Baby Clothes - only pink and blue?

[starfish99]

Hi all
I'm pregnant with my first and due in November. We've started to shop for the baby but are not going to find out the sex so need to buy gender-neutral items.
I'm shocked by how gender-biased the clothing is. In Next for example, there was only one outfit that wasn't either pink or blue. If we have a girl I don't want to dress her in pink all of the time and if I have a boy I don't want to constantly dress him in blue. The patterns are also so stereotypically designed - blue aeroplanes and rockets for boys and pink flowers and fairies for girls. If they must stick to pink and blue why not pink rockets and blue flowers?
I find it incredibly sexist - is this really want people want or is this what retailers think we want? I was wondering if there have ever been any petitions to retailers to try and encourage them to stock more gender-neutral clothing?
Could anyone recommend a retailer that has a better range?
Thanks

OOOOOOO tortoise.

I think I may love you forever for that!!!!!

Its not cheap, but its not totally horrendous either. I might have to give in as the hunt has become slightly obsessive!

Rainbow Basics (used to be Rainbow Babies) is good, but they don't do sleepsuits. If you want bright yellow vests, T-shirts, polo shirts, leggings, trousers, shorts, dresses or skirts, though, they are your go-to place.

Im in the same boat, not sure of gender and looking for unisex, bright cheery clothes

Boots range has some nice unisex sleepsuits and vests at the moment if you have a big shop near you, and theres a range called little bird in Mothercare which has rainbow/brights stuff
Katvig, småfolk, name it, molo, el sikke lej are all good scandinavian brands that make (good quality, well washing) unisex stuff - try Barnyard kids in UK (Im lucky in that the in laws know what I like and are really good about presents)

Would recommend Sainsburys and Morissons for bright cheerful and good value. Personally if you want 'bright' rather than 'neutral' I reckon you could put a girl in some of the boys clothes.

Oh, yes, Scandinavian stuff is fab. But I'd have had to sell off one of my existing children to fund it...

Yeah agree about the scandinavian stuff. But why is no one doing a cheaper version. Does it cost less for pale pink and blue fabric or something in the UK?

Also when I'm pregnant/have a small baby I've tended to have a range of saved email-me-when-something-gets-listed searches on eBay for keywords like "bright", "vivid", "bold" in Baby Clothes. I got a lot of good stuff that way.

It's sooooooo annoying. And doesn't stop when the baby is here either.. If my 8mth old dd isn't head to toe in pink (which is rare) then people automatically think she's a boy. It's like boys can wear every colour but girls must only be in pink.

I do get that you can't tell with babies, but it does annoy me when you get comments like, 'but she's not in pink so I wasn't sure'. Then ASK.

Sorry for vent.

John Lewis is also pretty good colour wise but a tad pricey. Boots is also quite good and cheap. We stuck with Mothercare for gender neutrals and then were inundated with pink when she arrived. I also buy from the 'boys' section in NEXT/M&S sometimes, it's much more colourful

Ooooooh I hear you. As soon as I found out DC2 was a girl, I put out a 'no pink shit' decree to grandparents. I found it equally tough with DS, everything seemed to be baby blue and I preferred to dress him in red or orange.

Mothercare have a lovely brights range with stripes and stars patterns, M&S also seem to have a few brights/stars things (I have some lovely muslins and bodysuits for DC2 from there). Polarn O Pyret is expensive but good if you can grab some sale stuff, as others have said, and I have some beige things from H&M - also a great fit as their sizes go 0-1 month, 1-2, 2-4 and 4-6 - much better than the enormous 0-6 catch-all that every other shop seems to use.

Some Boden stuff is also OK.

Yep, H&M, Polarn O.Pyret, John Lewis basics and my personal fave, www.loveitloveitloveit.co.uk

last maty leave I did buy lots of scandi stuff in sales while on holiday and ebay bundles of it bnwt, there is also a reasonable return on 2nd hand bundles, but I agree, its expensive and im lucky I had access to it. Not going to bother this time round though.... too much effort

These are the bright vests I was thinking of:

www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-baby-short-sleeve-bright-bodysuit-pack-of-5-multi/p765191

The cynical me thinks they have the stuff in pink/blue so to stop you reusing baby items for your 2nd, 3rd etc.

I resisted and bought as gender neutral as possible for DD. Especially for big ticket items like pram, car seat, winter coats and her balance bike. (And also toys like duplo).

When she turned 3 and started going to preschool, she went into complete princess mode. She refuses anything that is not a dress. She picked the pink micro scooter. She didn't like her isla rothan balance bike anymore because it's red. She much prefer duplo disney princesses than her zoo set. (Though she'll make cinderella ride the rhino).

Luckily I found out my second is also a girl. Otherwise, I'd have to buy a second scooter (and then bike and then another scooter etc) for a brother. Why do they have to make scooters pink/blue? I'm sure it's so you can pass it between brothers and sisters.

I can recommend eBay bundles - you'll find other people who feel the same and have collections of non-pink/blue/beige clothes. As mentioned these are often from the more expensive shops (polar etc) which means the quality is a little better and hence second hand is still great, esp. for babies who let's face it don't wear out clothes, they grow out of clothes.

You just need to shop around. I have managed to buy a few lovely unisex bits from Next. Not instore though online these are lovely
Morrisons Nutmeg range has some lovely clothes, really good bright colours.
H&M are fab.
Frugi have gorgeous clothes and they last well. My nephew is wearing babygros and dungarees that DC 3 and DC 4 have worn and they look good as new.

onelittletoddleterror I don't understand anyone that does get big ticket items like the pram in blue/pink. Surely that's just daft, given you might have a second child?

I caught up with a baby friend who had recently had a 2nd girl and she says she was relieved because then she didn't have to go out and buy loads of toys again. I was like "what do you mean?" And she said something like "everything's pink, and we don't have any cars or dinosaur stuff".

my daughter loves cars, emergency vehicles and dinosaurs, as well as her toy kitchen and dolls etc. Toys are toys. I've always told the grannies if they want to buy toys to please please not get the 'pink version' but get the gender neutral colours (red, yellow etc), and if that's not available, get the blue.

Tesco had a multipack of bright sleepsuits yesterday in the sale but not sure if yellow included.

completely agree OP.

Another thing that annoys me is the way all the websites are structured. I can't do a search easily for just "trousers". No, I have to look at "girls" first and then "trousers" within the girls section. Then same again under the boys' section, in order to have seen all the options. Why not list "all trousers" FIRST - and then have divisions into boys and girls under that, for those that want them? These websites just make it twice as much work for me to find anything.

Mothercare is not bad for plain brights, and Tesco sometimes has them too. But you really have to trawl.

H&M, M&S, M&P and boots are good for not-just-pink-and-blue but not beige.

White and beige is my bugbear, NO STUPID SHOPS IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE TASTEFUL it's just boring ... I blame the White Company personally.

Oh by the way - there is the Let Toys be Toys campaign - but not sure if there is anything similar for clothing?

The cynical me thinks they have the stuff in pink/blue so to stop you reusing baby items for your 2nd, 3rd etc.

I agree.

I also have very strong feelings about "banning" pink rather than having it as just another colour IYSWIM. i.e. parents who 'forbid' their girls to have pink/things with girls on them. Far better to let 'toys be toys' for both girls and boys: so boys get pink if they want and girls blue if they want but do not 'forbid' pink. Not 'decide' that pink is inherently limiting before I get the lectures: MAs in arts psychology and lots of postgrad and work in child development, I don't need a lecture, I understand the other theories.

I had this "pink is sexist and will make you thick" message foisted upon me as a child in the 80s in a rather crude manner by one parent (who didn't do it subtly and had 'read the books' ) and it really affected my self esteem as a teen: I started to obviously look like a 'girl' (i.e. bad/sexist), like boys (i.e. bad role model, lacking ambition), could cook (was told I was holding feminism back by being good at this, although I was also great at science: better to NOT be good at cooking) and so on. Much inner conflict before I realised you could/should have both.

Blue meant aspirational, clever, trying to make your way in the world and be middle class. Pink meant deadbeat bimbo, living to impress boys.
To me, for a while it meant:
Girl = low status. Boy (or girl in blue) = high status.

It further compounds the issue, highlighting different status for different gender identities and thus suggesting one code of behaviour is for 'leaders' with enlightened middle class parents and one for followers bimbos.

Especially as it's trendy for little Cecily to only have blue... but if little Tarquin wanted a dress? No way. I am always impressed by parents of boys who let them have sparkly and 'girly' items: particularly between about 2-6 they love them because they are bright, textured and silly. And far more taboo breaking.

Toys are toys. Within the bounds of not spoiling, let any child have any age-appropriate toys: girls and boys.

the borrower we've just brought our pram - with a pale blue hood. We don't know what we are having. We just liked the blue.

And squizita I really like white and beige. And have a bit of a thing for The White Company. I also like bbrights. I am not a massive fan of pastels though.

mini I had an email from Change.org today about a petition they are starting not about clothes but about the advertising for clarks shoes. The gist of the ad was that boys test their shoes to destruction and girls like pretty things.

Euro fair enough regarding whites/beiges. I just wish there was something of high-street-price which was neither gendered nor cream.
You would probably think my clothes and decor a "mad riot of tat" quote from my DH there as it's brights with quite a lot of retro 'yuk' colours like greens and browns.

Heh. My husband complains a lot about our house being beige. But it's different shades of beige...

Actually I have to disagree about Next. We've found some lovely babygro's with frogs, monkeys and lions on them that are unisex. Plus a couple of bits from Mothercare.

I agree though in that choice really is limited. Not all of us want to find out the gender!