Parenting Sites 411

I’ve talked about this tender subject before: the desire to have a baby of one sex over the other. Many parents are reluctant to admit they’ve wanted a child to be a specific gender, especially if they have ended up being the opposite. But nearly every expectant parent is at least a little curious about what they have brewing within and I’m no different. Which is why I was tremendously interested in this website that I stumbled across in my internet travels the other day. It’s an article hosted by in-gender.com, a website that professes to give parents the straight truth on gender selection. The article is called “The Odds of Having Another Boy or Girl“.

What I found there was a somewhat scientific study of over 6,000 families and breaks the odds and statistics down in an easy to read and easy to understand format. How many families had a preference? How many families already had children? How many boys did they have? How many girls?

The Old Wives Tales have always said (and believe me, I’ve heard it a lot) that once you have a couple boys and no girls, you’re far more likely to have another boy than you are a girl. But the truth? According to this study, you’re only about 6% more likely to have another boy after already having three (like me). And that’s not a whole lot. It’s true, you are more likely to have a boy, but that goes for anyone, including families with only girls. But that’s because people are slightly more likely to have boys anyhow, since the natural percentage breakdown is 51% boys and 49% girls.

What it comes down to is that it all is really mostly 50/50.  Regardless of what gender of child you’ve had previously, you’re just as likely to have a baby of the opposite gender as you are of the same gender.  It’s something that logic dictates to us anyhow, but sometimes, it’s just nice to hear.

I thought I’d share this site in case anyone else out there is a neurotic freak like myself.  And I mean that in the best way possible.  You see, ever since I was pregnant with my first son back in 1999, I’ve been obsessed with tracking my pregnancies.  I love to have a calendar I can look up every day and see what is growing or going on with baby on that day.  With my son, I printed one out and would read it to my husband every morning as he was getting out of the shower.  “Guess what, sweety!  The baby has eyelids now!”  Stuff like that.  It’s been harder, believe it or not, to find a simple calendar layout-styled pregnancy calendar lately though.  But I have found one.  And this one here lets you skip ahead and skip back (”Let’s see, what’s baby going to be doing on my birthday?” or “How far along will I be on Valentine’s Day?”).  It’s a beautiful thing.

It’s at JustMommies.com and is a simple php script.  Once you call it up, you can print it out or bookmark it in your browser to pull up daily if you so chose.  I definitely recommend checking it out if you are at all interested in knowing when your baby’s liver starts producing bile (FYI: my baby starts that on this coming Saturday).

You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little focused on pregnancy and pregnancy related sites these days.  I have a bun in the oven myself and my eyes are drawn towards sites that can help me learn more about the little alien growing within my belly.  Today I wanted to mention pregnancy tickers.  You’ve probably seen these on websites, in forum signatures, in emails, etc.  And maybe you’ve wondered where people have found these things.  Wonder no longer, because I have here a list of some of the best pregnancy ticker sites out there.  And most of them have more than just that, they have tickers for weight loss, children’s birthdays, anniversaries, and anything else you could think of.  If you’re interested, check them out!

• http://lafemmebonita.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi
• http://www.lilypie.com/
• http://www.baby-gaga.com/
• http://www.babysfirstsite.com/
• http://tickers.families.com/
• http://www.tickercentral.com/
• http://www.tickerfactory.com/
• http://www.daystogo.com/
• http://www.fortunebaby.com/pregnancyTickers.html

There, that should be more than enough to keep you busy this afternoon and keep your mind off of whatever it is supposed to be on!  Happy tickering!

It’s the first question you’re asked when people find out your pregnant, “Is it a boy or a girl?”  Or maybe if you’re obviously just newly pregnant, they’ll ask you, “Do you want a boy or a girl?”.  Why is this such an important topic for everyone, even those who aren’t the parents-to-be?

ParentDish put up an interesting article yesterday by Jennifer Jordan on “Would you admit you wanted a girl (or boy)?” That in itself is an interesting question.  I wrote my own post on my personal site about preference and if I have one or not (I don’t).

Also, check out these articles over at Parents.com on the touchy subject of gender, including gender selection and stereotypes.  I guess that’s what the touchiest subject for me is, the stereotypes.  I don’t believe in them and I do think that that genes and family upbringing have a lot to do with how a child acts more than simply “Boys are wild and Girls are sweet.”

Where do you weigh in on the Great Gender Debate?