Worried about conflict/criticism if we have a son

[SecondhandTable]

This isn't my usual username, I'm using one I use less often for this. Also couldn't get my head around which feminism subthread to put it in since the ridiculous decision to try and arbitrarily split parts of feminism up...

Hoping for some reassurance or advice, please be gentle! I'm heavily pregnant (term) and awaiting my second child's arrival. I have one DD who is 3. I've never been bothered about the sex of our kids, neither is DH. We didn't find out until birth with DD and doing the same this time. We have had occasional eye rolls and occasional comments from family & family friends about some choices we've made e.g. buying clothes from the 'boys' section, keeping her hair in a short bob and stupid things like that. Not been a big issue though as she still wears a lot of 'girls' clothing, and nobody is bothered about a girl in jeans or playing with Lego or whatever really are they? However I'm increasingly thinking that we are likely to receive a lot more criticism and conflict if we do basically the same thing but with a boy if you see what I mean - there are definitely people around us who will have a lot to say about a little boy wearing pink or sequins or bows, who may play with dolls or whatever, even though I will essentially be doing exactly the same as I did with DD. Has anyone been through this and how did you deal with it? Did people shut up about it quickly? I'm so worried about it that I'm starting to really hope we have another daughter.

@Comedycook

Just want to pick up on this - being dressed in pink and sparkly will be to save thousands of pounds, the same reason DD was dressed in it! As we aren't a wealthy family this is very important.

Thousands of pounds

Baby clothes are relatively cheap

We just bought a bunch of sleepsuits and things for our second because we hardly had any with our DD being a summer baby. We spent over £100 and I bought the cheapest of everything from Asda (like plain white 5 packs etc) only in some newborn and 0-3 size and nowhere near the full extent of the clothing they will need in total. Over a few years of course that would be thousands of pounds if we bought both children entirely different clothing new .

I love a good hand me down with my kids.

If it's pjs or underwear you can pass on anything. Until your kids decide otherwise it really doesn't of their pjs or pants are pink, blue or multicoloured.

Trousers and leggings are also very easy to pass on and swap between.

As for some of the very girly things, might be worth passing those on and seeing if you can pick up some more 'boy' items to replace them. You can usually pick up huge bundles of baby clothes for free on local Facebook groups.

Over a few years of course that would be thousands of pounds if we bought both children entirely different clothing new

You can pass down baby clothes but as kids get older, clothes are often more worn out and stained and just not suitable.

I have a boy and girl...I've passed the odd thing down and trust me, we're not wealthy. But unless the stuff is quite gender neutral, you'd be really quite unreasonable to dress a potential ds in his sister's clothes for years

My firstborn was a girl and my second a boy, and he wore a lot of his big sister's hand me downs. I bought mostly fairly gender neutral babywear, but MIL was big on pink for girls, so he did go out in pink flowery babygros, too. As toddlers and preschoolers they both liked pink, sparkles, fairies and swirly skirts, so wore those mixed in with the tracksuit bottoms and fleeces. From school age, they drifted off into different styles, although they both (now at secondary school age) have some clothes marketed at the other gender.

MIL disapproved a bit, I think, but was far too polite and thoughtful to ever say anything. One of the parents at nursery apparently said some pretty unpleasant things about DS and us as his parents, but invited him to her daughter's birthday party anyway, and never said anything directly to any if us, and got over it with time. People thought DS was a girl all the time, and still often do, but he doesn't care, and just thinks it's funny.