What to Know About Baby Boys

So, I’m a firm believer that all children are how you raise them. If you raise a child to be empathetic or proactive around the home, then they’re going to be that regardless of gender. So, this isn’t going to be a post about how boys are rowdier or whatever. This is going to be the practical knowledge you need to know about raising baby boys because there are physical things that make them different, and there are things that are definitely going to come up. Let’s go through them.

You’ll need to make a decision about circumcision

Personally, I let my husband decide about our sons’ circumcision. I felt I wasn’t really qualified to be making that decision. He ultimately decided to go with it because of the slightly lower risk for UTIs (which, yes, boys can get UTIs, too). That being said, there isn’t a massive difference between the two options, and circumcision is becoming less and less common.

Know that if you decide to circumcise, you will be dealing with care for a good week or so. It involves putting tons of Vaseline on a gauze pad and making sure it’s constantly covered until it heals. You’ll also need to keep an eye out for infection.

They will pee all over you

Seriously. They’re going to pee on you, the walls, and themselves. Personally, I never found keeping a diaper over their penis to work. They just kick it off. The best trick for diaper changing, I learned from the NICU nurses. You put the clean diaper underneath the dirty diaper, wipe them down, and then pull the dirty diaper out and immediately cover them with the new diaper. It’s not 100% effective, but it has been the most helpful thing I’ve found. I use it to this day, even though both of my kids are older.

They’ll pee in the bath too. At some point, you will be putting them in the bathtub, and they will be all over you. It’s a fact of life.

You’ll have to make sure the penis is down

For a while after my son was born, I kept finding him like wet. He would wake up, and he would be wet all up his back. I couldn’t figure out what it was. So, I Googled it and discovered he was peeing all over himself. When you change a boy, you have to make sure the penis is facing down into the diaper. Otherwise, all the pee is going up instead, and he will be covered in pee. So be sure to check that every diaper change.

Erections are normal

Your baby boy can get an erection pretty much from the moment he’s born. This is totally normal. Also, at some point, he will discover his penis, and you’ll be pulling his hands away as you’re trying to change his diaper. This is also completely normal.

The clothes are super limited

There are so many cute girl clothes out there. They get all the options, but baby boys do not. You’re pretty much limited to trucks, dinosaurs, and animals. Obviously, you can pick whatever clothes you want, but if you go with boy clothes, you’ll find yourself buying similar clothes throughout the ages. Personally, I just went with stripes and plain pants with the few neutral, cute outfits I could find. The good news is that it might be easier to dress them because you have fewer options.

Those are all the major things you need to know about baby boys. Everything else is typical for both genders. Boys are not naturally bigger than girls during this age, and they don’t actually have less hair than girls. Breast buds are normal for both genders because of the estrogen withdrawal after birth. Most of the stuff people say just isn’t true, and other than these things, the newborn stage is the same.

Got more questions about baby boys? Let me know!