Blue for a boy and pink for a girl?

No, I don't think it's ok! I like all colours equally and try to get a range of different colours to dress my son in. Why should he be limited to one? I give him the choice now when ever I can, not just clothes but beakers, bowls, bags.... anything really and he often chooses the pink one.

Interestingly, for all those who swear by pink for a girl blue for a boy, it's not that long ago that it used to be the other way round, and just as adamantly. Girls were dressed in pale blue as that was thought to be the colour the Virgin Mary wore and boys wore pink as it is a "younger" version of red, which was considered to be the most masculine colour. All nonsense so far as I'm concerned!

by VerityG

No, I really dislike the colour coding of children. I've tried to avoid it with my kids. Apart from anything else, buying "gender neutral" stuff gives us more options with hand me downs. Though my toddler son will happily wear pink stuff at this point anyway. There's nothing wrong with little girls wearing pink and boys wearing blue if they want to. It's giving them no other option that I think is a bit sad and limiting.

by Jennifer Muirhead

I HATE the whole pink blue thing!! When I was expecting my first bub my SIL gave me a whole stack of hand me downs from her boys - but only things that she considered could be "uni sex". Anyway - my daughter ended up wearing a lot of blue stuff! Then my sister went and bough a massive bag of "girls" stuff for her. And she ended up with a bit of pink stuff (blankets, wraps etc) from my parents. This was all fine until my second bub was a boy! And buggered if I was going to go out and buy MORE stuff, just so it was all in different colours! So he uses pink wraps and blankets and jumpers...I had a photo of him all wrapped in a pink blanket with a pink hat on and someone said to me "If he's meant to be a boy why is he dressed like a girl"...OMG. I told everyone that this is what you get for promoting gender stereotypes for the first child!!

by lizzi

I try to go for more gender neutral colours - though the selections available at the shops sure don't make it easy!

by Vee

Why do we need gender stereotypes? They do nothing but cause problems for both sexes. They serve to reinforce the gender binary on children who can't even sit up, it's insane. My daughter's favourite colour was blue when she was young, she HATED pink, and my sons have all worn pink. Colours are just colours …. assigning them a gender is a very very weird culture.

by meggf

If a little girl, then I LOVE the 'pink thing'.
Along with pale colours is very sweet.

Boys....not the pale blue anymore, they can look great in all the other colours.

by jonaja

When mine were little I was given a lot of pink for my girl and blue for my boy. Having 3 bald babies, it was very difficult to tell what gender they were, so would dress my daughter in pink and sons in blue to make it easier for people to tell when we were out and about. Now they are older they pick their own clothes and have a variety of colours. One of my sons always picks pick and purple cups and bowls, I guess the brighter colours are nicer to him.

by Sarah Bell

Not necessarily however I DO like a baby girl in pink -think it looks so cute. I would not put pink on a baby boy and I do not have a reason, I just would not like it.

by Finy

Trying to buy anything un-stereotyped is a nightmare, even gender neutral is hard to find. Sometimes I feel we are going backwards.

by lynne