Daughter looks like her Dad :-(

[Dorset555]

Hi I'm really annoyed that I'm so annoyed about this but my first child (7 week old daughter) looks just like my partner. She has done since she was born and everyone says it...his family. My family ..everyone. any photo we put online is followed by a barrage of comments to him 'oh she's your double' etc.
Firstly I don't want my daughter to look like a 40 year old man. Secondly am I being unreasonable, but I feel really jealous and upset that she doesn't look like me. I feel like I have put so much time and effort into making her and now spend 90% of my time looking after her and I just don't see any of myself in her appearance and literally all of him. To make things worse my partner is not really enjoying being a new dad and I'm trying to help him adjust but I don't even feel he really likes her yet. It all seems very unfair.
I keep checking myself though as I'm so grateful she's a happy healthy baby and this is really very unimportant. But I have to say its getting me down a bit. Am I being unreasonable? Thanks for any comments/advice.

[Sarahtrue11]

"you look like your father"

[listsandbudgets]

Mine looked a lot like their dad when they were born but now everyone says that they mix up photos of me and DD as we're so alike.

Congratulations OP, I hope you enjoy many many happy moments with her as she grows up. Whoever she likes like, she's your lovely DD :)

[ScarfaceCwaw]

I also thought this was going to be about how the DD was a product of rape or an abusive relationship.

[ScotlandUnited]

Her appearance will change as she gets older and if you have another, maybe they will look like you.

My DD looks more like her dad than she does me, but softer iykwim

She definitely has my personality, which is not always a good thing!

[StrictlyAFemaleFemale]

They really do change as they get older. Dd started off looking like SIL but at 6 is slowly morphing into me 😁

[Notimeforaname]

Yes just came on to say what many others have.

As a young child I was always told I was my dads double.

All of his family would comment saying 'shes definitely one of 'ours'

I moved away and didn't see them for a few and then all I got was ''jesus you are the image of your mother! You move like her,talk like her'' etc.

She will change a lot over the years.

[Bubblebu]

OP how old are you?

just curious as your original post included the reference to the fact that your partner is a "40 year old man".

[VettiyaIruken]

Yup. Totally unreasonable. I was the same. 😄 Felt bloody unfair.

Mine are now 20 and nearly 22 and they have both been the spit of their dad from day 1. You wouldn't be able to pick me out of a line up with either of them. But. They have so much of me in their personalities which I love.

[YippieKayakOtherBuckets]

I remember my neigbour banging on and on and on about how DC1 is the absolute spitting of DH. It gave me great pleasure saying, "Well, DH is actually his stepdad so... there's that." hmm

People think it’s a compliment. It goes way back - there are quite a few examples in Shakespeare of family resemblances being pointed out because it was a compliment to the father (e.g. when Don Pedro meets Hero in Much Ado, he says ‘truly the lady fathers herself’, meaning ‘congrats, your wife is clearly not cuckolding you’).

[Itsalonghaul]

My baby looked just like her father when she arrived, then her dark hair literally fell out and was replaced with white hair and she changed literally before our eyes. Now looks entirely like her beautiful self.

I am worried you care about what she looks like op, surely she is a tiny baby that simply needs to be accepted and loved as she is.

[GrassWasGreener]

OP yanbu, it’s infuriating,. Maybe it is dramatic and minor and ridiculous but it drove me up the wall. Especially as my family is overseas so I only had his side who of course only saw their resemblance. Which is normal I suppose, people recognise what they know. But when you grew it and are raising her it would be nice, while your hormones are still raging if someone mentioned a link to you. I totally get it.

I snapped at the family when DD was 3 months old. It was a family gathering, obvs pre COVID, and for 2 days all I had heard is she looks like x, y, z, not even just her dad but random family members. When it moved onto comparing 2nd cousins I lost it. Made some comment about me being nothing but a vessel to carry her in, hardly contributed at all did I!?
After that they sensibly came out with things like, oh she has your smile, your hair, your facial expressions lol. We laugh about it now but it did help and make them stop the relentless comparison of their family group. Ever reliable MIL only managed to switch to saying she had the same pissed off expression as me rolls eyes but she did shut up other than that

[Sjdmcfeet]

My daughter is a spitting image of my husband, that's because she is his child also and seen as how her dad the man I married iv no problem with looking at his double despite the fact I grew her 😊

It's never bothered me and my husbands older than yours lol

[speakout]

Babies change so much.

My DD looked like Yoda from Star Wars for the first few months.
Now she is older we could pass for twins- if is wasn;t for the age gap!!

[Hellohello53452]

My son did when he was born and then he has been my double for years, nothing like his dad at all

This hormones maybe be making things a bigger deal then they are

[Splann]

You’re lucky. My ds came out looking like a tiny, angry, spotty version of my next door neighbour (who I assure you had nothing to do with the input or the output)! I was ever so relieved when he started looking more like my dh Now he is a blend of both of us. My DD is very much like me and my mum. I’ve conceded that her ears might be more his side of the family (but we both know this is just me being kind).

[speakout]

My DD looked like Yoda from Star Wars for the first few months.
Now she is older we could pass for twins- if is wasn;t for the age gap!!

[celiafforcandle]

The Geldorf girls looked like Bob and the Princesses looked like Andrew rather than Fergie.

[tuliprosedaffodil]

My eldest was a dead ringer for her Dad until about 18m. Their baby photos are uncannily similar, even down to expressions, could be the same child 30 odd years apart.

She's five now, and looks exactly like I did at that age except her hair is a few shades darker blonde and she has his brown eyes not my green ones. She's also just like me in personality.

My youngest looked like neither of us as a small baby (we definitely brought the right one home!) and now at 2 and a half looks facially like her sister, but weirdly not like either of us much! She's also a brunette with bright blue eyes, so really not like either of us! Personality wise she's an utter law unto herself so we definitely got a wild card with her.

Just enjoy your baby OP. They're not supposed to be carbon copies of you anyway, they're their own individual people!

[RedMarauder]

As PP have pointed out all babies look like their dad when they are born.

As the months pass their then look different and can end up looking like anyone who they are blood related to.

For example my DD looks like me but with her paternal grandfather's hair, there as one of my cousin's is a taller carbon copy of my dad. They use to enjoy walking into a room together as people's mouth's would drop open. Then people would be more confused when it was revealed they were uncle and nephew not father and son. Myself and my siblings just found it very funny.

[QuidditchQueen]

Surely you should be delighted she looks like the man you love!
Anyway it is a well-documented evolutionary thing /babies that looked like their fathers were more likely to make it to adulthood because the man was satisfied that he really was the father snd more likely to stick around and support the mother.

[Rukaya]

Given that mirrors are a very recent invention - relatively speaking - this seems unlikely.Men tens of thousands of years ago wouldn't really know what they looked like in any detail

Other people had eyes though, and mouths to say "that bairn looks nothing like you, but it does look like yon fella from the next cave over"

[Happycat1212]

They don’t all look like their dad when born. My friends baby was white with blonde hair (both parents are mixed race neither has blonde hair) hence the jokes she got as the child looked nothing like her partner, so no they don’t ALL look like their fathers.

[renovationfatigue]

I find my children go through stages of looking like each of us. Everyone is always telling me how similar my ds looks to me but all I see if my mil when I look at her as she has exactly the same nose!

[renovationfatigue]

I mean dd!

[thesugarbumfairy]

Ah bless you. YABU but I do get it. However babies change. A lot. Their faces change. Their colouring changes. And even if yours still looks more like their dad - well there was always a chance there was going to happen. My eldest doesn't look like me or his dad, which had always been slightly baffling, until I realised that once he got to about 10, he looks like my dad when he was a kid.

Just try and enjoy your baby. She doesn't know what she looks like. She knows when she has her mum with her though.