"He's always been on the 99th centile"

[StickerPlace]

I'm in a bad mood this morning. So I may we'll BU.

But I've seen this twice today. (Granted was on the same thread about child size)

But I feel like I've read/heard that comment so many times. But it can't be true?

Or are the 1% of parents with 99% children very keen to talk about that?

(FWIW just weighed/measured mine for new dance uniform as had a growth spurt and nothing fits and 11th centile.)

My children are grown up now but all three were at the bottom of the centile charts as children. They are all shorter than average now. My daughter was always the smallest in her class at primary school and in reception class the teacher had to stop the other children from picking her up. She would often wear out her shoes long before they were outgrown. At 4 1/2, when she started school, she took size 6 shoes. At 11 1/2, when she started secondary school, she took size 13 1/2 and as an adult takes size 2. The invention of adjustable waistbands on trousers and skirts was a life changer as it was a nightmare getting them small enough otherwise. All in all, average height and average build are probably easier all round.

DS was an average weight but 61cm at birth. He was always way up on the height centiles. He was a chunky toddler but then just shot up and if you looked at him sideways you'd miss him

He finally finished up at 6ft 7.

DS was born on 75th centile but quickly dropped to 50th and has stayed there ever since. He's now 17 months. So I suppose he's one of the average ones that don't exist on MN!

Oh and @StickerPlace my very lovely size 8, 5ft 8 19 year old dd is huge as a dancer so I think your tiny dancer is the one that has the advantage here 😊

It isn't great being a tall child when you are stood at the side of class photos like a teacher. It's not great getting called names as a child, it's not great struggling to find clothes that actually fit . DH would almost certainly trade the need to get suits tailor made for being a few inches shorter, likewise being tutted at for daring to sit in the seat he has paid for at the cinema/theatre/gigs. The oh so hilarious 'what's the weather like up there big guy' wore out its welcome years ago. Given the choice I would love to be totally unremarkable bang average but I'm not, neither is DH and so unsurprisingly DS isn't either.

My eldest son was born on the 50th pet centile.mmHe was on the 99th by 3 months old and stayed there until we stopped measuring him. He’s 23 now and a bug lad! My middle child has always hovered around the 50th and my youngest was born on the 75th and dropped right down and stayed there.

My DD tracked the 0.4th centile as a baby and sometimes fell off it. It was a horrible time. It started pre birth when I was induced for her being too small and when she was born she was taken from me and went to SCBU and was fed formula top ups against my will just literally for being 0.1kg less than their protocol said she should weigh. People constantly commented that I must not be feeding her, I had to wake her to feed her every 4hrs on the dot for months, she got referred to dieticians, I felt incredible pressure to get her to put on weight and was regularly in tears trying to force bloody purées into her. My stress over the whole thing made her eating worse.
And yet apart from being small she was completely fine. Never ill, meeting all milestones, a happy baby who probably would have slept better if I didn't keep on waking her up!

In my next pregnancy I had consultant led care just because of her history and the consultant immediately discharged us as he said on reviewing her records that it was clear she was 'constitutionally small' and not IUGR at all.
All that fuss and stress was for nothing.
I was an odd mixture of really angry to have gone through all that for nothing and yet glad that someone was finally saying something that made sense.

The other thing that helped was she just grew up and people stopped obsessing about weighing her all the time when she got to be a toddler. She is a perfectly average height and weight teenager now.

So honestly I would rather have a 99th percentile baby than a 0.4th one. I think the judgement levels are as bad if not worse. People expect babies to be chubby and see that as equivalent to healthy.

Is this whole thread some sort of humble brag from OP? So your DD is upset about being the most slim and petite girl in her... dance class? Really?

That's weird because among girls at least, being slim and petite is seen as a very good thing. And in the sport of dancing, especially so, even at young ages. I've known a lot of dancers through the years, and "I'm upset because I'm soo slim and petite" is something I have never heard, nor is "I'm proud of having to have a bigger uniform than you".

I mean....my DS has always been on the 99th for weight. Since birth. He was a fucking hippo as a baby and I had to get a special car seat for him because he outgrew all the normal rear facing ones way before he was able to forward face (I don't want my children to forward face before the age of 4)

It was funny. He was exclusively breastfed so I knew it was just how he was. He has consistently stayed at this centile even though now he doesn't look 'chubby' he's just incredibly.....densely built. We joke that maybe he has a black hole at his centre to account for the weight.

It just comes up during the baby days as a topic of conversation, much like birth stories and feeding and sleepless nights etc. now it gets mentioned occasionally because you can see that he's going to be built like a tank once he's older. There are men in my family who follow a similar body type, again it comes up in discussion about family body types, genes etc.

It's just a thing to talk about. My friend had a child at the opposite end of the scale. Initially there was concern, she had to be induced for IUGR but all fine, she's several years down the line now and just tiny. We talk about how often she gets mistaken for years younger and again, how her family body type often seems to lean towards very petite.

Even 1/100 when you take in all the numbers is still quite a wedge of people and when it seems unusual inevitable they're going to be talked about more.

My other DS is straight down the middle, 50th centile height and weight. He doesn't get talked about except to briefly compare to his brother. I imagine it's the same for all the other average kids

@LimeSegment

Is this whole thread some sort of humble brag from OP? So your DD is upset about being the most slim and petite girl in her... dance class? Really?

That's weird because among girls at least, being slim and petite is seen as a very good thing. And in the sport of dancing, especially so, even at young ages. I've known a lot of dancers through the years, and "I'm upset because I'm soo slim and petite" is something I have never heard, nor is "I'm proud of having to have a bigger uniform than you".

You’re projecting adult body issues onto a child around being petite, children just want to fit in and not look too different from their peers. I think OP is predominately referring to height not just weight.

Our society values tall people (not too tall of course because there’s a fine line), like someone posted upthread, tall women are models, tall men are handsome. It’s seen as a reflection of parenting and something to be aspired towards, ive lost count of the amount of times someone has said to me or I’ve heard ‘he/ she is so tall’ (as a compliment) or ‘xyz mum did so well, xyz is so tall’.

I also have a small child, comparable to OPs but she’s 2.5, and let me tell you the constant comments about her size are a real annoyance, no humble brag here. She gets called a baby and told how small she is by strangers on the street and she will start to pick up on it.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity we have the same story there! It’s so stressful! My daughter is 2 and they’re still trying to work out why she’s short (10th centile). Do you mind me asking how tall your daughter is now and how old she was when she caught up? We were always told 2 as the magic age, if it’s not happened by 2 it won’t happen etc

I talk about it because, bar my father, everyone else, on both sides of our families are pretty short.

I'm 5ft 7 and by far the tallest woman in my family, so I assume I got my height from my father.

We have three children, the first was in the 50th centile for height and weight.

The second and third (a girl and a boy) were both on the 99th for height and 50th ish for weight.

So it's unexpected that they would be tall, given the rest of the family is short. They are 6 and 9 now and are still one of the tallest in their classes.

DS is off the chart for height, and around 90 for weight. Always has been. Midwife said he had the longest legs she'd seen on a newborn in her 18 years of practice. He's autistic, and when he was 4/5, I really wanted to get t-shirts made with his age/dob printed on them.

I used to find centiles fascinating when mine were younger. I am short (5ft 3), dh is tall (6ft4). I used to wonder who's genes would win!

Dd1 was always a 95th for height girl but recently she's slowed so I'll have to get her to up her game ;) She does have huge feet though so I am suspecting some puberty shenanigans are afoot.

Dd2 has split the difference which is interesting. She's just over my height now and probably has a couple more inches left so my bets are on her ending up about 5t 5/6. So here's one for your 50th centile

Oh and my Dd1 is 12 but easily passes for a couple of years older due to her height. She also has long blonde hair and a sway back (which means she has a curvy bum despite only just starting puberty).

This causes some distress - she got cat called by some utter arseholes in a van last summer when she was 11 and was utterly bewildered by it understandably.

That clearly has nothing to do with the thread but makes me rage! As did the very well meaning suggestion by my mum that maybe she was too old to wear shorts now as men will comment.

I have a tall three year old in 5-6 age clothes, people think he is much older and I have to say "he's just turned three" when they ask him a question about school or whatever. The next part of the conversation seems to be that yes he's tall and yes he's on the 98th centile. There is only one other tall boy his age at the nursery. 🤷🏻‍♀️

You really can't win as a parent, people comment if your children are on either extreme. Both DD were 99th centile until about one (and exclusively bf until 6 months) and I got so sick of the "my god she's huge!" comments. DD1 then started to walk and didn't eat much and became s very thin and wiry child and we had comments about that. DH is six foot and wiry too so the genetics were there. DD2 ate but didn't grow and height and weight gradually went down to under 25th centile by the time she was in infant school and all the comments were about how small she was as she was always the shortest in her class at primary school. As a late teen DD1 is bang on 50th centile and DD2 heading pretty much that way. So for all the rude people commenting to me I wish I'd had a crystal ball for the future as at the time it was stressful to answer them.

I don't get it, it's nothing to brag about so don't think anyone is showing off about this. Not that it's bad either but it's really not something I would notice. How odd

Most people go of red book, which doesn't have a line for each percentage so will be rounded to the nearest one, I think the next line is 95, so everyone over 97 is probably told 99, so that's 3% already.

As has previously been mentioned people often have two or more children, so that 3% of children easily equates to 6% of parents who have a "99 percentile" child.

The parent info sheet I got says the percentiles are based on WHO measurements from breastfed babies around the world in 2009. Average hight has increased so more then 1% will be the hight of 99 percentile 13 years ago.

Race could also be playing a part if your baseing it on mumsnet or people you meet in the uk, as your 'sample' is likely to be heavily caucasian, so have a higher average hight then Asian populations (for example).

With these factors combined I could easily see 10 or more % of uk parents having a 99th percentile child.

My dc3 was born on the 99th percentile. She has dropped to the 75th due to slow weight gain as a result of her reflux . She's gradually moving back the way and is close to the 91st percentile now. I'm glad.

My son was 98th for height and 91st for weight when he was born. He dropped to the 75th for weight from about 18 months old. He's now 4 and still 98th for height and 75th for weight.

My eldest was born between the 0.4 and 2nd percentile for weight. She was always on the 91st for height and at nearly 6 still is. Her weight is on the 75th percentile now.

It isn't a personal insult to you if someone else's kid is taller or weighs more than yours.

I've never said but to be honest I can't remember what centile they are on. After the 2nd baby I didn't keep up with it. They where growing out of their clothes and healthy and seemed to be OK so I thought Ok. And never worried about it.

You’re projecting adult body issues onto a child around being petite, children just want to fit in and not look too different from their peers.

Its society that projects them on to children. Even in early primary girls especially want to be thin/don't want to be big. In pre school they don't really notice size differences, let alone get upset about it. So yes I call bs on OPs daughter crying because she was the most slim and petite in her dance class. And that it was boastful 99th centilers that made her cry.

My 8 year old is the smallest in her class by a fairly long way (she’s in a mixed class with the year group above). She doesn’t seem bothered.

@LimeSegment

You’re projecting adult body issues onto a child around being petite, children just want to fit in and not look too different from their peers.

Its society that projects them on to children. Even in early primary girls especially want to be thin/don't want to be big. In pre school they don't really notice size differences, let alone get upset about it. So yes I call bs on OPs daughter crying because she was the most slim and petite in her dance class. And that it was boastful 99th centilers that made her cry.

I clearly remember the smallest girl in my class getting upset if anyone mentioned her height. I know women who are around 5 foot 5 foot 1 who wear huge heels to be taller. My friends daughter is 8 and absolutely tiny and hates it.

My 12 year old is 99th centile and was at birth (10 lbs). He’s tall for his age but he is also overweight which I’m trying to tackle. He’s the only overweight person in our household, his weight has just spiralled since he started high school. He’s lost a couple of pounds since we started doing couch to 5k together so he’s going in the right direction. I think he’ll end up being at least 6 ft.