A Vent about baby girl clothes.

Argh! Why does everyone think all little girls and girls baby clothes have
to be pink! There is at least yellow and other colors. All the clothes
people are getting for me and an awful lot of what is in the stores is pink
pink pink. A lot of them are cute, granted. But if you don't want your girl
in pink, there's white or cream with pink flowery designs, and yellow and-
well mainly, it's soft pastel colors.

Blue is my favorite color. I LOVE blue. You can find blue *dresses*, but if
you dress your baby in blue layettes or onesies or tops and pants, people
will automatically think it is boyish.

My mom got very upset when I bought my not-yet-born daughter a white onsie
with little red and blue cars and tow trucks on it. (DH's husband has a
wrecker service and I thought the onesie was just adorable) but my mom
insisted everyone will think it is a boy and it's not feminine and cute. She
said I have terrible taste in clothes and no one puts their baby girls in
that.

So!! I do plan to get a few blue layettes for my girl too. I will contain
myself and do the pink dress thing, but I AM going to dress my girl in blue
and not always dresses!! (It is not such a big deal when they get up to be
older toddlers, the problem area is when they are little babies). I am not
the type to be offended when strangers come up and ask "How old is he?" of
my daughter. In about a year she will look girly enough.

"Jill" wrote in message
.com...
Argh! Why does everyone think all little girls and girls baby clothes have
to be pink! There is at least yellow and other colors. All the clothes
people are getting for me and an awful lot of what is in the stores is
pink
pink pink. A lot of them are cute, granted. But if you don't want your
girl
in pink, there's white or cream with pink flowery designs, and yellow
and-
well mainly, it's soft pastel colors.



I can count on one hand the number of infant dresses we have had for our 3
girls. Babies R Us usually has a good selection of pant sets for baby girls
that are brighter and not so pepto-bismally.

And FWIW, my 2 year old has pajamas from the Gap that are blue and have
trains all over them. She'll choose those every night if I let her.

Jill wrote:

My mom got very upset when I bought my not-yet-born daughter a white onsie
with little red and blue cars and tow trucks on it. (DH's husband has a
wrecker service and I thought the onesie was just adorable) but my mom
insisted everyone will think it is a boy and it's not feminine and cute.

Phooey on that! I got things like that for my little girls all the time. One of
my favorite outfits was red corduroy with skateboarding dinosaurs on it. I also
dressed my son in things like purple leggings, and he wore a pair of what I
*thought* were plain white sneakers for a year or more before I discovered that
they had flowers on the bottom!

It's not as though people could be trusted to notice, anyway. I was once asked
the sex of one of my daughters when she was wearing a large floppy hat with
pale pink roses all over it -- the kind of thing that even *I* would not
generally put on a boy.

--Helen

"Jill" wrote in message
.com...
Argh! Why does everyone think all little girls and girls baby clothes have
to be pink! There is at least yellow and other colors. All the clothes
people are getting for me and an awful lot of what is in the stores is
pink
pink pink. A lot of them are cute, granted. But if you don't want your
girl
in pink, there's white or cream with pink flowery designs, and yellow
and-
well mainly, it's soft pastel colors.

Blue is my favorite color. I LOVE blue. You can find blue *dresses*, but
if
you dress your baby in blue layettes or onesies or tops and pants, people
will automatically think it is boyish.

My mom got very upset when I bought my not-yet-born daughter a white onsie
with little red and blue cars and tow trucks on it. (DH's husband has a
wrecker service and I thought the onesie was just adorable) but my mom
insisted everyone will think it is a boy and it's not feminine and cute.
She
said I have terrible taste in clothes and no one puts their baby girls in
that.

So!! I do plan to get a few blue layettes for my girl too. I will contain
myself and do the pink dress thing, but I AM going to dress my girl in
blue
and not always dresses!! (It is not such a big deal when they get up to be
older toddlers, the problem area is when they are little babies). I am not
the type to be offended when strangers come up and ask "How old is he?" of
my daughter. In about a year she will look girly enough.



I hear ya Jill, although I've purchased a ton of pink stuff for Lily...I
have not bought ONE dress. I have also bought her denim jeans, red pants,
white pants...brown shirts, etc. I love lavender, so a lot of her clothes
are shades of purple. I also went through all Laszlo's clothes and took out
everything that wasn't clearly boyish, so she's basically all set for the
first few months of her life.

I am having a hard time finding linens too, but there's a really cute one
from Pottery Barn that I'm in love with...I don't think it has any pink in
it at all, just lots of lavender, yellow and green.

- Jen

Jill wrote in message
.com...
Argh! Why does everyone think all little girls and girls baby clothes have
to be pink! There is at least yellow and other colors. All the clothes
people are getting for me and an awful lot of what is in the stores is
pink
pink pink. A lot of them are cute, granted. But if you don't want your
girl
in pink, there's white or cream with pink flowery designs, and yellow
and-
well mainly, it's soft pastel colors.

Lilac's very popular here for little girls. Dd#1 looked lovely in yellow or
blue as a baby and I discovered that if they're in blue people automatically
think it's a boy-even in a dress. Actually, I'm surprised the number of
people who ask which it is when she's (dd#2 does look her best in pink!)
wearing pink.
My favourite story of this was when dd#1 was about 9 months. A lady who knew
my fil said "isn't he lovely-he's just like his granddad". She was wearing a
pink dress at the time!
Blue is my favorite color. I LOVE blue. You can find blue *dresses*, but
if
you dress your baby in blue layettes or onesies or tops and pants, people
will automatically think it is boyish.

My mom got very upset when I bought my not-yet-born daughter a white onsie
with little red and blue cars and tow trucks on it. (DH's husband has a
wrecker service and I thought the onesie was just adorable) but my mom
insisted everyone will think it is a boy and it's not feminine and cute.
She
said I have terrible taste in clothes and no one puts their baby girls in
that.

I only bought blue/white stuff before dd#1 was born as we didn't know her
sex. I asked dh to go and buy some "girly" babygros after she was born and
he came back with a pack of 3. One was plain yellow, one was plain blue, and
one was white with yellow rabbits on! I don't think any more people asked
dd#1's sex than have asked dd#2's sex. Dd#2 is usually in dresses, most of
which are pink and/or frilly, due to dd#1's dressing taste!

So!! I do plan to get a few blue layettes for my girl too. I will contain
myself and do the pink dress thing, but I AM going to dress my girl in
blue
and not always dresses!! (It is not such a big deal when they get up to be
older toddlers, the problem area is when they are little babies). I am not
the type to be offended when strangers come up and ask "How old is he?" of
my daughter. In about a year she will look girly enough.

Depends on the child as to how soon they look their sex. Some children you
know pretty much from the beginning. Some still are uncertain at 18 months.
Usually depends on the hair, I think!
I don't think what you dress them in has much bearing on what sex complete
strangers think they are.
Debbie

"Jill" wrote in message
.com...
Argh! Why does everyone think all little girls and girls baby clothes have
to be pink! There is at least yellow and other colors. All the clothes
people are getting for me and an awful lot of what is in the stores is
pink
pink pink. A lot of them are cute, granted. But if you don't want your
girl
in pink, there's white or cream with pink flowery designs, and yellow
and-
well mainly, it's soft pastel colors.

I have to admit with each pregnancy/child I've seen less and less gender
neutral colored clothes. Everything seems to either be blue or pink. And
anything green or yellow seems to be obviously meant for a particular
gender - green seems to be done in a boyish way and yellow is done girly.


Blue is my favorite color. I LOVE blue. You can find blue *dresses*, but
if
you dress your baby in blue layettes or onesies or tops and pants, people
will automatically think it is boyish.

Well you can dress your baby in pink head to toe, including the Olivia
Newton-John sweatband, and people will say "oohhh what's his name?".
People are dumb like that - lol.


My mom got very upset when I bought my not-yet-born daughter a white onsie
with little red and blue cars and tow trucks on it. (DH's husband has a
wrecker service and I thought the onesie was just adorable) but my mom
insisted everyone will think it is a boy and it's not feminine and cute.
She
said I have terrible taste in clothes and no one puts their baby girls in
that.

Aawww sounds adorable. She'd hate my kids Semper Fi/Marine Corps clothes -
lol.

So!! I do plan to get a few blue layettes for my girl too. I will contain
myself and do the pink dress thing, but I AM going to dress my girl in
blue
and not always dresses!! (It is not such a big deal when they get up to be
older toddlers, the problem area is when they are little babies). I am not
the type to be offended when strangers come up and ask "How old is he?" of
my daughter. In about a year she will look girly enough.

I honestly found dresses to be a pain till Charlotte was about 3 or 4 then
they were great (particularly for going to the bathroom). On babies they
look uncomfortable to me, they ride up. Certainly when the baby is crawling
a dress will do nothing but stress her out when she constantly crawls on it
and does a face plant

Jill wrote:

Argh! Why does everyone think all little girls and girls baby clothes have
to be pink! There is at least yellow and other colors. All the clothes
people are getting for me and an awful lot of what is in the stores is pink
pink pink. A lot of them are cute, granted. But if you don't want your girl
in pink, there's white or cream with pink flowery designs, and yellow and-
well mainly, it's soft pastel colors.


True, there is a lot of pink. I didn't mind it
terribly this time, since it's my first girl after two
boys, but one does get tired of it quickly.


Blue is my favorite color. I LOVE blue. You can find blue *dresses*, but if
you dress your baby in blue layettes or onesies or tops and pants, people
will automatically think it is boyish.

My mom got very upset when I bought my not-yet-born daughter a white onsie
with little red and blue cars and tow trucks on it. (DH's husband has a
wrecker service and I thought the onesie was just adorable) but my mom
insisted everyone will think it is a boy and it's not feminine and cute. She
said I have terrible taste in clothes and no one puts their baby girls in
that.


Pish posh. Genevieve wears a lot of her brother's
hand-me-downs and I don't think there's a thing wrong with
it. Sure, people will think she's a boy when you do that.
What else do people have to go on? Babies tend not to look
all that sex specific! What does it matter if strangers
make a mistake on occasion when her clothes don't scream
***GIRL!!!***?


If you look around, there are places that have things

for girls that aren't *all* pink, and even things that aren't
all pastel. Normally I'm not that much of a pastel person,
but Genevieve's coloring lends itself more to pastels (what
a surprise considering all the rest of us are better in
jewel tones!). Despite that, we have some great non-pastel
stuff, particularly in winter. Have you tried April Cornell?
There's hardly any pink there and I think their clothes are
adorable. They're having a big sale now ;-) Janie and Jack
also tend to have non-pink stuff in many of their collections.
Talbots has lots of collections that aren't overwhelmingly
pink.

Best wishes,
Ericka

You know, I dress my 3 1/2 yo boy in pretty boyish clothes, and not
because we really care about him looking really like a boy, but really
all you can find, especially now that he's getting older, is really
plain boyish stuff. He can be dressed in boots, corduroys, a rugby shirt
and a baseball cap and still strangers will say "she." The only thing I
can think is that he has red, curly hair which I ssometimes let get a
bit long between haircuts. I met another mom on the train one time who
asked me, "does everyone think he's a girl?" She said she had the same
experience with her red haired boy.

We decided not to find out the sex of #2, but if it's a girl, well,
she'll just have to do with maybe girlie separates and accessories mixed
with brother's hand me downs, because we just can't afford a whole new
wardrobe.

-Karen, mom to Henry, 3 1/2 and someone due 4/24/04-

Karen ) wrote:

I met another mom on the train one time who
asked me, "does everyone think he's a girl?" She said she had the same
experience with her red haired boy.

Yup, red hair is fine on girls, weird on boys. And cats are always "she" and
dogs are "he."

People are just STRANGE about this stuff.

--Helen

Sophie wrote:


I have to admit with each pregnancy/child I've seen less and less gender
neutral colored clothes. Everything seems to either be blue or pink. And
anything green or yellow seems to be obviously meant for a particular
gender - green seems to be done in a boyish way and yellow is done girly.


I absolutely agree. When I was pregnant with Adrian in
1994/95, it wasn't *easy* to find gender-neutral clothing, but
it wasn't impossible. It was a little harder when I was
pregnant in 1997 with Colin. This time around with Genevieve,
it was nearly impossible. I actually didn't buy *anything*
before she was born (I didn't really *need* to, because I
still had the newborn clothes from before, but I would have
liked to buy *something* special). My mother, sister, and
best friend went ahead and bought girl outfits and just
hoped that they wouldn't have to return them (everyone was
itching to buy girl clothes after so much boy shopping).


I honestly found dresses to be a pain till Charlotte was about 3 or 4 then
they were great (particularly for going to the bathroom). On babies they
look uncomfortable to me, they ride up. Certainly when the baby is crawling
a dress will do nothing but stress her out when she constantly crawls on it
and does a face plant


I'm sure they'll be a pain during the crawling phase
(we're not there yet), and they do ride up, but I confess
I love the dresses for the ease of diaper changing ;-)
I'm waiting until she's walking, though, before splurging
on the adorable wool swing coat (I'm a sucker for coats--
apparently it's genetic).

Best wishes,
Ericka