :) i don't like baby blue either and so dont have much of that in favour of stronger colours.

[IfyouseeRitaMoreno]

It always makes me laugh this idea that boys don’t like flowers! There’s Monty Don, Alan Titchmarsh. DS is training to be a horticulturist. His tutor is a man.

[MsHopey]

I would personally buy him a few bits from shpock, gumtree, Facebook etc.
I'm quite petty, but as an adult I'd ask why I was wearing pink and girls stuff in all the photos and think I wasn't worth as much as my sister who got new stuff for herself.
I know he's unplanned and money is tight, but you really can buy massive bundles for £5 or £10 if you look around.
I'm all for recycling, second hand and swaps. 90% of my DS wardrobe is second hand.

[kaytee87]

The baby won't care at all.
You could try and do a swap with someone though?

[Pikehau]

@Embarassed123 I just dropped off loads of boy baby clothes yesterday at the charity shop.

Ds is 10m and my 3rd and final. I’ll be doing another clear out June / July of his clothes so remember my user name and pm me around then.

More than happy to pay for them to be courriered to you. Some nice new things just for him too as all 3 D.C. born different seasons!

And no YANBU he wore both his brothers and sisters clothes and dd has plenty “boys” stuff at nursery for a spare change

Def reuse and keep your money for better uses!

Remember my offer!

X

[jaseyraex]

Go for it. I've just found out I'm having a girl and plan to reuse DS old baby clothes, lots of dinosaurs and superheros on them. Baby girl won't know the difference and she might like that stuff as she gets older anyway. Boys can like pink and rainbows and unicorns. That's the great thing about clothes, they are just clothes! They have no gender

[IfyouseeRitaMoreno]

Anyway, do it OP. The stupid clothes manufacturers love this pink / blue divide they’ve created so people go out and buy 2 lots of clothes. Be a rebel and buck the trend!

Also it’ll be interesting to see if strangers interact differently with your son if they think he’s a girl!

[SweetMoon]

Around the house my ds wore some of his older sisters babygros at that age. He didn't seem to mind!! Money was tight and they were perfectly good babygros still. Going out he'd usually wear something a bit more boyish or just white but that was me wanting him to look like a boy if anyone saw him. I probably wouldn't give a flying fig now I'm older. Makes perfect sense.

[PattiStanger]

It's not compulsory to photograph your child all day every day, how silly to say the baby will feel unwanted if he sees himself in photos wearing something originally bought as girl clothing.

The OP has said he won't be wearing dresses, very wasteful to buy new things if the rest is perfectly usable.

[JamieVardysHavingAParty]

I would and did.

I was on a strict budget when mine were tiny, and bought as much baby clothing as I could secondhand, from charity shops. The funny thing is it's much easier to find excellent condition girls' babygros than ones intended for boys, so I merrily bought the former.

I think it's because parents of girls get given more clothes by family and friends than parents of boys. Odd, but there it is.

Babyhood is a while back now, but I can't see them resenting me when they're older. I've consistently told them that colours are colours, and that gender restrictions around colours are ridiculous.

[Averyyounggrandmaofsix]

No as a general rule I wouldn't, (although maybe in doors the least girly, baby clothes are so cheap these days I can't see the need for it.

[SweetMoon]

Pikehau what a lovely offer!

[youngnomore]

I don’t think baby will care OP. I put a few of my sis in laws hand me down boys stuff for my dd.
But if it bothers you there are mega huge bundles that sell for very cheap on eBay. Look for ones that have variety of sizes in them.

[TerfsUp]

Sounds like a sensible solution to me. He won't care.

[jamoncrumpets]

To all those saying they wouldn't dress their DS in 'girls clothes' (or, as I like to call them 'clothes') - what exactly prevents you from doing so? Because I can guarantee you that a 3 month old baby gives absolutely zero fucks about the colour of their babygro or the fact that it might have a bow on it somewhere.

[Thespringsthething]

No, I wouldn't, I'd pick out the more gender neutral stuff and use that. I found that passing stuff on even between two girls wasn't that great, lots of stains etc. So I'd get a few neutral t-shirts to break up the very pink/purple stuff myself.

I have a friend who used to dress her child in the brother's hand me downs, they were dirty and stained, too small often through repeat washing and had pictures of dumper trucks on, it just wouldn't be my style to dress a second child like that- I didn't for the first and I always wanted the second to feel just as important. She wasn't poor, it wasn't about that. I see my position is illogical and of course the child grew up happy and fine although I note she does plaster herself in make-up and very girly clothes as a teen, so who knows, perhaps she didn't enjoy being mistaken for a boy all the time!

I would just want each child to feel as special as the first, and dressing them in nice neutral non-stained clothing would be what I would want for them- if you can do that through the old clothes, fine, I couldn't completely even with two the same sex.

[mancmummy1414]

mshopey you took the words out of my mouth. I wouldn’t, for the same reason. My sister used to complain about getting my hand me downs, but as an adult if I saw pictures of myself wearing boys clothes because my mum didn’t want to spend the same money on me that she spent on my sibling I would be a bit at least with hand me downs of the same genders, there’s no way of telling that the child is wearing hand me downs.

[jamoncrumpets]

What kind of adult judges their parents for putting them in hand me downs?!

[LipstickHandbagCoffee]

Babies need love,stimulation,cuddles,clean clothes,clean bum and fed
Do all above and you’ll both be fine
That’s all

[MarthasGinYard]

I wouldn't, but it will hardly do any harm.