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 have lots of nephews and my sisters are always grumpy about how the animals on boys' clothes always have to be predator animals with teeth, because that's MANLY -- so it's dinosaurs, sharks, and any mammals that like to run fast and eat other mammals (tigers, foxes and so on). The exceptions are the occasional elephant (since grey is an acceptably sludgy colour ), beetles, and monkeys because they're "cheeky". Why ffs are boys not allowed to wear cats and horses? OP I found lots of nice stuff with tags on via eBay, and as pp have said, H&M and so on for basics.

No wonder teenagers feel they have to call themselves "non-binary" if they want to deviate in any way from strictly gendered clothes. Being covered in either predator animals or butterflies from birth is pretty stifling.

I see what you mean op. I’ve got some boy baby clothes for my daughter (selfishly I love dinosaurs so she’s getting dino stuff) and they do look more unisex than the girl clothes. So I have got a mix of fluffy bunnies and more bitey creatures.

It’s clothing with cars on that I’ve never liked and I don’t know why 🙈...but my son is 2 and obsessed with them now and my mil bought him bits with cars on an he really loves them so I guess I’m going to have to get used to it.

SAINSBURYS have lovely baby boy clothes and currently lots of colorful farmyard/zoo animals, got air balloons and pretty colours. There’s some dinosaurs too but they’re quite cute ones in pastel colours rather than angry looking ones. I’m gutted my 13 month old barely fits their 18-24 month stuff anymore as the ‘toddler’ ranges everywhere are awful. Look so much more grown up and generally crap!

M&S and Next are also very good for baby boys. Would recommend marks sleeping bags over all overs as they last ages and have bigger age sizes so you get longer wear out of them!

Well now DD is learning about Norman motte and baileys at school I pointed out that it’s the design of castle many of the Disney princesses would have lived in. So all those princess-themed nightdresses were helpful in the end.

Sainsbury’s do nice clothes I find. I like their Tu range for me as well

loveisland the problem is that you can end up with loads of mismatched stuff. Today Ds has a blue and white stripey babygro on but if I had a safari hat it would be mismatched. So you do need* some plain basics

*yes I know, you don’t need it but I like my child to look coordinated!

Looking at H&M, although they give separate links for baby boys' accessories and baby girls' accessories, the actual items are pretty much the same on each page, including dinosaurs on the girls'page and pink and flowers on the boys'
www2.hm.com/en_gb/baby/boys/accessories.html

I have a Dd (6) & DS (2) - & it is hard to get bright clothes for either without big prints or slogans.
For DS I'm finding the same as you - mostly dark, dull, sludgy colours - though Sainsbury's is often good for brights. I've found Next good for multi-packs of plain or colourful T-shirt's.
For DD, who wears sz9-10 as she's so bloody tall it's a PITA to find nice clothes in that size that aren't aimed at tweens with cropped tops, athletic-ware etc.
Fatface has been great recently - got some lovely bits in their sale for DD, & love the bug/bee line they have in the new season stuff. Kite is great too but too expensive unless in the sale. I miss the baby sales where I used to buy 60-70% of DC wardrobe at a fraction of the price - hopefully they'll start up soon.

I hated this when my DS was young! Everything was blue or grey or had dinosaurs or tractors on. And white stuff doesn't tend to go beyond 9 months.

I did used to shop online with a retailer that was really colourful, I can't remember the name but I'll search my emails and get back to you!

Dds used to be kitted out from here:
www.vertbaudet.co.uk

They do lots of plain and stripy for both sexes and lots of different colours for girls.

Second Lindex, lots of interesting prints other than dinosaurs and sharks. Scandinavian brands tend to have more interesting designs in general imho - www.babipur.co.uk/duns-sweden.html, funkylittlepeople.co.uk/

I get what you mean about prints, but they are very useful when babies start eating and crawling around as they hide little bits of dirt much better than plain clothing!

@bootlebumtrinketti

Also as PP points our - dinosaurs and sharks are real and interesting. Unicorns are fictional twee nonsense.

Depends which unicorns. In some traditions they are downright dangerous.

M&S organic range has a lot of good bright clothing without being all dinos and sharks.

@Aliceandthemarchhare if you don't like the clothes in the boys aisle, try the next aisle over. You'll find lots of bunnies and other fluffy animals, lovely pastels etc. Some unicorns etc but definitely fluffier creatures and it fits identically.

I have 3 boys and hate this. Ds2 doesn't like dinasours or trucks etc and favourite colour is pink. I buy most of clothes in H&M and some from Mayrol. It's depressing and shows designer's still don't realise that not all boys like dinasours or blue and not all parents want to buy clothes like that.

I sort of get the frustration here but also kind of not - we bought all of DDs clothes from Sainsbury's and Asda. She had dinosaurs and Star Wars from the boys range and unicorns and flowers from the girl's range, plus various in plain colours etc. I chose all of them because they were cute and she looked kick-ass in her pink space unicorn onesie one day, and blue dinosaurs the next. The solution to the problem of gendered clothing isn't to avoid any of these things, it's to pick whatever you like the look of, ignoring the labels (this is in response to the general direction of the thread - OP I do share your frustration to an extent, as almost all the multi-packs had at least one character/theme item for one or two plain colours/patterns, and the 'neutral' packs seem to be mainly brown )

It might be worth checking out the French companies like La Redoute and Vertbaudet. Vertbaudet is mid price range but has a lot of special offers and a basics range. They have sharks and dinosaur prints but also turtles, whales and seagulls. www.vertbaudet.co.uk/baby/gender=baby-boy-3-months-3-years.htm?intnavid=h_new_baby_shop-by-age-range_baby-boys-3-mths-to-3-yrs

@Aliceandthemarchhare - I understand your co ordination. I generally buy things like hats or coats in plain colours so they go with most things.
Sun hat wise - I just bought him three sun hats from h and m. A dark red/orange floppy thing with white teardrops on, a plain lemon yellow cap, and a plain white bucket hat. They were all £5 or less, should go with most things, and cheap enough I can keep one in car/ pram/ baby throw it somewhere.

My parents bought him a sun hat last year in 3-6 months. I’m just about still squeezing on his head to get the last few weeks of use as it was £50+... bonkers

Why only predators for boys?! As if a baby boy has anything in common with a Shark, dinosaur, Skulls, Tank/camouflage etc. It’s just so LIMITED! (and agree girls also get very limited ‘girly’ animals: Butterflies, Unicorns, Bunnies, soft, kind, smiley). Still so much is pink, or at least has pink as one of the main colours.

Clothes manufacturers - please STOP IT!!

HM and Zara are great for neutrals

I think you missed the point of the thread, Uhtred. The point is that there's a short of neutral clothes that aren't covered in sharks, unicorns or other heavily gendered stuff,

I think you’ve missed the point of my comment!

Arket has reasonably priced basics and isn't too gendered.

Worth reading this article about research done into kids' clothing, and how boys clothes were farmore likely to show pictures of predators, with girls' clothes more likely to have prey

sonshinemagazine.com/magazine/animals-aggression-and-entitlement

It’s weird that dinosaurs are marketed as “boy” clothes. Boys had nothing to do with dinosaurs. It’s not like Dinosaur farming is a predominantly male profession.

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

I absolutely agree.

But I think you have had bad luck, or shops are low on stock and variety following the pandemic. Before you could get nice colours and animals up to about 2 1/2 then it gets more and more difficult.