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.....

My kids are Boy, Girl Boy.

Boy started gender neutral as we didn't know what we were having and I bought loads of white/neutral stuff from charity shops. Except some vests which I thought were plain and actually had little pictures on with such aspirational slogans as "when I grow up I want to be a hair dresser". Then people inevitably bought us "boy" stuff.

So the girl ended up in the hand me downs and people bought us "girl" stuff.

So the next boy wore whatever was least stained and worn no matter what colour or pattern!

Actually the kids are now 11, 9 and 6 and stuff still gets passed down regardless of sex. I buy big ticket stuff like winter coats, walking boots etc in plain, practical colours so they can all wear them as they grow into them. So far as I am aware I have not fucked them up too much by this approach. Actually the girl now prefers a lot of boys clothes as it tends to be more practical and she heads to the boys section for practical school shoes, shorts that don't show her bum cheeks and so on.

I dressed my baby son in my daughter's hand me downs. He's 31 now. He's fine! It's far better to save your money and recycle.

Looks like you're going to have to rob a bank, become a professional gambler or sell your granny just to make sure your baby isn't traumatised by wearing a COLOUR or a PATTERN. Bloody hell - some people.

If you had slight misgivings about being judged before, Christ only knows how you must be feeling now!

Unless he's in a bra, he'll just be wearing 'baby clothes'.

Shouldn't we rather be exposing kids to those sorts of controlled, uncomfortable situations which will toughen them up – never in an unkind way, but just with the aim of making it so that if they do appear ridiculous from time to time (which is inevitable unless they lead such small lives that they can actually control everything) they remain confident of having their core of self esteem untouched – stumbling (being made fun of, being shown up as fallible) doesn't have to break them. I think that’s what enables resilience. It’s not a steady stock of positive experiences and affirmation day-to-day that should make up self-confidence, it shouldn’t need constant input to avoid crumpling, but rather should be independent in order to be solid and reliable.

I always feel as if I live in a different world when I see these threads. Of course you dress your baby on the clothes you already have. Your baby won't mind.buying new for a tiny infant when you already have stuff is profligate and unethical.

My son has all of my daughters white babygrows. I wouldn’t be comfortable putting him in a dress but things like t-shirts or shorts I’m ok with. My daughters things got more flowery as she got older so we don’t have many things from her now.

My DS has been wearing DD hand me downs. Yes there were some pink flowery babygrows, but as he is 2 months old, he doesn't care what he is wearing.

The only thing he has currently had new are some rompers as he is already too large for his sister's old ones.

When he is old enough to express an opinion, he can help choose what he wears.

I did despite being able to afford new clothes. It's more environmentally friendly to recycl .

A lot of her clothes were pretty innocuous as I dislike frills, flounces, flowers etc. I'm also not a huge fan of pink.

His favourite pjs when he was 3 were a hand me down from her. They were definitely girlie but he loved them, much to the disgust of one of my in-laws who visited one morning before he was dressed, so a win win 😏

I did, but then none of our baby clothes were frilly or flowery, all pretty plain but brightly coloured. I wouldn't put frills or flowers on any baby personally, just personal choice! Do whatever you are happy with.

I have a little boy and have some clothing would happily send to you. While I don't see a problem putting littleones in any clothes that you have feel a little off putting them in florals or anything overly femanine

I would; especially at that age where they grow so quickly that spending money you haven’t got on clothes your baby will outgrow in three months seems a bit silly. It will certainly make no difference to your son.

If you go into council estates/more disadvantaged areas, most people dress their children in clothes matching their sex

I've noticed this too. In the extreme form it's pink frilly prams or powder blue prams with diamonte dummy clips. Lots of 'boy' and 'girl' prams for sale on selling sites as well as clothes. At toddler groups in different areas I notice the difference in clothing choices. Lower socioeconomic areas seem to favour more traditional gendered clothes e.g. Boys in jeans and neutral colours with 'boy' haircuts, girls in pink or frilly dresses with matching headbands.
At groups in more affluent areas it's hard to tell the boys from the girls. There seems a trend for boys to have long hair. Most of them wear unisex clothes, lots of bright mismatched colours, yoga pants, a 'hippyish' vibe. I'm not saying it's the same everywhere, just what I've observed.

Ethical shopping, gender neutral, organic cotton, buying secondhand etc has become very popular in many middle class circles, along with babywearing.

Ds wore dd's hand me downs for the first year. A lot of them were neutral but if the pink ones were clean and ready to wear that's what he wore. I can't say anyone noticed or commented if they did. It seemed such a waste to buy more when I had lots already that were perfectly usable.

If you've got stuff that's pink but not too frilly you can dye it, I've got some of DDs stuff I dyed for DS (mostly navy blue otherwise it can go purple)

I am hoping for a sibling (crossing fingers) for our DS, aged 17 months, so have bought ‘unisex’ clothes, as far as possible.

This is harder that it seems, especially as DS gets older, and he usually ends up in a mismash of colours and patterns. Over the weekend, for example, DS went out in a blue & white striped sunhat with a boat embroidered on it, navy sunglasses, a pink t-shirt with a limo design, yellow nylon shorts, red Paw Patrol socks and navy trainers...

... he looked like a 1970s aerobics instructor, but this didn’t seem to faze him or anyone else.

@onestepsideways

How bizarre. I live on a council estate. My DS has long, blue hair. He dresses in pink if he wants to and favours unicorns. We used cloth nappies, I wore him.

Two other households in my street share the same values as we do.

The other children just wear, well, clothes.

You do realise, and I've said it before, that there are all kinds of people living on a council estate?

He’s a baby, and it’s just clothes to keep him warm rather than make a fashion statement. It’s fine.

I live in an affluent area I can say I have never seen the baby attire described
And no yoga pants, not on parents, or babies,or dads.no hippyish vibe.none
Regular Visitor council estates/more disadvantaged areas. no I have never seen the baby attire described