to not want to announce my baby’s weight

Whatever you do just do not lie to her about the weight. Your mum has an issue with food and weight. Imagine you told her baby was 5lbs and as she is growing up if your mum doesn't deem her to be at an acceptable weight she'll say things to your daughter like "you were such a beautiful tiny baby, what's happened" etc. You developed an ED brought on by your mum. You need to keep this kind of influence away from your own child.

Just estimate a weight in KGs and leave it at that.

18 lb wow 😱

She will comment on something... Weight - too big /too small
Hair - lots /none
Crying - too loud /not much crying
Feeding - too much =you are over feeding
Settles well - you're starving your baby.
Maybe play baby bingo with dh?
See her as little as possible... It's people like her that drive dms to pn depression...

I have a mother a bit like this. I've actually found that the best way to 'cure' these oddities with her is just to be really blunt.

"Mum, I am worrying about telling you my baby's weight because of the comments you continually make about other people's babies. I am sure that you are not aware of the impact you are having on me, so I wanted to have this conversation with you in advance. So we are clear - a 'normal' baby will weigh somewhere between x and y. I intend on telling you baby's weight, but if you say 'abc' or 'def' or 'ghi' then we will go home/end the phone call/ask you to leave."

And then stick to it. I cannot tell you how many times I've hung up the phone or left their house earlier than planned, but it is becoming less frequent as they realise I'm serious. My mother doesn't have the emotional intelligence to understand this, but she is able to understand basic rules even if she doesn't agree, and speaking to her clearly and calmly like a toddler is the only way to break through.

In moments of compassion, I can recognise how desperately sad it is that her entire sense of worth is built around eating, size and putting down others. But that's also not my problem and the generational curse ends with me.

Does anybody really care about a baby's weight beside the parents and at a stretch the grandparents?

18 lbs?!?!?!

Most people won’t comment and if they do then it’s not a big deal you are, kindly, being very pfb. I do get that it’s annoying but you will have a lifetime of people picking at your parenting one way or another, you can’t hide away from it.

Both of mine were 7lb 5oz and the only person who ever made any kind of comment was MIL who went on and on about how tiny they were but they weren’t, it’s a perfectly normal weight, she just had heavy babies so to her they were small. SIL recently had a large baby and it’s brought up to me all the time like SIL did something right where I totally messed up, as if anyone could control the size of their baby (I am considerably smaller than both SIL and MIL though).

I don’t think YABU - my first was 5lb 6oz - no reason, no concern, just small. MIL said that I must’ve been smoking throughout the pregnancy and told a lot of her family the same. I’ve never smoked. To her it was as though there was no other possible reason for a small (but healthy) baby.
So I don’t think YABU because idiots draw their own conclusions as to why they are the weight they are.

DD1 was 8lbs exactly and is about 9 stone and 5'5" as an adult.

DD2 was 9lbs 2oz and is about ten and a half stone and 5'10" in her late teens. DD2 was also 10cm longer than DD1 at birth.

I was 8lbs 12oz and so was DH back in the 1970s so I had a fair idea that my babies would not be tiddlers. They are both healthy and slim and were always in a healthy weight range as kids.

A local woman delivered naturally at a whopping 18 pounds at home unmedicated. She’s never fully recovered. My first born was a tiny 3pounds and my youngest was 8pounds bang on.

She sounds mental.

Mine were 9lb and 10lbs respectively, what would she have said then?! Women who have had babies can be fixated on birth weight, it’s weird. YABU not to announce it just because of your mum though, why even care what she thinks?!

I had a 7lb 9 baby and she was in tiny baby clothes for weeks haha. Then two big 10lb babies one that is very slim and petite now (and i'm only 5'2).

That's very weird of your mum, babies come in all sizes it doesn't really matter as long as they are healthy.

This is utterly weird. 7lbs was the average birth weight when I was born - a longggggg time ago.

7lbs is a pretty average weight !

@TeaAndToys I can understand, I had large babies and people can be very rude! (if you know what I’m saying!)

Yeah, you'll get asked, frequently. When DD was born we didn't know we were having her until DP went into labour. I actually missed the birth so wasn't there when she was weighed, and when I did turn up I didn't even think to ask because there were so many more important things to think about.

Over the next few days pretty much every single person I told asked about her weight. By day 2 I figured I really need to find this obviously vital information out!".

Part of that was probably an element of "How the hell didn't you know your girlfriend was pregnant", but part of it is just because baby's are essentially boring. They don't do anything to start with, so the only ways you can show interest is "Boy or a girl, "how's mum doing", "are you getting much sleep", and "what did they weigh?"

Yikes mine were 8lbs and I thought that was pretty average.

As someone who just had a baby you’re going to seem a bit weird refusing to say if you are asked, it can be hard enough to make mum friends as it is without being “that one who is keeping her babies weight a secret”.

Also, keeping the weight a secret doesn’t hide the weight in real life. You can clearly see the difference between a 6lb baby and a 10lb baby so if your mum is fixated on large babies, she will still see a large baby if there is one.

I’d just ignore this and move past it, she is unreasonable to be so fixated on it but you’re not going to change that so I’d just ignore it.

My mum has weird fixations too, utterly random. I have learned to let her give voice to them but never, ever respond to or even acknowledge them. She basically talks into air when she expresses them. Makes her look crazy, but then her notions are crazy.

How strange. My eldest was 10lbs 9 and by the time he was eighteen he was 6’4”

Your mum is being totally unreasonable. Time for a chat with her as to why she is fixated on babies weights

10lb 6, 10lb 8 and 10lb 13.5 here! Tell her about mine 😂

People are obsessed with the size of your bump and the weight of your baby. Lord knows why.

You can be super skinny and have a massive belly, you can be very fat and have very little pregnancy belly.. it means nothing, and the baby size will be what it is.

Don't take it personally. It will pass.

Shame it doesn't occur to people that the mum is very worried, because she measures small or measure big, and same when baby is born.

OP, unless I have seriously misjudged your mum, she will go on and on about the weight or something else whoever you do or don't tell. Tell anyone you want to tell, and practice rolling your eyes.