AIBU to be annoyed at how genderist even baby clothing is?

[Monipop84]

We are over the moon to be expecting our fist child, a little girl, in April :) Complicit the Black Friday sales, I have been doing a bit of online shopping over the weekend. I am amazed by how many websites still have baby (infant!) clothing divided into "boys" and "girls" categories, which I honestly find ridiculous. Why should a Peter Rabbit babygro be for boys only? Or a space babygro? There are a few "gender neutral" shops out there (Mori makes good stuff) but they are so expensive. To be clear, I am not ostracising the odd pink top or cute shirt, but I am keen on raising my little girl without many stereotypes and I am seeing that so much of girl stuff is still so twee and frilly and has terrible slogans on it.

I really don't understand why this is an issue, buy what you like, it really is that simple.

I make a lot of clothes for my grandchildren, because I don't see much available that I like.

Possibly going against the grain I get annoyed if I can't search by sex online because I have more to trawl through and I say this as a girl whose wardrobe consisted of ' boys' clothes until I was about 16. I think if there was the choice of different designs in girls clothes there are today I wouldn't have needed to and stuff would have fitted me better. My daughter hates me picking out her clothes because I err towards jogging bottoms and unisex tops which she considers boring. She knows she can wear what she wants, she just happens to want dresses and skirts. Girls and boys are different shapes and sizes and I don't think the clothes should necessarily be the same. Iagree that girls stuff shouldn't just be all pink and sparkles but there are plenty of places that do girls clothes well etc Boden. The issue for me is more why 'boys' clothes are often cheaper and better quality and why 'girls' clothes from a lot of shops - even the likes of M and S are sexualised after the age of about 7.

ElevenSmiles what people on this thread are saying is that they can't buy what they want, because so much stuff is rigidly gendered. It's either pink/purple/frilly or blue/grey/brown with matching stereotyped patterns/motifs/themes. Lots of us want more colourful stuff with a wider range of themes on them.

This is something I feel pretty strongly about too. If I have a little boy I don’t want him in “mum’s little trucker” tops and if I have a girl I don’t want “little princess”. Why do we have to enforce stereotypes on babies? They’re babies! And it’s toxic - it just continues the patriarchal system. And like most of you, it’s not really about colours for me, I just don’t think there should be colours assigned to girls and boys in the first place, it’s ridiculous.

Yes definitely agree with this. Utterly ridiculous. I often buy my DD boys stuff as I refuse to buy pink everything.

So true!!!! Ugh, princess stuff is so tacky.

I'm another who has found boy clothes too sludgy. DH and I have similar colouring and look best in blue, grey, pink and purple. Our sons have the same colouring. DH has no trouble getting pink and purple work and casual shirts in menswear shops/departments on the high street and has plenty of them but I'd love some for my toddler sons too and can't find any.

Girls ones don't work as, even if they aren't sparkly/frilly, they are too hourglass shaped and don't fit well, which is odd as I hadn't thought females got that shape until puberty. I've ended up taking some of DH's old ones with worn cuffs to cut down for them.

Not sure where everyone is looking, but there’s plenty of colourful clothes that don’t appear overly boy or girl based? I’ll be honest though, I really don’t think if you like buying pink disadvantages your daughter, neither does buying any of the ‘boy’ stuff; when did we all become defined by what we wore? For the record, it’s probably sorted as it’s easier to browse, but it’s not like the shop will stop you buying it for the other gender.

The extortionate Scandi stuff and a lot of expensive baby brands are much more neutral, but if you don't want to spend a lot then it's all either blue or pink.

It requires more legwork, but you'll find a selection of more neutral stuff in John Lewis (who I think did away with separate sexes for baby clothes last year anyway), Boots Mini Club, Lidl's baby event and F&F/Tesco. And even some bits from Sainsbury's/TU. The Dutch brand Hema also sells in the UK, online and has a good neutral selection. I do find it gets harder now DD is a little older, but I always go in with the mentality that I need only x jumpers, y trousers etc and can always find things that aren't covered in unicorns or whatever. So it takes time but not necessarily more money.

Like the OP I hate walking into most shops and seeing the trucks/mud/unicorn/sparkle gulf - and no one I know dresses DC like that, though clearly someone's buying it - but I just don't give it my custom.

Stupidly genederisimg clothes now is affecting child development. Sit at a kids party and watch boy babies in their baby grows crawl around. The same girl babies in their dresses struggle to crawl as they get caught up in their clothes. They’re also told to keep their pretty clothes clean so they start to become behind physically. The same with playing in trainers or stupid sanders or shoes with heels.

Some nurseries are so resicumiusly gendered that by the time heh get to school little girls wk. These trousers/shorts for days out to the farm or climbing centre type place as girls wear dresses and they don’t want to be the only one in their class wearing a dress

The other day, my DD (aged 2.5) was wearing a pastel-coloured top with unicorns that her grandfather bought her. She told me that she was going to wear it to see her best friend (same age, male) because he'd really love it. I said "ah, that's nice" but was secretly thinking yeah, he's not going to be interested in that. To my surprise, when we met with her little friend, he ran up to her and exclaimed "oh [DD's name], you've got a unicorn on you" in delight. It made me realise how easy it is to internalise all this gendered bullshit. I mean, here I am calling myself a feminist, but I still assumed that a two year-old boy couldn't possibly be interested in magical horses.

cansurvive yes!! I now live in Sweden and this morning (a brisk -9) all the kids are out dressed practically. You can’t get a snowsuit comfortably over a frilly dress so most kids wear practical stuff - wool layers, big winter boots, leggings or trousers. Plenty of girls wear dresses but they tend to be the type that are like a short jersey tunic over leggings, which doesn’t impede them.

If you sent a child into nursery here in clothes that don’t keep them warm, dry and able to play outdoors there would be involvement from the school and maybe even SS because the child’s right to play and keep safely warm in winter is seen as vital.

As the outer gear is expensive, (a decent new overall is about 140 quid) there is a thriving second hand market for used winter gear. That must encourage things to be less gendered so they have better resale value. Looking around the playground this morning - fifty or so small marshmallows in various bright colours. Some pink, but most very bright colours or plain blue/green/red.

I can’t remember ever seeing a girl at nursery sent in in a frilly frock and impractical shoes.

And having spent plenty of time in toy shops recently they seem to be ordered by ‘type.’ So construction, vehicles, books, dress up, playing house, soft toys etc rather than pink bs blue. There’s still pink stuff and there’s still plenty of trucks, but it's not laid out like ‘here is the girl aisle, pick only from this.’

Agreed. I appreciate companies like Polarn O Pyret who aim not to divide baby clothes into sections and make everything ‘neutral’.

I have floral babygrows for my baby boy and I don’t care, he rocks them .

I have boys and most clothes are sludge colour, grey, dark green, blue and brown. It’s so dull! But then I look at the girls stuff and it’s all pink pink pink. I was never a girly child.

I have found Zara good for brighter colours and more interesting patterns.

I have got some really nice neutral stuff from H & M, they do have a lot of gendered stuff too but I always find some nice bits Although I love all the gendered stuff!

Its weird how this whole gender neutral has come about, i don't think shops are doing the wrong thing by putting clothes in gender categories and yeah everyone has different taste in what they want there kids to wear but just means shop around! But then again whats the point in finding out what gender your baby's going to be cause automatically your going to look at things for your baby related on the baby's gender hence why websites make it easier on that

@HRostar you don't find the gender, you find the sex of the child. Personally I did it to bond even more - to start using her name (instead of the baby nickname) and imagine her more as a real baby, not to paint the nursery pink and go on a "daddy's little princess" shopping spree. Most of the clothes I have bought are cream and white.

But then again whats the point in finding out what gender your baby's going to be cause automatically your going to look at things for your baby related on the baby's gender hence why websites make it easier on that

But why (to the underlined bit in particular)? What benefit does that have to the baby, who has no concept of their sex?

I haven't found out the sex in either of my pregnancies, but if I did it wouldn't be so I could buy anything based around that.

This reminds me of the posts I see all the time on a certain Facebook parenting group "Is this pram OK for a boy / girl"... FFS it's a PRAM.

I actually had so e people a bit annoyed we didn't find out the sex as they didn't know what to buy us

a certain Facebook parenting group "Is this pram OK for a boy / girl"... FFS it's a PRAM

Yeah that annoys me too. ‘Need a pram for a boy’. I didn’t realise they came with different attachments based on baby’s sex. 🙄

How can you have different prams for boys and girls? Have I missed something?

I've seen loads of the larger baby items in blue and pink