Natural Birth and Baby Care.com

How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby

I've gotten lots of questions about selecting the gender of babies naturally. And I've always been curious about it (read about our Shettles baby!). So the new edition of Dr. Landrum B. Shettles' book How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby gave me the perfect opportunity to dive right in to the subject of baby gender selection!

I was pretty impressed with the book. It's well written and very informative. Though of course you want to dive right into the actual sections covering your chosen gender, Shettles has decided to cover a lot of information first.

The book explains the sex selection method and deals with moral issues - which many readers will be interested in. There's also a large section of letters from parents who have used the Shettles method - I enjoy reading testimonials from others and liked this section.

The next section of the book goes into the long, long history of sex selection. You will find this section of the book amusing! I was reading bits of it out loud at a family gathering and had everyone laughing.

After you learn about our esteemed forefather's methods for ensuring the correct gender you'll move along to learning how to choose the gender of your baby. Shettles builds the foundation of sex selection with the ability to understand your own cycle. This section of the book was very thorough and well-written. There is enough information for you to get started right away.

I found that by the end of the sections on fertility I was eager to get into the "how-tos" for each gender. The book moves a little slowly through the fertility sections - but reading it will give you a solid grounding and the best chance at getting the gender you want.

The book finally arrives at trying for each gender. The information is presented in a clear, easy to understand manner. There's a checklist at the end of both chapters (Shettles - and I - recommend you read both sections no matter what gender you'd like) to help you prepare. I feel like the information is given in a way that will help you to have the best chance at getting the boy or girl of your dreams.

The book closes out with a little section on baby names and some information about sex selection in the future.

I haven't tried the Shettles method myself, but I do have a friend who successfully used it to get the first girl in four generations of her husband's family! The book was well written and enjoyable. It moved a little slowly at some points, but overall it was a quick read and quick to understand. You'll come away with a greater understanding of your own cycle as well as the knowledge to help you go for the gender you'd like.

My experience with the Shettles method:

My husband and I decided we'd like to try for a baby boy as his first child. I'd already reviewed the Shettles book and it made a lot of sense to me. Plus I'd had a friend who was successful using Shettles for a girl.

I re-read the Shettles information and I charted my cycles to get an idea of my own body's signs, as the book recommends. When we were ready to try I was able to pin down my ovulation day perfectly (with the help of my trusty charting software). We followed all of the Shettles boy suggestions to a "T."

I felt really good about our attempt. I was delighted to get a positive pregnancy test 10 days post ovulation. And we were very delighted when our anatomy scan at 19 weeks showed a proud baby boy inside!

I heartily recommend the book to anyone who would like to try a "natural" sex selection method, and who is also OK if they get the opposite gender, as does happen sometimes ;) In my experience and my friend's experience the Shettles method works - for pink or blue!