to think that we can't actually tell how big a baby is going to be?

[allhailtheaubergine]

1. I have lost count of the number of women who are told that they have "a very big baby in there" by various medical professionals, and then go on to have a perfectly average sized baby.

1. Even to the point of scans and monitoring and preparations for c-sections because the baby is SO BIG... and then a lovely little 7lb baby arrives via the traditional channels.

1. And people have to have a lucozade / glucose test thing for diabetes because they are "measuring big" and then go on to have demonstrably not particularly big babies.

1. You can't look at something and know how heavy it is. Scanning is looking. Big babies are weighed. What if they are small and dense? Or big and less dense?

1. And anyway, weighing is a silly way of determining what is a big baby and what isn't. What about head circumference? Shoulder width? Length?

Am I being a total arse (AIBATA) ? Or is predicting the size of babies a fairly inexact science?

even at >4500g being about 9lb 9 oz two on mine would count as that though one only just. They haven't grown up fat - all very fast and very quick straight forwards deliveries as well - though I may just have been very lucky there.

My mum was told I would be huge, but I was 6 lb 5 oz at full term. She was full of water. This was 29 (nearly) years ago.

3 days before I delivered my twins, I was told one of them would be 5 lb 10 oz (the other not able to be measured as he was too wiggly!) and he was bang on that when he arrived.

I think it is getting easier and easier to accurately estimate the weight of a baby, but you are correct it is a fairly inexact science!

Just out of interest, do you believe in 'heavy bones' for adults? Eg, I am 12 stone but a size 10, ergo I must have heavy bones?

"Big babies dont tend to gain that fast, especially if they are breastfed like mine were. "

God that brings back bad memories of arguments with HV - mine were bf and gained slowly but steadily DS heaviest most notably. The panic it produced in the HVs was unbelievable - I took to avoiding them only to have one turn up on my door step - never any other concerns about DC. Perfectly healthy DS but not fat enough for them .

"Just out of interest, do you believe in 'heavy bones' for adults? Eg, I am 12 stone but a size 10, ergo I must have heavy bones?"

No but different people carry weight differently - a large part of mine is in my huge breasts GG which despite me losing 2 stone post DC weight recently have stayed the same size and weight - so I'm in correct bmi zone for my height again. I've been told muscle is heavier than fat - so that may be a factor.

Opposite for me, dd was 7 lbs born but had wks when she put on nearly a pound, she chubbed up really fast (breastfed)...apparently this now means she will have a propensity to be obese which sounds like tosh to me!

I believe in heavy bones. At my lightest adult weight, I was a size 12-14 and weighed 14 stone. Many people told me I looked too thin.
2 of my 4 children have come up as obese during the school weigh ins. They aren't skinny but are very active and don't have rolls of fat. The 5 year old wears size 5-6 clothes, the 8 year old wears size 7-8. They are not large children.
My eldest is very skinny, ribs and spine showing, no fat cover at all but she weighs in at the high end of normal.

They measure bone density, therefore it stands to reason that bone density varies ergo some people have heavier bones than others.

When due to have my first i was told he be about 8lb he was 5lb14oz at 41weeks no idea why he was so small consequently had a few growth scans with my second and at 37 weeks was told he would be about 7lb if he went one or two weeks over he was 8lb 4oz at 42weeks.

I was induced to deliver my 10 pounder... 2 days later 6lb 12 oz. Humph!!