To not want ds kitted out in dinosaurs and sharks?

[Aliceandthemarchhare]

Ds is four months and mostly wears babygros. I had mostly white and grey and cream to start with but obviously people bought us things and there was a lot of blue and I like the darker navy blues - it seems to suit him.

However looking for a sunhat for him and I’ve had to pay £11 for a plain navy one. I forgot his sleeping bag on holiday recently and had to get one covered in sharks.

Why are boys clothes so miserable? Surely baby boys can wear bright colours and slightly friendlier animals than T rexes and sharks?!

I completely agree. And don’t get me started on the infernal princesses and pink nonsense pushed on girls. To say nothing of the sexualised clothing pushed at them far too young.

Sainsbury’s and Asda have some good colourful boys clothes - lots of colourful T-shirt’s, jumpers and trousers. You do have to be willing to keep looking though. It drives me mad!

We’ve been lucky enough to receive a lot of 2nd hand clothes from friends but I have to admit some of it has gone into a bag for donation to someone else as it’s just too boyish for our tastes

Honestly when you're on the 4th change of clothes in a day you won't care if it's neutral or covered in dinosaurs.

uhtred be fair ... they are labelled ‘baby boy’ and while I know MN wouldn’t blink at a baby boy in pink florals it might raise some eyebrows in RL.

Since didn’t know what Gdc 1 was going to be, I found some nice baby gros in non-gendered colours in John Lewis. Animals, but gently multicoloured with a white background, no overt blue or pink.

Must say I find baby things in grey a bit sad.

Little girls’ things are my major bugbear now. I don’t object to pink per se, but so much of it is in that hideous, garish, screaming pink.

Gds (4) adores anything with sharks or dinosaurs on!

@WetJan

At least you get a choice of dinosaurs or sharks... unicorns or more bloody unicorns for girls 😒 DD can't recognise or pronounce bloody 'unicorn'.

And pink!!! I loathe pink, always have, so of course I had two girls and was given some truly hideous pink stuff. Back then, late 70s/early 80s there wasn't the choice there is now but I managed to find brightly coloured clothes that weren't pink!

My pet irrational hate though is the little faux shirts for baby boys, with buttons and collars like they're off to the office. Just looks ridiculous and uncomfortable. Much like dresses for crawling baby girls. Just GETS IN THE WAY!

H&M and Zara do lots of nice neutrals, Frugi do lots of lovely prints and iirc dont even have boy/girl sections as its all pretty unisex. A large proportion of my younger DDs clothes are from there and they both get mistaken for boys. DD2 also has some lovely bits from Next in jungle animal prints in bright colours that are more traditionally 'boy' (although from the girls range) but shes 2 now so maybe that's why? I must admit I've never really looked at boy baby clothes but I find it very easy to avoid overly gendered clothes personally

Scandi brands are usually more colourful, like Villervalla, Maxomorra, Lindex, Polarn o pyret, Smafolk, JNY, Duns, Danefae

I do care to be honest whinge

I mean, I don’t care in the same way I care about my work or even in the same way I care about the missing cat someone posted about but it’s not totally insignificant to me either.

I’ve always liked baby clothes though.

The problem with naff prints (dinosaurs, unicorns, anything you can think of) is that they're the cheapest way to add surface "interest" to clothes.

Other ways to add interest, such as using quality fabrics or trims (ie anything that involves labour so think nice top stitching detail for example) bumps up the price of the item and hence cannot sell for the desired retail point in store.

So I'm afraid we're stuck with a glut of clothes that are, frankly in my view, quite revolting. Though I'm sure there are exceptions and happy to be corrected.

Bloody ungrateful. I have a 15 month old DD and I’m dinosaur obsessed, but it does seem to be primarily boys clothes with the dinos on! I’m jealous you get all the dinos.

Have you tried matalan? I love their sleepsuits they are so well fitting and so soft; and they usual have lots of lovely bright colours in the unisex section:)

I dress DD in dinosaurs quite often, I do like dinosaurs.

She wears a lot of hand me downs and second hand stuff too bless her, and much of that is very pink because of the taste of the people who passed them on to us. So when I do actually put my hand in my pocket and buy her some new then I try to balance it out with some dinosaurs etc.

I also like giraffes if I can find them - Sainsbury’s has been good for giraffes so far.

Lindex is good, H&M has been good lately too although a lot of greige neutrals rather than brights which is what I prefer. I also love blade and rose leggings - not cheap but there’s usually a sale on. Their tops come up really small I find though. There’s a Uk brand called picalilly which isn’t super cheap either but they generally have a large sale section too, I’ve bought lots of nice bits from there which have featured ducks, foxes, mermaids, owls and monkeys up to now.

I've always liked M and Co for baby clothes. My children are adults now but I work with children and often look for clothes from there for them.

I don’t understand how boats and cars mean the clothes are for boys? Surely both sexes use those forms of transport?!

Frugi, maxomorra, duns all do loads of colourful and varied prints, pricey new but as they're good quality still really good second hand, it's worth keeping an eye on ebay. I think H&M does a variety too.

Yabu, but only because you're restricting yourself to 'boy's' clothes. Buy whatever you like for him, from whichever department.

Polarn o pyret is lovely

It isn’t just the fact it’s gendered, though. It’s the fact that gendered seems to assume sharks and so on.

There is nothing wrong with a blue babygro with horses, or mice, or dolphins

I just looked at the selection of babygros in Next, which I used to find good when mine were babies. There are loads of nice new to choose from - elephants, sloths, koalas, soldiers, rainbows, tractors, stars, giraffes, etc. Not to mention nice plain colours as well.

I had a girl then a boy, and I bought loads of babygros from the “boys’” section for my daughter, because they were so much cuter. The girls ones were practically all pale pink (and my DD is quite dark in colouring so looked great in nice bright colours, or even in black) and commonly had butterflies or fairies on.

I think YABU and are just not looking very hard. It’s far worse for girls.

Next isn’t really the cheapest, though. I’ve just had a look and they aren’t really to my taste although ds does have some nice stuff from there.

I had my little girl (6weeks) in penguin print yday - had 2 people assume she was a boy because she had penguins on. 😂😂

I didn’t find out what I was having and bought a mix of plain clothes!

Now that people know I have a girl I’m getting pink and Minnie Mouse everything / dresses / tutus / bows 😫

But you are assuming all dinosaurs and all sharks are violent/aggressive.

Most infant dino stuff has a diplodocus or similar on.

@JeanClaudeVanDammit

I’ll swap you sharks for f*ing unicorns! I love the bright colours and different prints on clothes from e.g. Frugi but they are so much more expensive unless you can get a good second hand bundle.

Unicorns are the fucking devil and should be banned!

It is completely ridiculous. Yes there are alternatives, but if you need something quickly and don't have time to trawl, you're looking a sea of dingy colours and angry animals for boys, and frilly pink for girls.

It appears to get worse as they get older too - baby clothes are actually not too bad as they tend to have a unisex selection, but now my two year old is wearing 'kids' clothes rather than 'baby' there is even less I like. So many bloody slogans! I must admit I spend quite a lot of my limited free time trawling Ebay for the more expensive stuff, and often buy the same thing in the next size up. John Lewis, Jojo Maman, Frugi, H&M are all worth checking, Next has some decent rainbow clothes (always space themed though!) and just got the new Little Bird range in. Lindex does fun prints, although I'm not keen on the fabric they use as it seems to make my son quite hot and eczema-y. Also Kite, Picalilly and Little Green Radicals.

What really annoys me is when you see perfectly good t-shirts in neutral colours, but they have frills. What's the point, why do any children's clothes need frills?!

It's fair enough to say you could dress boys in pink frills too - of course you could - but I dislike pink and suspect I would struggle to dress a girl as much as I do a boy. When he's older and cares what clothes he wears he can pick what he wants, within reason, but for now it's my choice and I want him to wear things that don't make me cringe.

I am SICK of dinosaur clothes for boys especially the ones with added spikes on. My mum and MIL buy them so I feel I have to put my son in them as well.

I try and find other interesting colours and animals, including pink but I do avoid frills because I don't like them myself (this rrules out 90% of clothes from the girls' section, as do the flimsy materials and skimpier cuts)

But if you shop around you do have a choice. I don't go off the beaten track - asda, sainsbury's, next, m&s. They are guilty of some of the gendered crap but there is variety.

I'm dreading my son getting past 3 and only being restricted to the sludge coloured aisles though

@Aliceandthemarchhare

Calm Down. I promise the sharks & dinosaurs won't eat him!!