To think everyone knows that dogs are weighed in kilos but babies in lbs?

[Ducksurprise]

Well I'm obviously not bu because it's true that In the UK dogs, rabbits, cats etc are weighed in kilos ( ie you tell me your dog is 25kg and I can imagine the size )but babies are 8lbs 2oz and if you tell me the equivalent in kg I have no idea.
On the flip side I can imagine a 5k run more than a 3.3mile run but longer distances are in miles. Wine is in CL but pints are most definitely pints (as is milk but not coke)

Aibu to think we should decide what system we are using??

As a teacher who has to teach metric to imperial conversions to primary school children (when most adults can’t do it and would just use a converter online) I wish we’d drop imperial completely!!

You’re right though, some things just have set measures. Disagree about coke, surely in a pub you’d have a pint/half?

I agree. When they weighed my ds at birth last year it was in kilos and I was confused! I just assumed it would be in pounds!

5K is 3.1 miles not 3.3 🙂

I'm a science teacher and in my 20s so I use kg for weight. But when i told people my baby weighed 3kg they looked all confused (even people the same age as me) so I converted it into pounds for them. Same goes if someone asks my height, if I give it in cm they seem to find it baffling.
I would prefer to get rid of the imperial system as it is so awkward and doesnt convert neatly to metric. However even if it becomes official to use metric, informally everyone will still use imperial.

I know my children’s birth weights in metric. And their heights. And my own height and weight.

I don’t bother with imperial measurements generally.

As a midwife in the U.K., where I have worked we weigh babies in kg & then usually use a chart or the scales (depending on how high tech they are) to convert to lbs for the parents!

It doesn't bother me at all, I can work with both or either depending on the situation. My DC don't seem to have any difficulties either.

Easy enough to accept different units for different circumstances imo

I think it's a sweet oddity that we flip between the two systems.

I out 20litres of petrol in my car that gets 45 miles to the gallon.... 😁

DD was born 13 years ago and all her red book weight records are in kilos.

The poor HV always tried to convert it for me but I just waved her off as I am German and kilos make a lot more sense to me.

Imperial is just too confusing especially if working in an international science environment later on. Nobody talks imperial.

DD hardly ever used imperial in school, she has a rough idea but can't convert it properly.

Hasn't the UK been in metric since the 1960's??? Surely anyone over 40 was taught metric at school?

I know both for some things, but the vast majority in metric. (Didnt do all schooling in the UK)

......and I asked for a kilo of cherries and then a pound of greengages at the fruit stall yesterday and It made perfect sense.

@Elouera

Hasn't the UK been in metric since the 1960's??? Surely anyone over 40 was taught metric at school?

I know both for some things, but the vast majority in metric. (Didnt do all schooling in the UK)

In the 60s I was taught in imperial and had to learn things like rods and chains and bushels! Secondary in 70s was metric.

I thought metric is the official system? But I’m not from UK originally so for me only the metric system exists. During my first year in UK I especially struggled to understand quarter (of a pound) at the local market, it’s practically invisible amount. Pint and a half a pint is easier, pint is too much for me so doesn’t matter.
However I’m learning to drive (never drove in my birth country) so now speed for me is in miles per hour, but when we’re visiting relatives I switch to kilometers per hour.

I do everything in metric and I'm 65 so grew up with imperial. Metric is so much easier for working out.

BUT when discussing outdoor things in particular I work in metric but have to do a rough conversion in my head in order to visualise. Similarly if you tell me how far away something is in kilometres I have to do a quick conversion to estimate how long it will take me to get there.

I mix it up all the time.

I cook in metric and buying food makes sense to me now in metric, measure knitting in metric and weigh my dog in metric (that's probably because that's how it's done at the vet).

I weigh myself in imperial, always think of my height in imperial and when my DD talks about what her children weight, or come to that her own weight she'll tell me in imperial.

If I go on a journey, I do it in miles but, as pp said, I buy my petrol in litres.

If I try to deviate in any way, the measurements or weights don't really mean anything, except perhaps with food.

When money changed to decimal a lot of people went on for some time still converting new pence into pounds, shillings and pence until we got completely used to the new system and we had to get used to it because it was the system we were using.

The problems with weights and measures is that as a country we haven't entirely embraced the metric system: we still buy eggs by the dozen, beer is sold by the pint, babies weights are given in pounds and so on.

Also, America uses imperial of course, so we hear it all the time in American TV programmes and films, so it continues to be something that makes sense to us.

My DC were always weighed and weight recorded in kg. They will be 16 and 14 soon. The midwife/hv always converted it to lbs though.
If you told me your dog weighed 25kgs I'd knod and smile because I would have no idea if that meant it was big/small/fat/thin.

I spend a lot of my working day converting from metric to imperial and back again. The 2m/6ft social distancing guidelines still grate on me daily because 8ft is 1.83m and 2m is approximately 6ft7 I need to get out more

We also cycle road and track distances in km, but day to day I still do the speeds in mph as that matches speed limits. If we could drop imperial I wouldn’t feel bad though.

DD17 weighed in kg, the midwife then referred to a chart to convert to lbs.

So.

Height of people is in imperial but of things is metric.
Weight of people (especially babies) is imperial but baking is done in metric.
If I'm doing it on foot it's metric. But in a car it's imperial.

Not confusing at all 😁

I can also convert between the two, but those are the measurements I go to as a matter of course.

I only realised recently how much I use the imperial system. I follow recipes in ounces, I weigh myself in stones and pounds, know my height in feet and inches, measure journeys in miles, and have no idea how to convert any of them to metric. I'm only mid twenties, but I must have been raised like this. I often have to ask people to tell me imperial measurements because I have no grasp of what metric represents.

I did a charity ‘guess the baby weight’ for my first. You could spot the paediatricians as they’d all guessed in kg!

Interesting. They weigh babies in imperial but measure their length in metric!

It’s true that we hear Americans talk in imperial all the time, but they go one step further and say that people weigh things like 170 lbs instead of 12 stone 2lbs and I can never divide by 14 in my head to know if that is far or not!

My son’s birth weight in lbs is what I remember and I still think of myself in stones. However, now that he is 4, I only weigh him in kg and don’t know how many stones that is equivalent to. I have no idea what my height is in cm despite having had to do the conversion many a time. Just won’t stick in my mind.

Fat not far! (at least they do miles the same as us!)

Babies are weighed in kilos now in most places. I had to do the conversion myself too.