My baby looks nothing like me...

[Grapef]

I always used to joke about this with my friends. My DH has a daughter already who is a spitting image of him and looks nothing like her mum. It was always the running joke that our son would be the same...

Turns out this is the case and my son looks nothing like me. I'm mixed race with quite dark skin and DS is pale as can be with blue eyes like DH.

AIBU to think he's the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen, but to also be a bit sad that I look like the babysitter?

Have another child and maybe that one will look like you :) My first (a girl) looks exactly like me. Dark brown hair and dark eyes. In fact her eyes are darker then mine. I was surprised as my husband is blonde with blue eyes. I thought her looks would be a little more mixed or at least not so dark hair and eyes. Anyway, then comes the second child (a boy). I joke with my husband about my DNA being strong and winning the battle second time around...he didn't find this joke funny. Out comes my son and at first he has almost black hair....but the days go on and I realise his eyes look blue. As the months go on his hair turns blonde. So here I have a now 5 year old DS with very blonde hair and blue eyes. Everyone thought I was the nanny at first, people do not realise my dc are siblings. If it were not for my DS looking EXACTLY like my dh I would think he was switched at birth! Genetics can be funny. With mixed children you never know what you will get.

In our family two look like their dad - fairly dark skinned, dark hair and brown eyes. One looks like an Aunt - very pale white, curly red hair and blue eyes. The three do not look like siblings. And yes people can be ignorant about it.

Aren't babies supposed to look more like their DF when they are very young? In order to form a bond with each other? Or have I made that up … my DNephew was the spitting image of his DF until he was about 4, then he began to resemble my DSis. 10 years on and he looks nothing like his DF at all and looks very much like his DM.

We have one that looks absolutely nothing like either of us or sibset. Nothing to do with race, just completely different. Many many times I’ve had people ask if they were an IVF baby (donor embryos I guess). They are not but that’s not really the point, who the hell thinks it’s normal to ask that? Also, I did not have an affair, they are not ‘the milkman’s’.

Having said that I’ve had Dr’s ask me urging me to be truthful and disclose fully regarding IVF/affair but that I can understand due to the known/unknown medical background factor. Most people seem convinced kid is not biologically ours.

Most babies look like angry potatoes, i wouldn't stress.

I remember being out with my mixed race friend (half Indian), I have dark hair, blue eyes and Olivey skin. Both our first children were very blonde, fair, blue-eyed and looked absolutely nothing like us at all.

We were asked three times on one bus if we were nannies!

DC2&3 don't look particularly like me either.

My ds looks nothing like me or dh. But the photo of him smiling aged 3 has exactly same expression around nose and mouth as my dh at 3. My ds's feet are shaped exactly like mine. And his eye brows are exactly like my dad. DNA is a strange thing.

At one time this would have been considered wonderful news - it was evidence of paternity!

However, I know how you must feel. My DD is her father's child down to the last eyelash - it amazes me that she can be so much a feminine version of him. DS was the same until he got to puberty, when he suddenly began to look like my grandmother, but a very male version. He has the same strong (beaked) nose and very dark blue eyes (DH's nose is straight and he has ice-blue eyes).

Your son may change as he gets older.

When I was a child I apparently looked Chinese - I am not Chinese and none of my family are. But I had darker skin, straight jet black hair, a very round face and small eyes. Once I got a bit older and no longer had quite as round a face, I started to look more like my dad.

I also think sometimes people don’t actually see features properly & also mannerisms make a big difference. My youngest has my husbands dark eyes & hair so everyone thinks he’s a mini me. He’s not at all & actually looks the spit of me as a baby, same nose, chin, eye shape. When I visit my mums small village abroad people know i’m her daughter & think Im identical even though we have different shape eyes, noses & mouths etc.

A couple I used to live near had two beautiful daughters - the girls weren't twins, but looked very alike, except that one was white-skinned, blonde-haired and blue eyed, and the other cafe-au-lait skin, black hair and dark brown eyes. (Mam was white, blonde and blue eyed, dad was mixed race).

They were a very good-looking family and the girls must have grown up to be absolute stunners!

Most babies look like angry potatoes

DD certainly didn't look like me when she was little and you could certainly see my DH's side of the family across her eyes - that's still apparent and I can't see any features that are obviously mine. However, at a recent function at DD's school, I was approached by parents who'd met my daughter - they said they knew I was her Mum as we looked so much alike!

We have the opposite - so my kids didn't get the memo about looking like their Dad.

DH is Mediterranean with jet black hair and dark eyes. Our dc are fair skinned and freckly and light eyed like me (DS2 at 4yo now has the darkest colouring with green/brown eyes and mid brown hair but it took 3 years for the blonde ringlets to go and his skin to darken).

Photos of me as a child could be of them. DS1 is actually the spitting image of my dad which is totally weird as it looks like neither dh or I were involved in his creation at all!

DH says he doesn't mind, but I do think I would feel a bit sad if I was him.

My little girl is Blonde and blue eyes and willowy. I’m dark and dark eyes and plump. For a long time I ( not fully seriously) wondering if there was some scadinavian family wondering round our town with a little plum dark haired girl! However, as she grown up i’ve Noticed she shares my empathy and inpatientness and stubbornness and desire to always be right!

If it helps my siblings and I are also mixed race and look like different 'versions' of the races. It's actually quite nice to look at in the abstract sense but yes you are being slightly unreasonable.

Most mixed race and Indian babies tend to get a bit darker as they get older.

When my ds1 was born i always said it was a good thing I was awake for his birth otherwise I wouldn't have believed he was mine.
I'm dark haired, olive skin and brown eyed. Ds1 was pale skinned blue eyed and blond. And spitting image of DH as a baby.
Ds2 on the other hand is exactly like me. And looks nothing like DH.
When my boys are together, people who don't know them are always amazed they are brothers as they are complete opposites

It’s the same in our house, OP. DH is Irish - dark hair, blue eyes and fair skin... I’m olive skinned with dark hair and eyes. I was convinced I had the dominant genes but DS looks exactly like his Dad! He is absolutely gorgeous though... and does copy my facial expressions...

I'm not sure why someone would want their child to look like them. An ego thing?

I was warned that in the Caribbean it was standard practice for the paternal grandmother to have full say on whether or not to accept a child as being her son's offspring.
On the day I took DS2 to meet her I had this on my mind as he had Titian red hair and blue eyes (his older brother then had a blonde Afro and green eyes but had been dark haired for the first 3 months so had past muster on his first visit).
Grandmother stared at the bundle in her arms and declared "he's the image of his great grandfather O'Halloran." Amused I asked her what would happen if the next one I brought her looked Chinese. She gave me a conspiratorial smile and said "Girl, I'm sure we have some Chinese in the family somewhere". Loved her after that.

My eldest is the spit of his dad. But with red hair. My youngest though is the complete spit of me, although he does have blond hair like his dad.

When I was younger I always thought my kids would have dark hair and eyes like me. But it wasn't to be!

Although we are both white, I am pale, blonde and blue eyed, and DH is olive skinned, green eyes, dark hair. DS1 is a mini DH but with my colouring, DS2 is a mini me with DHs colouring! I find it fascinating how the genes are distributed.

I jokingly asked for a maternity test, as DS has looked exactly like his father since the moment he was born!

My son couldn't look less like me. He is his dad's twin. However he is all me in personality!