Why is it more likely for 3 of the same sex???

[Phteven]

I have heard that each time you have a boy the chemicals and hormones change so you are more likely to have another boy.

I wonder if this is permanent or if you have a big gap does it 'reset' back to being neutral?

[AndiE]

My Ob told me approx half an hour after the birth of DS2 that if we decided to have a third we had a greater than 60pc chance of having another boy! Well, here we are with a third boy on the way Not sure what the reasoning is but presume it may have something to do with my body being more accepting of boy sperm?? Having said that, we didn't try to gender sway with the timing of sex or anything else.

[Freya]

I wonder if this is permanent or if you have a big gap does it 'reset' back to being neutral?

Good point Onyx.

My mother would say it does, she had my sister and I 2 years apart and then later went on to have my brother 5 years after. She keeps telling me if I have a big age gap she would bet money that I have a girl. My age gaps are no bigger than 15mths so it would be curious to see if we go on to have another with a 4+yr age gap from the last boy what gender it would be.

[Melbournemumma]

My mother in law has 1 girl (first child) and over the next 19yrs had 6 boys with varying age gaps. I would love a little girl but am preparing that I'll probably end up with 3 boys. Ah well, will be happy with whatever little blessing I get.

[milka]

I'm pregnant with my third boy! About the gap my student midwife is one of 6 - 3 girls all 18 months apart... Then years later her mum decided on more and bang, bang, bang 3 boys back to back!

[ladybirdflies]

the first two girls were 2 1/2 years apart but then I had a six year gap before another girl, but with a different partner. My ex is a chef and apparently chefs are more likely to father girls because of the heat near the testies. I assumed after two girls and a new partner I would have a boy, but no, my biggest surprise happened another girl.
Then I started to wonder is it my body that favours female sperm?? I recently had two mc and started to wonder were they boys and I could not carry them??? We will try again soon, and I really would be chuffed either way, how amazing to have four of the same sex.... and how amazing a boy after all these girls... I do find all of your replies very interesting indeed!

[Caz_88]

This is genetics at work and unfortunately us girls have no say on it. Geneticists think they have found a gene that has three alleles that explains this. It means some guys have more male than female sperm, the opposite, or a 50/50 split. The beat way to predict it is to look at your partners family tree. Look at him And his siblings, more boys than girls, girls than boys, or even? And you can also look at his fathers siblings for the trend, and also any brothers of your partner that have children. It gets more complicated and hard to see in small families, and those who have needed ART. My partners family are 50/50 but he is in a stressful job and exposed to radiation on occasion, so my guess would be that we are more likely to be girl producers. It's also a noted trend in the defence forces to have more girls..... we have, out of the 8 babies born to friends, never seen a little boy!

[DaintreeDream]

I was told when pregnant with my third that my chances had changed to 70-80% of having the same gender again.... I did have another girl. I was also told that if I were to have a forth my chances would go back to 50/50.

On the gap thing, gaps between my children are 18 months, 21 months and 18 months.

I am now 8 weeks pregnant so I suppose I will be able to add a little more to the conversation in 10-12 weeks.

Either way we are happy, I don't really see how gender changes anything, although it is still exciting to find out

[Freya]

This is genetics at work and unfortunately us girls have no say on it. Geneticists think they have found a gene that has three alleles that explains this. It means some guys have more male than female sperm, the opposite, or a 50/50 split. The beat way to predict it is to look at your partners family tree. Look at him And his siblings, more boys than girls, girls than boys, or even? And you can also look at his fathers siblings for the trend, and also any brothers of your partner that have children. It gets more complicated and hard to see in small families, and those who have needed ART. My partners family are 50/50 but he is in a stressful job and exposed to radiation on occasion, so my guess would be that we are more likely to be girl producers. It's also a noted trend in the defence forces to have more girls..... we have, out of the 8 babies born to friends, never seen a little boy!

I think that some men just have more boy/girl sperm and some have 50/50 too.

That said, we have even amounts of boys/girls on both sides of family (including hubby and I having 2 sisters and a brother between us) and yet we have 3 boys!

[hj1981]

Ooooo this doesn't help with my wanting another baby atm i so could go another girl!

[nickers]

Ive heard the chances increase but never seen the studies behind it, we tried swaying number 3 but odds must have been too high already

[AnnaBelle]

Can someone organise a poll for all BB members with 3 babies - did they have all 3 same sex or what combinations did they have ....we could do our own little study ?
I am hopeless with doing the polls and only have 2 babies 2DS so I am keen to see what our BB group study will tell us...then I will decide to try for nos 3 myself (based on our own study!!!!)

Can someone do this as it would be fun to see the results of such a poll

[nickle730]

My Dh is from a very boy heavy family - someone figured out (before we had kids) that in six generations, only 2 girls had been born into his family and 40 odd boys. My family is evenly split between boys and girls and has been for generations. My MIL insisted when I pg the first time that I would be having a boy. I had a girl - just to prove her wrong! DS arrived 2 years later. DD2 was 5 years after that. Just to prove MIL wrong again...

[Chrispe]

Both my family and DHs family have 2 boys to every 1 girl. In fact most of the cousins, in-laws etc have three kids with either boy, boy, girl or girl, boy, boy.

We are a little different we have boy, girl, boy and now a new boy. (we are the only with 4kids)

So yeah both sides of family are boy heavy. 2 to 1 odds.

[leesha]

There is just myself and my sister. Dh's family there is 4...2 girls and 2 boys.
Dh older sister had 2 girls
Dh younger sister had 1 boy
Dh younger brother no children yet.

Dh and myself have son, daughter and son.

My younger sister has one if each.

I really think it is luck if the draw!!

[MLR1901]

My grandma has had 8 children 4 of each gender, all within 1.5 years if each other.
My mum had me, 7 years later a m/c, then 6 mths later fell preg with my sister and a year later my brother.
Both DH and I have even numbers of genders on each side. DH has 4 sets of twins, each generation, non identical. I have 2 sets of twins on my family side, 1 from great grandparents side and 1 from my cousin, both non identical.
It is all very interesting, genetics, that is!

[jellybean88]

My mum had girl boy ten year gap girl girl boy
Dh mum 2 boys after 6 generations of girl only
My grandma 5 boys 2 girls
Brother 3 boys
Sister 1 of each

Seems to be pretty even on my side will be interesting to see what we have this time we already have 1dh

[Blondie]

I am not sure of exact statistics but in my Husband's family there are hardly any girls. His sister being the only grandaughter (she did have a baby girl herself though). My side of the family there are seems to be a no set boy or girl trend.

A friend of mine has 2 sisters and they have all had girls....no boys at all in their immediate family. So maybe something to do with what the female is receptive too and what genes she has does come into play.

My SIL (who was a twin herself but never knew because she was adopted) had twins and was told that she would have an 80% chance of another set of twins so didn't go again.

I have heard that there are more boys born than girls in the world but lifestyle choices (more risky behaviour) means more of us Females survive.