Its a girl!- bugger

[HotPie]

So I am 19 weeks gone with baby number one and just found out its a girl. The baby in my head was a boy. We were going to play lego and climb trees and get muddy together.

I thought at first it would be ok, after all its up to me and my partner how we raise her, but friends with girls have said I may not be able to avoid the pink princess stage, my mother in law is intent on dolls and frills and the other "mothers of girls" are drving me crazy with talk of "cuteness"

I have no interest in "sweet little outfits" or those flowery headbands (how weird are they) or playing with dolls and I dispise the kind of girl who plays "dressing up as princesses" just as much as I did when I was a little girl too. I am so scared I am going to get a pink loving girl and that I will dislike my daughter.

I feel like a terrible person, I know how lucky we are to have a ( hopefully) healthy child on the way. Please someone tell me about their mud loving daughter.

[dogsandcats]

1.Wait and see what your emotions are after you have given birth.
They will not be quite the same as you think or imagine them to be.
When you do an experiment, you wait to see the results do you not? And they can often be different to what you expected?

2.You are concerned that you will not have much in common with her. Tough. She will still be your daughter for ever more. And I hope you try your best with her every single day.

1. Just curious. Why did you want a baby in the first place?
   

A baby turns into a toddler and everntually an adult. Did it not occur to you before you conceived [assuming the pregnancy was planned] that the chances of a mini me were quite slim?
I have several children, and I cant say that any of them are mini mes.

4.What would happen if you had a boy. What if you took an instant dislike to his bushy eyebrows or whatever?

[dogsandcats]

Apologies if any of this has been covered before by someone.

Your life is currently quite narrow.
It is about to open up quite considerably.
Your DD will have social needs.
You will be forced to interact with other parents, and health workers etc, even though your partner is going to be at home with her the most.
For your DDs sake, it really would be best for you and for her and for your partner if you became more tolerant of others.
Whatever the character of your DD.
And yes, there is a chance of your DD being very much like you, but never exactly the same.
Would anyone want their offspring to be exactly like themselves?
Good luck to you all.

[puds11isNAUGHTYnotNAICE]

I can NEVER understand why people get so hung up on the sex of their baby!

You get to have a baby! That's amazing. It's something that some people cannot have. It is the greatest gift.

Who gives a flying fuck if its a girl or a boy. It's still a child and you will still love them.

[Rowan1204]

To be fair, you could have had a boy who ended up liking pink glittery things!
Try not to gender stereotype - not all girls want to be princesses and not all boys like to climb trees and play in the mud.
I do Understand how you feel having it in your head though. Im having twins and was convinced they were girls. But they are boys, and i already have one boy. Maybe we could swap sometimes :-)

[Thingiebob]

I have a girl. She is three. She spent yesterday playing in the garden digging up worms and carrying the poor things around with her as made new homes for them. She stopped occasionally to shoot her water pistol at her football and shout madly at aeroplanes passing overhead.

It is possible to avoid the princess phase.

[Tingalingle]

Rowan has a good point. Not all boys do indeed climb trees or play in the mud. One of my two hated it (despite quite definitely having a willy and a Lego collection).

Now, the chances are pretty high that your beloved daughter will want to climb trees and get mucky, but at least, because she's not a boy, you might be slightly prepare now for the possibility that she won't want to do either. That's good.

Children throw curve balls at you all the time. Life is never quite how you pictured it. That's good too.

[Tingalingle]

*prepared

Am proofreader FGS, should be able to spell.

[BabyHMummy]

Not sure if this make me odd but nothing you have said you are worried about has even occurred to me. I am pregnant with dd1 and am 24 weeks. To be honest at the moment i am still shock that i am even pregnant let alone the fact that shortly i am gonna have a daughter.

To be honest i don't really care what she is into. I have 2 step children who are vastly different to each other boy is a bit of a wimp in comparison to his sister. She is a complete daredevil. Neither shares any interests with either their mum or dad. Doesn't stop them loving their kids. Their mum desperately wanted their daughter To be girly and she occasionally relents and wears the pink etc but she ia far happier in jeans and t shirts scruffing around with her brother or playing on her nintendo.

I have bought pink things for my baby mainly cos if the takes after me in colouring etc she will not be able to wear yellow or green without looking like a giant red blob. i have also bought her jeans and patterned tops. I am not a girly girl but i liked the style of and the colours of a lot of the girly clothes when i went shopping with mil.

hotpie please don't worry so much. You are letting other ppl influence how u feel about your baby. Tell them all that she will like what she likes and u will love her regardless. As other have said until the ia old enough to chose for herself she will follow your lead so what are you worried about??!!

[Smerlin]

Reply to iliketea- the only reason I currently have a preference for a girl is because I didn't fancy getting wee on the face from a boy but now you have explained that girls get wee in their hair while changing I think that removes my only prejudice!! !!!

[DaveMccave]

I completely understand where the OP is coming from. I went through exactly the same. Always despised anything stereotypically girly, never could relate to girly girls as a child, always yearned for and imagined having boys.

So I was secretly a bit disappointed when I found out I was due a girl. I told myself she wouldn't be girly though, as I wouldn't conform to the stereotype. No Disney princess or too much pink and a range of toys for both genders etc

Until 2 all babies are gender neutral so it was fine, at 2 she suddenly became obsessed with pointing out flowers and pink and anything stereotypically girly with glee! To my utter horror! At 6, she still adores pink, my little pony, barbie, she is obsessed with anything sparkly or glittery, if she could chose anything to wear it would be long floral dresses all the time. She wants to be a princess and live in a castle and can often be heard muttering about how she can't wait to get married to a prince and wear a pretty dress. Contrary to other posters saying you won't care, I DO. I do dislike how different she is to me as I find it hard to relate to her. It's taken me a long time to not fight her preferences. I now give her a choice of pink and princess-y quite often instead of only offering more unisex choices and it is working, and she is mellowing out. I do think its important to question them and continue to offer gender neutral choices.

Dd was the only girl who wore a spiderman costume on superhero day at school (all the other girls wore Disney princess dresses) She adores dinosaurs (even if she plays tea parties with her toy ones) she is obsessed with Pokemon which i encourage. Her favourite film is ghostbusters. She likes superhero stuff (I got her into it via powerpuff girls who are an excellent role model!). I read her some books thy challenge stereotypes like pippi long stocking an babbette cole books. When she asked for a pink bike I got her a dark pink one with black tyres and blue sparkles instead of the hideous candy pink and white with a dolly basket. You both might have to learn to compromise, not letting the pink completely take over and continuously offering lots o choices and not making assumptions of their preferences is key, but you also have to learn to let them make their own decisions and may have to accept a lot of things you hate!

I'm currently pregnant and declines finding out the sex this time. I'd still love a boy, I still hope if its a girl it's not as girly as dd, but I know once they are in my arms I won't care so didn't want the chance to find out and dwell and be disappointed. I don't like my dd's preferences, im often disappointed when she picks ugly dresses! but it doesn't mean i don't love her even if i don't want to join in all her games. She doesn't like my favourite things and would rather I was more girly and we both have taught each other a lot about differences. I find we always get the kids we least expect, almost like they are there to magnify are flaws and teach us a lesson!

My tips are fight it while you can, as a baby. By Scandinavian baby clothes (polarn, smafolk, h&m all great for none pink frilly girls clothes). Buy garages AND dolls (my dd ignored most of the typical boys stuff but not all). Question their stereotypical choices, but mostly-if they do love pink then give them lots of opportunity to choose it. If you respect their choices a lot of the time, they will be more suggestible to yours.

[pocopearl]

hotpie i know how you feel i cried for two days solid when i found out i was having a boy instead of a girl, i refused to tell anyone and still its just me and my dh who know. DH doesnt understand why im so upset, and even though im 29 weeks now i stil well up a little when we are looking at baby clothes and there are pretty dresses everywhere that other people with girls get to buy. i dont think its silly, but when you plan all the things in your head and something is out of your control goes a little different then it seems so unfair. cheer up lovey, im sure once she is here you will be worrying too much about other things to worry about her gender (well thats what im hoping) and soon the disappointment that you feel should change to excitement then you hit 29 weeks and start panicking that nothing is ready!!!!! x

[SirBoobAlot]

Every child is different. Gender has nothing to do with it. I have a DS who is in love with all things pink. He loves gardening and painting, but hates getting anything on his clothes - loves messy play, as long as he doesn't get messy.

Your daughter will be however she is, because that's who she is. Love her for that, encourage her to make her own choices and love her for choosing them, because she will thank you for it when she is older.

[daytoday]

Christ alive . . .

The pink phase (if you have it) will pass and you will miss it when it is gone. It is but a tiny fleck on your child's journey into adulthood. Soon you child will be wearing black and listening to a ipod in their room and not wanting to hang out with you.

We all have fantasies about what having a child means for us, and they NEED to be broken as they are bullshit fantasies. You know young boys play with baby dollies just as much as girls do.

If you really enjoy mud and rambling adventures they your child will probably love it to because they will love hanging out with their mum when she is having fun.

My son hated getting muddy when he was small.

[nannyof3]

Ur lucky you can fall pregnant..

Stop moaning !!!!!!!

[ScrambledSmegs]

Treat your baby as an individual, not a stereotype.

Boys like dressing up, pink and playing with handbags/sparkly dresses too.

Girls play with lego, climb trees and enjoy fart jokes (amongst other things).

My DD1 is 3yo, lives in jeans, has an obsession with diggers and her best friend is a boy. And her favourite colour is pink.

[TinkyPeet]

MNHQ - perhaps it's time to delete this thread now? Op has given up trying to explain her point over and over again to people who didn't read her posts properly and decided to attack.

[ScrambledSmegs]

Eh? I was trying to do what the OP asked. If it looks like an attack I apologise but can categorically state that it isn't. Just a rather short post as was on my phone at the time.

If you want the thread deleted it's probably best to report it yourself. MNHQ probably won't spot your request in amongst the myriad of other posts. I doubt they would delete it as a lot of people have tried to be helpful, there's no bunfight etc and you're not the OP.

[TinkyPeet]

Not your post scrambled :)
To be fair pretty much every thread I have looked at In the past few days has been an almighty bitch fest, not somewhere someone can ask for advice and support....but somewhere to sit behind a computer screen and hurl abuse at people's concerns and questions. Think this was just the sour icing on the bitchy cake! X

[quickdowntonson]

Hi,
Don't worry. My daughter has always been a tomboy, loves getting muddy, climbing trees etc. If you don't bring her up to be a precious princess (which of course you won't!), then she won't be. I think that character is 90% environment. relax, it'll be fine and she will be great fun!! x

[megarobotdiscoparty]

I was a terrifying child who played army, got into fights, screamed at being put into dresses, refused dolls and only played with cars. My DH was a big scaredy cat who still loves pink and kitsch, hates football and is frightened of roller coasters.

We are having a boy and goodness only knows what he will end up like-neither of us probably! I am extremely excited to find out though

[MrsArchchancellorRidcully]

Your lovely baby girl will be who she will be. Let her be and don't worry.

My beautiful DD (4.5) adores Fireman Sam and Jake and the Neverland Pirates. She has done football lessons for the past year (her choice) and has now decided she doesn't want to do football any more as she wants to do ballet.

Tonight, we are off to buy her ballet shoes and a dress.

She would kill for a Fireman Sam truck for her birthday but equally wants a hair change barbie doll.

Her dad and I have tried to provide her with all types of toys and experiences and talk a lot about how there are no toys for boys and no toys for girls - there are just toys.
Same goes for clothes. She wears pjs from Asda's boys section.

She'll get a load of new influences at school. bring her up to be strong and confident and with a tonne of love and she'll be fine whatever colour she wants to wear :)

PS DS (16m) will also be offered football or ballet at 3 and it will be his choice.

PPS> I too thought I was having a boy. When DD arrived I was stunned but then realised I could ensure her journey into puberty was not the complete fuckup that mine was as I would be a mother who actually told her about periods before they started at 9 years old. But that's another thread :)