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??

At birth DD was weighed in kgs and that was put in her red book, but the midwife also converted that to imperial and wrote down that weight too. Unbeknownst to us her imperial conversion was incorrect... The midwife came to weigh DD on day 3, and used the incorrect imperial measurement for her % weight loss calculations. It showed an alarming weight loss and we were rushed into hospital and DD was put on a drip. When hospital then weighed her there was much bafflement for a while that the % weight loss was still high but not nearly as bad as first thought. Ultimately I think DD would have had the same treatment, but it would have caused much less panic! So definitely an example of it being helpful to just stick to one system or the other!

Thinking about it, I don’t think I was taught imperial in school at all (I went to school 1978 to 1990). I picked it up from my parents for height, weight, distance and volume. And also I think just by looking at the other side of the 30cm ruler so knowing that 30cm was the same as a foot/12 inches. I remember my Mum teaching me “a kilometre is five eighths of a mile”. I think in stones and lbs for people but I never got to grips with ounces and I much prefer to bake in grams. The only liquid measure I do in imperial is a pint, otherwise it’s millilitres all the way. And Fahrenheit means nothing to me.

I do a lot of sewing and often refer to American patterns and tutorials and their use of inches feels very foreign; I always have to convert to metric. “Sew with a 5/8 inch seam allowance” - 5/8 is such a weird amount to measure compared to 1.5 cm. Yet, as I said above, I find it impossible to think of my own height in anything other than feet and inches.

About 15 years ago, I asked my then teenage son, who was doing his homework in the kitchen, if I could borrow his 12 inch ruler.
The look on his face!
I instantly realised he had no idea what I meant .
I then asked if I could borrow his 30 cm ruler...

Some converters dont change to the actual lb. dd say if you put in 3 kilo some wound give you 6lb 10 (that's just a random guess as an example) as an actual weight but some will say 6.7 which means 6 point 7 as 7/10ths of the whole if thats makes sense? Im not sure how to explain it properly lol. (Numbers not correct I just guessed them as an example)

Oddly the vet weighs my cat in lb and the dog in kg

We had the same thing too. That's how I knew the cat weighed over a stone. I wouldn't have made the connection otherwise.

Penises are measured in inches.

I teach a stem subject at university, I'm often surprised at how easily students switch to using imperial units when they need to.

I was taught only metric at school, I started school in 1978.

My gran was born in Belgium in 1921 and grew up with metric, she thought imperial was bonkers when she came here in the 40s. She always used metric.

Same here @ArgumentativeAardvaark

Doctor. Babies are weighed in kilos.

I’m pretty good at guessing their weights too!!

Penises are measured in inches. usually by men who think 1cm = 1 inch.

Children's car seats go on kilos (cm only if you have a v new one and they often have a kg limit as well!) so I have always used kilos for mine even in the UK so I could keep an eye that they weren't getting too big!

DS1 was 3040g at birth, I have no idea now what that was in lbs and oz.

But even using the same word can make a huge difference in the location.

In Germany we had “a pound” as a weight measurement, it is exactly 500g. It can’t be used officially anymore but everyone knows what it is and if you ask the butcher for a pound of mince you get 1/2kg.

A US pint is less than a UK pint by nearly 100ml.

DS1 was 3040g at birth, I have no idea now what that was in lbs and oz.
2440g is 5lb 6 so I'd guess about 6lb

I know DC's birth weights in lb but only in kg after that. I only know my own height and weight in kg. Distance I use fairly interchangeably.

Temperature is the one that seems the most old-fashioned and out of use to me. I'm 41 and have no idea about Farenheit at all.

My parents are in their 70s and have embraced every aspect of the metric system for as long as I can remember. It's part of their very pro-European outlook. They would equate using most imperial systems with being old fuddy-duddies and Brexiteers which is pretty much the worst label they can imagine!

Kilo to pound conversion is not hard. 1 kilo = 2.2 pounds so you just double it and round up a bit, so 3040g = 6 pounds or so, maybe about 6 and a half (not 6.5!) as near as makes no difference, unless there's some really close answers in the guess the baby weight competition.

I’d dispute the basic premise of the OP. My DC were born in the 1990s and were weighed in kilos. One was 2.900 kg, the other 2.990. Their subsequent weigh ins at the baby clinics were also metric. When they were born I learned the imperial equivalents so their elderly relations could understand them but I can’t remember them now.

I’m nearly 60 now and so learned Imperial measurements for most of my education but now I primarily think in metric. Except for long journeys , then I use miles. However I still understand and visualise imperial just as well as metric, except temperature, for that I’m 100% metric. Just a crazy mixed up late Boomer.

I started school in the 70s and never learned imperial and have never used it. I have no idea even how tall I am in feet and inches.

People might be surprised to know the UK nearly went metric in the late 1800s ...

When I started school (a little before 1974) they had just switched to metric. We were the first year that was to be taught entirely in metric from aged 5 onwards. But because my DF came from Italy, we learned it at home anyway.

You will never kill off colloquial units though. Miles and pints forever !

A hot day will be in the 80s.
A cold day won't get above zero.

Oh I rather like that we use both! Born in the 80s and I’m actually rubbish at imperial (I don’t know how many feet are in a mile or what a yard actually is) but of course I still use miles to quantify long distances and lb and oz for babies etc.

I know my own height in both cm and feet and inches but if someone else were to say to me that they were 170cm or whatever I would have difficulty knowing whether that was tall or short whereas I know what I think of as small and fall in feet and inches.

And yes of course the red book is in kg and that’s what you are told at birth but I don’t think that’s what the OP means.
For keeping track of centiles we used kg but when people ask how big my babies were at birth I say 6/7 lb - I don’t say oh 3.1kg

A hot day will be in the 80s.
A cold day won't get above zero.
I buy my milk in pints and my fizzy pop by the litre
I like that about us though,that we have a kinda bilingual approach, and with converters online and on phones etc there's really no need to change that.

But even using the same word can make a huge difference in the location.

It does and always has. Six Spanish feet is equivalent to 5 ft 5 13⁄16 inches in British imperial units.

Even US customary units differ from British imperial units in several instances.

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