Benefits of not finding out the sex

[allthesharks]

I'm pregnant with my 3rd child. It's DPs 1st, so I said it's up to him if we find out the sex or not. He's decided he'd rather wait until the birth. If it was up to me l probably would give in and find out. So remind me, what are the benefits of not knowing?

I loved not knowing. Made it a little difficult buying clothes as everything is in gendered sections, so hunting out the neutral stuff was a little harder - but equally after he was born I just went and bill bought what was needed.
My husband told me after he was born. He was then rushed away to be resuscitated so we had that to live on while we waited.
I wouldn’t find out again, I loved the surprise.

Everyone is different, for me the surprise was seeing what she looked like and I was just in awe of her, I don't think it was any less special for finding out the sex before she was born 🤷 finding out at the scan was lovely for us, we still bought a lot of neutral things, and her nursery was fairly neutral too. There is no right or wrong in this scenario :)

Didn’t find out with our second and it really was an incredible moment at birth. Didn’t have a preference so the pregnancy felt even more exciting not knowing.

I don’t really get the whole ‘being organised’ and ‘planning’ argument for finding out the sex. You can be just as organised not knowing. We still had all the equipment, clothes and stuff prepared and a 2 names picked out (one for a boy and one for a girl).

It’s a personal choice but I definitely preferred not knowing.

I think the advantages to not knowing are:

1. Resisting the urge to buy gendered baby clothes and kit. It’s so much easier to buy neutrals and reuse, or reuse stuff from older kids. A vest is a vest, and a newborn doesn’t care about the odd frill/tractor on it.

1. Could be wrong. See 1. about buying stuff

1. Could be a disappointment. Being disappointed through the third trimester when you’re big and grumpy (or blooming if you’re lucky!) is different to when you have a newborn. Then you’re just glad if they’re healthy. My cousin was miserable for the last 3 months of her pregnancy with a third ds, but delighted when the baby came.

Lots of advantages to knowing too, but you didn’t ask for them!

There is no benefit to find or not to find.

It's a choice that's up to you two. I know people who didn't want to find and it was nice. It worked for them so I don't think anything else mattered.
I always wanted to know, so that's what we did each time. It worked for us and full stop.
What I'm doing differently this time with baby number 4 is that we don't share the name until baby is born. We taught that was a nice surprise for everyone.

It's really down to personal choice but for me the benefits were;

DH being the first person to know and tell me what we'd had and whether I won the £20 bet we had going, despite being laid out in an operating theatre with about 15 medics surrounding me it felt like a private moment between us :)

Not having to deal with stereotypical comments about having my work cut out because boys are loud/girls and their attitudes blablabla during pregnancy.

People were less inclined to buy us gifts beforehand or without asking as lots of people seem to struggle with that type of thing when they don't know what sex the baby is.

I think it's far nicer to wait until the birth and find out when your baby is right there in the room, rather than just on screen.
I'd never ever find out until the birth. Plus I think newborns look better dressed in white.