Shopping for boys

One thing I've found super frustrating since becoming a mother is the difference in what is available for girls vs what is available that is unisex or designed for boys.

When I was pregnant I didn't want to find out Grayson's gender, I wanted a surprise, I didn't quite realise though how little there would be available clothing and bedding wise in high-street stores that wasn't pink or blue!
I purchased a Stormtrooper onesie and a couple of little batman ones, there was a small selection of white or beige items available and that was kind of it. Mothercare had a few nice brands such as Little Bird and My K but there aren't many Mothercare stores around and those brands are a slightly higher price range than the generic own brands.

It has become more apparent though as Grayson gets older that the stores all seem to be buying more generic "girl" items in than "boys" items.  Maybe this is because parents buy more for their daughters than their sons, but I find it crazy. Our local Sainsburys for example had 15 girls swimwear options during this recent heatwave and only 5 for boys, out of those 5 most were brands like Angry Birds and designed to be really garish. (Don't even get me started on how nearly all the girls options were pink).

River Island had a huuuuge sale on when I went in on Thursday, I'm talking a massive childrenswear markdown, the stuff of my dreams, until I realised there were 24 girls rails and 4 boys ones. And there were even girls things mixed in with the boys as they had run out of room. Now I am totally fine with shoving my mini me in "girls" clothes if they're unisex enough but there is a cavernous gap in that market too.

It was a similar story in a large Asda store I visited recently. I love Asda bedding, if you haven't seen the cute prints they keep producing then you are missing out, I'm talking mermaid cats, llamas and adorable biscuits here. But pop to the kids bedding and suddenly you're in a sea of pink and blue and the blue section is a hell of a lot smaller than the pink. It's exasperating.

Lots of independent stores have cottoned on to parents wanting more gender neutral items, cute print leggings, tees and dungarees but unfortunately with the high-street stores not following suit it makes shopping for a little human somewhat harder, the same way that you might not want your daughter pushed into wearing princess items and slogan tees about being cute, I don't want him ending up in football gear or Angry Bird merch when he's only 15 months old and wouldn't have a clue what any of it is about!