This week expectant mom Heidi Klum told E! that she won’t be telling hubbie Seal if they are having a boy or a girl. The baby, due this fall, will the couple’s third, and Heidi’s fourth.

Heidi says that Seal doesn’t want to know, and so she’s being careful not to tell anyone just in case the news gets back to him. They have two boys together, and Seal is the adoptive father to Heidi’s daughter from her first marriage.

Heidi says that she’s hoping for a girl, and while the couple haven’t revealed when they are due, gossip columnists are estimating she’s at about four months and, oooh, excitement, she’ll soon be able to find out by ultrasound.

From a non-scientific poll of couples I know, Seal isn’t that unusual. A lot of dads were happy to be surprised, and most moms wanted to know. Perhaps moms want to plan the nursery colors and start buying pink or blue onesies, and dads figure that it’s not all that important until they are called on to instruct catching fly balls or inspect potential prom dates?  Stereotyping is alive and well over here.

Around mid-pregnancy, lots of men can’t wait to find out the gender of the baby. But at only half-way through, others see the birth of the baby as an event far out into the future and are at ease with not knowing right now. But wait until seven months and dad will probably start speculating on whether he’ll be watching football with his offspring or being begged for money to go to the mall with. Oops, stereotyping again.

I wanted to know what I was having, my husband didn’t want to know. I agreed I wouldn’t tell him. He went out of the room during the critical point of the ultrasound and the technician stage-whispered “I saw a PENIS” then we let him back in. Then I slipped in the parking lot by referring to the baby as “him” and the cat was out of the bag. Whoops.

It’s a hard secret to keep, so if your husband really doesn’t want to know, you might want to consider not finding out yourself, or you’d better be good at keeping things to yourself.

So here’s some more mom guilt for you. Baby boys with uncommon or unpopular names are more likely to commit crimes as teenagers and young adults.

Researchers from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania compared the names of juvenile male delinquents to male names in the general population.

They concluded that boys with common names like Micheal, Robert and Brandon are less likely to commit crimes. Boys with unusual names that are not very common – they cite Ernest and Ivan, Kareem and Malcolm as examples – are more likely to break the law.

So how do they think that names cause boys to become criminals? Well, they say that the names don’t cause crime, but rather speculate that parents whose children are more likely to become criminals are more likely to give their child an unusual name.  “They [uncommon names] are connected to factors that increase the tendency to commit crime, such as a disadvantaged home environment, residence in a county with low socioeconomic status, and households run by one parent“.

Does this seem slightly snobbish to you? Single moms and poor people give their kids odd names?

(Aside: According to Rum and Monkey’s White Trash Name Generator, my white trash name is Britney Jo Chickensworth and my son is Walden McTrailer. You can find yours here!)

The researchers also suggest that children with uncommon names are more likely to be teased by other children and the emotional damage may predispose them to commit crimes.  That’s hardly a flawless argument too – I went to school with a kid called David who was mercilessly teased for having freckles, a Richard who was teased for being tall, and another kid called Micheal who was picked on for… I really have no idea why. Names are one of about a million reasons why a child would be teased at school.

And of course, naming your child something unusual is not a guarantee of a life of crime or a impossible barrier to success – consider Donald Trump, Keanu Reeves, Tiger Woods and Barack Obama.

Unusual names are becoming more popular than ever. New parents either seem to pick something classic from the current top ten, or are at the opposite end of the spectrum and choose something unusual.  In 18 years time, half of the babies who are now teenagers will have an unusual name and are they are all going to be criminals? I don’t imagine so.

Do you think giving your child an unusual name is a hinderance, or does it make no difference?

It’s a known fact – smoking, first or second hand – is bad for our health. It has been shown to have adverse effects such wheezing and allergies among young children.

This latest study, however, showed that second hand smoking, passive smoking, environmental smoke, whatever you call it, can cause behavioral problems in children, especially boys with asthma. Kimberly Yolton, a researcher at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center looked at data on children 6 to 12 years of age who were exposed to an average of 13 cigarettes a day. She found that male children with asthma showed increased symptoms of hyperactivity, and aggression, mood swings, depression and anxiety.

The reasons for the behavioral problems are not known. However, these findings suggest that environment, especially family environment, is a very important factor in diagnosing behavioral problems in children. It is sad, because in these days of smoke-free surroundings, more and more smoking occurs within the four walls of  the home, thus increasing children’s exposure. Sad and bad.

Autumn was upon us and it was time to put away the shorts and bring out the long trousers for my 2 boys. That was the easy part. The hard part was sorting through the trousers which were too short, too tight, or those whose knees are frayed or torn. By the time I finished, 4 pairs needed to have their hems lowered, 3 pairs needed to have elastic bands repaired, and 7 pairs needed mending. In other words, my boys didn’t have any respectable pair of trousers to speak of. And we were about to leave for vacation in 3 days.

Now, I can do most household choirs competently enough except two – ironing and sewing. God knows I tried. When my mother-in-law asked me a couple of years back what I wanted for my *th birthday, I immediately said “a sewing machine.” Unfortunately, having one in my possession did not necessarily improve my enthusiasm or my skills for mending – especially trousers’ knees.

Now, I really want my boys to enjoy life and do what little boys love do – playing football, climbing trees, jumping off swings. I can even handle the daily mountain of dirty laundry. But mending! And mending them nicely, too, that they’d look acceptable enough for pre-school wear. Now, why hasn’t anybody ever invented untearable textiles?

So in the end, I had to do a rushed shopping for trousers. 6 pairs of trousers, 3 for each boy. I closed my eyes as I handed over my credit card to the lady at the cash out. I crossed my fingers that the trousers will last till the end of winter.

The first day of vacation, 1 pair of trousers got “holed” in one knee. After a week, we were down to 3 “holeless” pairs.

A friend once suggested I should make my boys wear knee protectors, you know, the ones used by inline skaters. Now I’m really seriously thinking about it.

So, mommies out there with active little boys – do you also have knee trousers’ problems? Any tips for a harried, almost bankrupt mommy?

My 8 (almost 9) year-old was ‘the baby’ for eight years. For a long time, I thought things would stay that way. Two busy, active boys always felt like enough, until a couple of years ago, when I started to wonder what it would be like to have just one more.

I looked into adopting a baby girl from another country then became discouraged with the whole process for a number of reasons. Then, I decided that maybe we should consider trying to have one more biological baby.

Time went by, and after a ‘missed miscarriage’, which involved a most unpleasant surgical procedure, I came to the conclusion that our family was just right as it was. I was getting older, as was my husband. We were lucky to have two healthy boys.

Wouldn’t you know that soon after that, when I no longer wanted to become pregnant, I did’ I was soon convinced that it was ‘meant to be’ and after trying every trick and old wives tale in the book, like the Chinese birth chart, wedding ring swinging over the belly, etc., was convinced that I was having a girl.

Then came the ultrasound. Then amnio, as it was a high-risk pregnancy due to age and a few other factors. I could not believe that I was having another boy!

I dealt with disappointment, then guilt over being disappointed and a whole bunch of other feelings. I knew that life would become more hectic and that adding a baby to the mix would be a huge adjustment for our little family of four.

But there were changes that had never occurred to me. Suddenly, my younger son was a big brother. My oldest had had that role for 11 years. For a while, my 8-year old reveled in being the older brother, in fetching a diaper, holding a bottle, making faces to try to distract the baby when he was fussy. And I could tell that my 11-year old felt suddenly, strangely out of place.

By nature, my middle son is more nurturing and gentle, while my oldest is a little rougher around the edges (but soft on the inside!). So it was easy for our middle boy to adapt to being a little ‘Mr. Mom’.

My oldest is naturally more moody, and his moodiness showed during those first weeks with baby #3. He had a harder time adjusting to the new baby in the house than his 8 year-old brother did.

And I had been worried about my 8 year-old getting squished in the middle-you know, ‘the middle child’ syndrome?

I’m happy to say that everyone is settled in now. Baby is almost five months old and both of his big brothers get a kick out of him and give him plenty of attention. It just goes to show that 1: kids will surprise you, 2: parenting can be the most challenging job on earth, and 3: not only do our children learn from us; we learn from them, too.

Trying for a baby boy? While what only really matters is a healthy baby of either gender, many moms would admit they have a slight preference for one gender over the other, and perhaps wonder how to have a baby boy?

I have a son, and if I could pick the gender of my next baby, I’d have a girl, to have one of each. But I want a baby boy too, and would adore another son equally of course!

Do you want to know how to conceive a baby boy? If you are thinking “how can I have a baby boy” here’s a rundown of scientifically based methods and advice that might increase your chances of having a boy.

The Baby Boy Diet

Much in the news lately: moms who eat high calorie diets around the time of conception are slightly more likely to have a baby boy. Moms who eat more breakfast cereals are also more likely to have sons. so does eating the baby boy diet work?

Brit thinks: No. Don’t risk skimping on vital nutrients. Just eat healthily.

Timing Intercourse to Have a Baby Boy

Biology 101: the sex of a baby is totally decided by sperm. Either a “male” or a “female” sperm gets to the egg first, resulting in a baby boy or baby girl. Male sperm are faster swimmers, but don’t live as long as female sperm. Female sperm are slower but tougher and more persistent.So there are various methods of timing intercourse relative to ovulation that increase the odds of having a boy. To have a boy, having intercourse as close as possible to ovulation gives the faster male sperm the best chance to get to the egg first. Here’s a closer look at this method including how to determine when you are ovulating . So does timing sex to have a baby boy work?

Brit thinks: scientific evidence supports this one and success rates are reportedly around 70%. So try this one. but the planning seems to take the fun out of babymaking somewhat?

The Loose Underpants Method

As female sperm are tougher, they survive better in hostile environments. What’s hostile for sperm? They don’t like being too hot, for example in hot baths, or tight boxer shorts. Activities your man does may also reduce the number of male sperm. Professional cyclists, scuba divers and jet fighter pilots father significantly more daughters than average.So loose underpants for him, avoid saunas or hot baths for a few days before trying to conceive, and if he is a cyclist and you want a boy, suggest he cuts down on the time he spends in the saddle.More evidence? My dad is a serious cyclist and I’m one of two girls. Another cyclist friend has three daughters.

Brit thinks: temporary lifestyle changes might be worth trying. If your man has a sperm-unfriendly profession or hobby, why not go on a relaxing vacation for a few days, give his male sperm a chance to regroup and then try to conceive?

Watch What Your Man Drinks, and Smokes

Smoking and drinking are both well known to reduce sperm counts, and just like the job or hobby your man does reduces the number of male sperm more than female sperm, drinking or smoking will reduce the number of male sperm in relation to the number of hardier female sperm. So heavy drinkers or smokers may be less likely to have boys.

Brit thinks: drinking too much or smoking is bad for you anyway. Dads-to-be should certainly be quitting smoking, and reducing the amount of alcohol drunk is a healthy choice. So these lifestyle choices are ones dads-to-be should certainly consider whether or not they want a boy.

Ovulation Calculator

Want to know when you’ll be ovulating next?

We ‘boy moms’ get to know each other pretty quickly. Maybe that’s because we, more than most women, are always desperately seeking female companionship. We relate and we commiserate.

But I don’t mean to be negative?I love all of my little men! I am the Queen of the house. My husband bought me a pink cell phone. My oldest son bought me the pink poodle Webkin, which I registered and officially adopted through the Webkins site.

When you’re the mom of all boys, you learn to look at the toilet seat each time you visit the bathroom; quite often, little boys ‘miss their target’ and leave little puddles behind. Of course, occasionally I forget to check the seat and sit in one of those puddles (yuck).

I have gotten a real education about sports, as my boys are quite the little athletes. Growing up in a house full of women, I knew all about toe slippers and tutus. Now I’m making trips to Dick’s Sporting Goods for cleats, shin-guards, baseball underwear and cups (you know, to protect a boy’s most sensitive body part?).

I often think of my midwife’s saying, long before I ventured into being the mom of three boys. She’d say: ‘There’s a special place in heaven for the mom of three boys‘. Did she know that I was destined to have a three’

I am friendly with a woman who has four boys. The first time I was inside her house, I noticed a sign on her powder room door which read: ‘There’s a special bathroom in heaven for the mom of four boys‘. Moms like us need to stick together. We need to laugh together about the crazy stunts our boys come up with on a daily basis. We need to laugh at how clueless they are about our (their mothers?) anatomy, at least until a certain age.

When my middle son was about two, he was fascinated with the fact that I had to sit down to go ‘pee-pee’. He walked in on me in the potty once and watched me very closely. ‘Mom!,’ he exclaimed, ‘You pee out of your butt!’. Lovely, huh?

This weekend, the three of us were browsing through the toy store at the local mall, when I came upon a display of stuffed Transformers characters (they actually transformed, and were all fabric and velcro; pretty much what one would consider “baby safe”) and opined that one of them would be perfect for our yet-to-be-born son. My wife, on the other hand, expressed concern with introducing toys with guns at such a young age. I countered that these particular ones did not have guns.

This started a huge discussion about what toys were appropriate for a young boy. As a kid growing up, my parents made an unspoken distinction between replica guns for me, and action figures or other toys that had guns. The former was not OK, while the latter was not encouraged, but acceptable. My wife, on the other hand, leaned more towards the “anything with weapons is not OK” camp. I pointed out that certain comic heroes such as Spider-man and Superman did not use guns, but were still considered violent, and asked whether or not they were OK. She could not provide a definitive answer.

I tried to rationalize that no matter what rules we define for our son, that once he spends more time away from us (read: in school) that he would be subject to the lowest common denominator rule. In other words, whichever household has the most liberal views about violent toys or movies or content is the one who defines the level of acceptability in a social dynamic. For example, child A, B, and C are in a class together. Child A is only allowed to play with cars and dinosaurs. Child B is allowed cars, dinosaurs, and weaponless super heroes. Child C is allowed everything under the sun. Eventually (arguably almost instantly) Child A and Child B will be exposed to everything Child C has been, regardless of the efforts of their parents.

However, even to me, SciFi Dad, lover of all things comic and Star Wars, that argument sounded hollow. Sure, I wanted to share my love of Star Wars with my son, but at the same time I wondered whether I was doing something wrong if I gave him a Boba Fett action figure that had a blaster rifle. Ultimately, I really don’t know how I feel about it. I know I’m not as far entrenched in the anti-weapon camp as my wife, but I don’t know how far away from it I am.

For those of you with boys, or expecting boys, what are your thoughts on this subject? Has it come up with your partner yet? Do you differ in opinion? If so, how do you anticipate rectifying the difference? And what do you think of my lowest common denominator theory? Is it that of a realist, or a defeatist?

A couple of nights ago, my wife tricked me into enlisted my help in going through the seemingly endless supply of infant clothing we had from our daughter in what was expected to be the first wave of organization in the now-uninhabited nursery. Our plan was simple: go through the first set of clothing and identify how much gender-neutral stuff we had for the baby we are expecting in October, who is supposedly a boy (although we have not received 100% confirmation of this fact yet).

As we opened each massive Rubbermaid bin, the flood of memories any normal person would anticipate hit us. We pulled out the sleeper she wore after her first bath, a surprisingly gender-neutral one based on the children’s book Guess How Much I Love You, that will almost certainly be worn by her younger brother. We found clothes my mother purchased that turned out to be too “boyish” for us to dress our daughter in. We pulled out articles of clothing we had forgotten but immediately recalled when she wore it and who had given it to us over three years ago once we saw it.

When we were finished, all the pink, light purple, flowers, hearts, and frilly collars were packed away in bins that will eventually bear the label “girl” and reside in the basement instead of the nursery closet. We were left with a little bit of blue (since it is my wife’s favourite colour, some people bought blue outfits for our daughter), some white and green, and a whole lot of yellow. I mean, I think we could dress this kid in yellow every day and every night for a couple of weeks (including mid-day changes for spit-up) and not need to do laundry.

My mind started to wander. We’ve got a lot of clothes for this baby already. Do we really need that much more? But, if we don’t get much more, then this kid will be in yellow most of the time, and if he’s in yellow, how many people are going to make the mistake of calling my son “her” when we’re out in public? Should we be considering a whole new, all blue, brown, and green wardrobe? Isn’t that impractical? I asked my wife for her thoughts, and she confirmed my suspicions: that we would likely get a few blue outfits, but that the predominant colour will be yellow for the first little while. As soon as we pass the six month barrier our gender neutral selection drops dramatically.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I am by no means saying that yellow is “wrong” for a boy. (My security blanket from when I was a young boy was yellow, for one thing.) I am just unsure how many people dress their boys in tons of yellow, and how many feel strongly that blues and greens and browns are more “appropriate” for baby boys.

What are your thoughts on the topic of clothing colours? How did you dress your infant sons? Did you use primarily blue, or were a lot of other colours included? Specifically looking at yellow, were the majority of yellow clothes you had from pre-natal gifts when people didn’t know the gender or older sisters, or were they choices you consciously made when purchasing clothing for your infant son? Is the notion of “blue is for boys” antiquated?

From the Chinese Gender Chart to fetal heart rate, parents have been trying to predict the gender of their unborn babies for generations. Now there’s new research that show how parents can actually influence the eventual gender of their child.

According to a study done at the University of Exeter and Oxford, women who ate a high-calorie diet around the time of conception were more likely to produce sons. The researchers studied 740 women and grouped them according to their calorie consumption. In the group eating the least, 45% had sons, versus higher-calorie consumers who had sons 56% of the time. Those who ate more breakfast cereals also had a higher incidence of producing sons.

This study may aid in the noticeable decline in the number of baby boys born in recent years. Recent studies have cited that boys worldwide now number 1 per 1000 births.

A Note to all moms who wish to have boys: It is always recommended to eat a healthy, balanced diet, and not just to increase the calorie intake with empty calories like those found in junk foods. Discuss your diet with your doctor for guidance. Also note that a high-calorie diet is still no guaranteed predictor of your baby’s gender.

The study appears in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Call me shallow, but before I got pregnant I wanted a baby, but really I wanted a girl. I wanted to buy her pink dresses, and Barbie dolls, take her shopping and braid her hair.

I’m a girl, I understand girls, my whole family was female, except my Dad who was good-natured and totally outnumbered, we even had girl cats and girl rabbits. I didn’t get boys. Boys are those weird, smelly, alien creatures who tortured worms in science lab at school. My husband, well he’s an exception, and anyway he’s a man, not a boy.

Before becoming pregnant, I have ideas of following the old wives’ tales of a “girl diet” and as it turns out, scientists recently suggested there’s something to that. But once I don’t get my birth control prescription refilled, before I know it, a pregnancy test turns positive. We are ecstatic, but now I have to confront the fact that this might well be a boy.

What made the difference for me was a book a friend recommended. It’s called It’s A Boy! Women Writers on Raising Sons. (There’s an “It’s a Girl” too, if you are the opposite of me.) Reading the mother’s stories made me laugh, cry, relax, worry, panic, and ultimately accept that sons are different, but every bit as good as daughters.

I’m glad I accepted my potential son early in my pregnancy, I think that I enjoyed being pregnant much more once I had made peace with whatever gender the baby was.

And by the time of the 20-week ultrasound I was convinced the baby was a boy. I was right – my ultrasound technician confirmed that she had seen a boy part, as she put it. But more importantly, she saw the kidneys, head, heart, and limbs of a healthy baby.

It’s a cliche. But cliches are true – It took me a while, but I realised that I really, truly didn’t care if we were getting a boy or a girl, as long as the baby was healthy. And I’m grateful beyond belief to say our beautiful, perfect, wonderful, adored son is healthy.

So we’ve finally gotten all of our Christmas decorations packed away and managed to stuff the last of our used wrapping paper and gift boxes into the recycle bin. But there’s no time to relax, because no sooner has the holiday season ended than birthday season has arrived. My son turns 4 in two weeks, followed by our daughter’s first just two weeks after that.

My to-do list is still packed, but looks a little different: swap baking Christmas cookies for ordering birthday cake; buy gift bags adorned with construction trucks or flowers, instead of Santa or snowmen; and send out birthday invites instead of Christmas cards.

The one constant on both lists is buying gifts for the kids, which is always tricky business when they’ve already gotten loads of stuff over the holidays. We tend to be low-key on gift buying for the birthdays (and store extra gifts from grandparents to break out during the summer) but the question of what to buy is even more complicated this year. I’ve noticed a very interesting thing with the Christmas loot: My son is playing with my baby daughter’s Little People playhouse, while she is checking out his police car and Screaming Monkey. My husband and I worked hard this year to get our daughter some more “girly” things, just so she’d have something that wasn’t a hand-me-down from her brother in which construction trucks, trains or cars didn’t figure prominently. Guess we didn’t have to worry about that after all. And because he’s “big brother” he likes to play with everything that belongs to our daughter, maybe because it reinforces that he’s “in charge.” Maybe we’ll get them a joint birthday gift of a toy dump truck filled with stuffed animals and dolls, and then they’re both happy.

Is there a “battle of the sexes” when it comes to your playroom, or are a lot of your toys gender-free?