"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.)

What's the thread?

I'm interested to know how accurate the charts are.

DS was nowhere near 99th, but was in the 70s or 80s for height, so we had a lot of people thinking he was badly behaved because they assumed he was older than he was.

When our foster son was 5 he was on 1st centile for weight and 3rd for height. Now he is 15 and in 60th cc entile for weight be and 68th for height. Things can change over time.

I found that growth chart here: www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/uk-who-growth-charts-0-4-years

Here we go again with the denialism

Dd has always been off the chart for height and borderline underweight regardless of what she eats. But according to the tall-is-fat brigade she is going to become obese any time now (12 years and waiting)

DS was born around 2nd decile, went to 50th and has always been there for height and weight.

To answer your question OP I have never felt the need to discuss any of this with anyone. People have so many hang ups about being or not being "tall" it's unbelievable.

@SleepingStandingUp

I get what you mean op, it's a statistics qn not a child size qn.

99th percentile indicates that at that size, only a tiny % of similarly aged children are that size. Same for being in 1st percentile. But if every child is 99th then that measurement is not longer accurate.

I think the percentiles are probably very outdated and I think babies in general seem to be large this year. Like extra fat chickens that are prepared for a cold winter.
DTwins were 6lb 12 and 6lb 13 at four weeks early. They're two and I'm contemplating a move to 3-4 (always been a size ahead). But they're similar size at respective ages to the two other babies bornin our school mom group. It's like they're pandemic prepped

The percentiles at birth are from 1990, and based on UK data. So, not that old!

99th percentile means 1 in 100 children, which is quite a lot really!

www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/uk-who-growth-charts-0-4-years

I have one child who is very tall (taking after one parent) and one who is between the 9th and 25th centile (taking after the other). Both have followed their lines from early on.

The first one’s height has come up more often as an issue. Firstly as she outgrew car seats too soon so height became a consideration and talking point for me. Secondly, she has gone through clothes and shoes much quicker than her friends. Thirdly there have been some issues with people thinking she’s older especially as a toddler.

The height of the other one has rarely come up in conversation

Poorly fed children won't be on the 99th centile. Parents associate with people like them. It's not that surprising that you get clusters of children who are.

Although -dons helmet - some of the parents who claim their DC are on the 99th centile, simply have fat children.

I've not seen that many people make this claim tbh. Mine have consistently been on the 91st though.

I don't think it matters op. Nothing wrong with being average weight/height. Life is what you make of it.

My toddler DC is 99th and has been since birth (just shy of 10lbs).

Can't say it's something I ever bring up unless someone comments on size first or misjudges age. Only ever mentioned because people think he's older than he actually is.

We are a tall family but I don't think about it too much except when trying to book holiday accommodation and having to ensure that the beds don't have ends on them or when DS can't get comfy in a restaurant as his knees don't fit under the table, especially when they have those sort of wooden skirt things under and he's not exceptionally tall, just really long limbed. DS2 and Dh are only an inch shorter and don't have any issues with the tables.

However, I was reading another thread where someone was moaning that she was having to buy clothes in the petite range even though she was 5'2 and didn't consider herself particularly short. That prompted me to look at the average height for the UK and for women it's about 5'3.5 which I found really surprising. We aren't a particularly tall nation it seems. (I think it was 5'9 for men)

@Cuck00soup

Poorly fed children won't be on the 99th centile. Parents associate with people like them. It's not that surprising that you get clusters of children who are.

Although -dons helmet - some of the parents who claim their DC are on the 99th centile, simply have fat children.

Depends- are we talking about 99th for height and weight, or just weight? If they're 99th on both, I would say it's unlikely they're just obese.

@RedToothBrush you do realise that tall children don't always equate to heavy. DC1 was off the chart for height at birth but only 88th percentile for weight. As an older child I think her weight is probably around 50th percentile whilst height still 99th percentile.

My ds1 is 2nd centile, up from 0.4 though. That's a whole different angle when his younger brother is taller than him

The percentiles at birth are from 1990, and based on UK data. So, not that old!. It's 32 years. Now I feel old 😂 but I concede that point.

But I do think there's a glut of apocalypse ready babies /, toddlers. I was surprised what decent sized twins we all had at twin group and all the recent singles are all big boys too

@danorak

My toddler DC is 99th and has been since birth (just shy of 10lbs).

Can't say it's something I ever bring up unless someone comments on size first or misjudges age. Only ever mentioned because people think he's older than he actually is.

I get that too. People regularly think my DS is a year old than he is. I feel the need to defend the gasps when I say how old he is, with 'he was born big'.

And no, he's not just fat. He really was 99th centile, requiring an extra stay in hospital as they had to check blood sugar levels etc for the first 24 hours.

I was just going to say that @smbc2020. I'm sure the little red books make reference to unicef.
Incidentally my ds is literally off the charts and I'm being made to feel crap about it off the hv.
He's the same height as his sister who's 16 months older and she's on the 90th for height. He's slightly heavier too. He will constantly ask for food, clears his plate (of healthy food) and looks to take more from elsewhere. He's been absolutely massive since the day he was born, was drinking so much milk as a baby I took him to the Dr who said as long as he's gaining he won't over eat. Yet here we are.
His dad is 6'3 and mil said he was exactly the same as a child. A photo I thought he was about 6 in, he was only 3 and built the same as ds. Dh is a normal weight now, but its certainly not something I brag about. Quite the opposite I'm very conscious of it

@Cuck00soup

Poorly fed children won't be on the 99th centile. Parents associate with people like them. It's not that surprising that you get clusters of children who are.

Although -dons helmet - some of the parents who claim their DC are on the 99th centile, simply have fat children.

Percentile for height and weight are different, my son was denied adequate nutrition as a baby, he was very underweight, as a result his weight and diet were carefully monitored until he was four. He is 95th percentile for height.

My first born was on the 99th percentile at birth my second was off the chart at 11lbs. Youngest followed the 99th percentile line through toddlerhood, and eldest settled on the 91st percentile line after he reached one year. I'm proud to have given birth naturally to two big bouncing babies and to have breast-fed them both (not exclusively). They're now aged 4 and 7 and we occasionally check where their height/weight sit on the chart. I probably did go on about it a lot, especially when they were little.

It is a different experience in some ways because we you race through sizes in clothes, car seats, buggies and have to replace things more quickly than parents of smaller babies (DS1 couldn't use baby swing as newborn because was too heavy and was tipping out headfirst, DS2 couldn't fit in first high chair we ordered at six months, first car seat outgrown by 8 months, buggy too small by 18 months, up to 18kg car seat outgrown by 2.5 years - brilliant!). Also the breast-feeding positions that they teach to new mums do not work for bigger babies - cross cradle hold depends on your baby being shorter than your forearm and neither of mine were.

Our health visitor used to say dd was 99th centile, put her on a diet (4 months), she's overweight blah blah.

She had cmpa, complex medical needs, prem, low birth weight, so had been on high calorie supplements and was consultant led. I ignored the silly cow.

I found her red book recently and the graph reads somewhere around 80th, after jumping from somewhere around 30th. Definitely not 99th. So maybe people are just listening to health visitors who can't read charts properly.

Oh yeah, and there's the whole having to explain to judgey parents why your two year old, who is the size of a five year old, is acting like a two year old in a park. The first lockdown was a blessing in the sense that we weren't allowed to take our youngest to public playparks during the worst of the terrible twos. I really feel for parents of SEN kids because other parents can be d**ks when they don't think your child is acting their age!

You’re probably seeing a disproportionate amount of posts on either MN or Fb parenting groups both from parents of big and small children because they’re the ones that tend to get the flack from HCPs. Big child or a child that climbed the charts ‘too quickly’ or crossed 2 centiles up and parents are often told ‘your overfeeding’ etc. Likewise parents of smaller kids are under lots of pressure to make them taller by HCPs and society that has an obsession with big children. I say this as the mother of a 10th centile girlie

^ oh meant to say it’s those parents that post as they’re reaching out for support or reassurance:)

@planningtomakeaplan

The reality is that a sizeable % of the excess of children on the 99th Centile are known to have problematic diets or issues with a lack of exercise.

Its just that too many people don't want to admit this.

Not sure how my baby managed to have poor diet in the womb?!!

By definition, 1 in 100 babyes are born abover the 99th. And - if it's genetic, then that'll be pretty much the same regardless of diet - surely.

Although I guess there could be factors like mothers smoking less while pregnant these days, meaning fewer babies have their growth stunted. That's not poor diet though, that's health improvements.

Yes, when they're older I have no doubt that modern diet and lack of exercise play a part, but that doesn't affect the underlying 1% who are are there because of genetics.

Well quite. I'm bemused by people who conflate size and weight and think that a 99% percentile child has a problem if they are 99% on both dimensions - there were be a significant problem if they were "normal" weight and 99% height.

All my babies were big (10lbs +) because they were long. I put on less than the recommended weight each time due to recurring HG. Didn't stop fuckwits telling me I ate too much during pregnancy.

I put them in the same category as the idiots who complain when a 5 year old behaves like a five year old, including idiots working in health and education who do this.