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.

Literally ALL babies look like dad when they are tiny. I swear. My mum says it's so the dad can tell its theirs!

I think a few posters are being quite mean to the op. There is a psychological aspect to it - I found it more difficult to bond with one of my children for many reasons, and the fact that I couldn't see any of myself in him didn't help. I didn't have full PND but I certainly struggled - at times I looked at him and just didn't know who he was. He could have been my husband's siblings child or similar for all I could connect with/only see of his side of the family. My feelings/mood improved over the weeks, and now a few years later I'm over it. Mostly .

Could be worse, when my other child is in a sulk he looks exactly like my mother. That was a face I'd hope not to be ever glaring at me again.....

@trevthecat

They always look like dad in the beginning. They are made that way for survival and bonding

Came onto say this. Just like at this way, you made a human because you love how your partner looks, so her looking like them is a bonus. You made her to be her own person, not a mini-me clone. She will be her own person. Congratulations!

I thought all newborns were supposed to look like Winston Churchill.

Oops cross post with @minmooch

Both mine were doubles of their fathers. I was happy for my son as I rather like his dad but my daughters father was an evil shit and bug ugly too, I’d seen the light by the time she was born and had left him. Well ones 19 and ones 3 and they are both the image of my dad now , which is basically me with better hair and chunkier. My daughter especially couldn’t look less like her dad. They grow their own looks and personality anyway, you’ll see once she’s making faces and expressions and finds her voice that unless you look for features you just see your child as an individual .

Ds looked like his dad and has always looked like his dad

Dd looked like her father to the point that people were questioning me about her mother. They thought I was the nanny. But now she looks like me. So much so that someone who had never met me spotted me in a crowd of 200 people and told dd that her mother had arrived.

I think all babies look like their father when they are born. I think it is a form of ancient in built thing making sure that the father sticks around.

My first looked like my FIL. He is not a good looking man and although she looked so like him she was beautiful as a baby. She now looks like my SIL.
I always thought it was, from an evolutionary perspective, so father’s didn’t regret their offspring.
Congratulations OP, your doing a brilliant job.

My DC have all looked like their grandparents (on my side) at birth. Now they just look like themselves (and one another). Happily, there is no discernible genetic link with their father.

DD and DS both look like their Dad
Why do you care? You had a child with him, surely you knew there was a 50/50 chance they would?

My son looks like his dad, we were actually stopped by a stranger once who said to my husband, wow, you don't need a DNA to tell you his your son. My daughter looks more like me, with different colouring but she has all my husbands traits. I think children start picking up mannerisms which make them look like their parents.

My daughter looked SO like her dad when she was born. Now she is 3 she is the spitting image of me when I was that age except she has her dads eyes.

@fizzandchips

My first looked like my FIL. He is not a good looking man and although she looked so like him she was beautiful as a baby. She now looks like my SIL. I always thought it was, from an evolutionary perspective, so father’s didn’t regret their offspring. Congratulations OP, your doing a brilliant job.

My second born was spitting image of my MiL when he was first born

Of course at the time I thought he was gorgeous, but I look back now and think “good grief”

However, he’s the spit of my dh so I’m a lot happier

To people who don't love them yet, most babies look like mini-octogenarian men . So if yours is appearing as only 40 she must be an exceptional beauty already :)

Actually, I think babies are a bit like clouds. Everyone can see different things - usually what they are looking for.

Anyway - don't worry; most people don't look like new-born babies for long.

Congratulations on your daughter. I hope that your DH recovers from the shock of the new soon. It is a huge change (for the unimaginative especially) but an amazing and exciting one too.

My DD was thw spitting image of DH all though the first year. So similar that you couldn’t tell baby photos apart. 7 years on, and she is the spitting image of my side of the family with very little of DH left

My daughter came out looking identical to her father..... Absolutely identical and I got all of the comments you're referring to and it was so annoying! Especially having spent my life being told "god, don't you look like your dad!" This goes to such level that 3 years ago, at the age of 31, someone approached me and started chatting asking about my family etc because they knew whose daughter i was. The last time he'd seen me I was 3, he has no contact with my dad and my dad lives 200 miles away!

Your post comes across as I'd you don't like your partner very much.

@Soubriquet

All babies look like their dad when they are born

I think it’s a survival thing so men of olde would say the baby was theirs because it looked like them

I've heard this too.

Both of mine were very much DH/in laws visually but as ds particularly gets older more people say he looks like me. Wait for personality to kick in, my DS is much more like me in personality and DD like her dad.

Some families just have strong genes and there is nothing you can do about it.

This is a pretty mad thing to be worked up about. There was always a good chance she would look like her dad!

It sounds like this is about other issues really - like your partner not pulling his weight with the parenting. Have you talked to him about the fact that he’s being a bit useless?

I wanted my child to look like his father.

When he was born he looked like me!

A few years later he turned into his dad.

Your daughter will change and have a bit of both you.

@MatildaTheCat thanks fir your thoughtful post and good advice, it really rung true. I will do that :-)
@Bluntness100 thank you too...I don't think I've got pnd just tired and hormonal and disappointed that my partner isn't enjoying it. I want to be there for him but I don't have much to give at the mo as the baby is so full on. It's quite hard to deal with a struggling partner ontop of a newborn x

My kids started off looking like dad except my youngest he looked different at first then evolved into a mini dad he looks nothing like him now none of my kids look like there fathers my eldest looks like herself middle one looks like me with his own twist in it youngest looks like me as a child

My DD is literally my sister (she doesn’t particularly look like me) and my DH mixed. If it wasn’t for the fact that I know she came out of me I would be concerned 😂😂.

Try not to get too worked up about it, babies do change a lot as they get older and being a new parent is hard no matter how prepared you think you are, I didn’t feel like I properly bonded with my DD till she was a couple of months old, not because I was depressed but because I was so caught up in this whole new lifestyle I never took a step back to enjoy DD. Your partner will get there, it’s still early days.

@Dorset555 Ah man those postpartum hormones are something else, coupled with the stress of navigating the maternity journey alone and having a newborn in a global pandemic I completely get it. Those feelings inside are totally normal and hopefully they'll pass soon.

Babies change so much in such a short space of time, mine looked exactly like me for weeks the poor guy was literally my double then one day woke up looking exactly like his dad, it's so weird! Now at 6 months he's a perfect mix of both of us.

Congratulations on your little one! (And from one pandemic mum to another, well done you it's totally shit and you did it!)

Until my teenage years I was the spitting image of my dad’s sister to the point people thought she was my mum. Then suddenly I turned into my mother-if I was not so fat I would be twining with her now! She is only a baby, not something to worry about. It does seem that you have focused on this because you are worried about your partner and the baby.