"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.)

Everyone’s kids on mumsnet are like 5ft tall by reception
They’re ALWAYS slim though
I imagine a super race of 6ft5 teens built like Olympic rowers, striding through the streets of Home Counties towns from school where they get no less than a grade 8 in anything, to their Naice tasteful houses where they eat enormous amounts of organic veg and fruit, heaping plates of ‘from scratch’ evening meals and then retire to bed for another day of over achieving and being really, really tall. Oh and they are all good at skiing.

I think in reality mumsnetters either exaggerate and/or the over average income of many of them means their kids have access to really good nutrition and often don’t go to crappy primary schools with crappy food but prep schools where they get full on sit down meals 2x a day. So it contributes to them generally growing and thriving potentially more than someone’s kids who are being raised below the poverty line

My DS has always been 50th percentile
DD is 40th percentile

They are bigger than me but I am 5 foot so didn't expect giants!

Not a good or bad thing, and one you can't change. My entire family is on the small side and obsessed about me being small and started constantly talking about the DCs until I stopped them, because I don't ever want to make it an issue.

My daughter was on the 98th centile. 10lb 5oz at birth. She's only just 13 and is 5ft 8.5 inches and a size 7.5 shoe.

My little boy has always been around the 50th centile if that makes you feel better OP.

@Geezabreak82

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!

Yep, we've had that. Once at a play centre a boy (in school uniform so at least 4.5 (in scotland) was harrasing and poking my DS1 who was just a bit over two. Nothing overly bad, just kids being kids but i was watching carefully ready to step in if required but I wanted DS to handle it himself. Eventually my son turned round and hit him and boy went over crying to his dad. Who came over furious and shouty but was a bit more sheepish when I pointed out that his son had started it and my DS was only 2.

Someone the other day thought he was 2 years old and it made me feel like shit.

Yes like me my DD is pretty small and reading stuff like 'people are taller these days because of better nutrition' makes me think shit, do people assume I don't feed her enough healthy food? I think people speak without thinking. It's like with teenage acne, I think a lot of people think that if kids get it it must be due to unhealthy lifestyle habits.

I had two who tracked the line just below the 0.4 centile. The others were more
Middling. It doesn't get brought up on chats about clothes because it's easy to buy a smaller size. It's the bigger/taller sizes that are more problematic when buying for a child.

Dd also on the 99. something centile. 15 next month and 5ft 11, size 9 feet.
It is no fun having a tall child. You spend a lot of time explaining why your massive 3yr old is having a tantrum. Got bored of being tutted at personally.

@UnbeatenMum

I'm slightly anxious about how tall my 2yo is because people already approach him and talk to him like he's 4, it's happened twice in the last two weeks. So I probably talk about it more. Didn't really ever talk about my closer to the average height children.

When he is 3 or 4 they will ask why he isnt in school!

DS shot up the centiles in his first year, was 6ft at 13, but never got taller and is 6ft at 26.
And @RedToothBrush, he is not and never been obese or even overweight

We have been at the opposite end of the scale, with DD being on the 10th centile, but often 4th or 1st over the years (and meds she was on for a few years didn't help that). She's still very skinny, but has grown in height at least, and has some bit to go yet (her feet are size 8 so we're expecting another 3-4" in height). But she's still only a skinny size 8. (But full of muscle at the same time).

@Sweetpeasaremadeforbees controversial but i wouldn’t mind if my child was, like me, smaller than average. I don’t gain weight easily and can to an extent not worry about what I eat, I don’t have to go to special shops to get shoes that fit and can buy VAT free kids jeans and leggings and trainers for cheap !! If I had a daughter who was 6ft2 I think I’d worry about her. My friend is 6ft and extremely self conscious.

@Filthyslattern

my eldest son was consistently on the 99.6th centile and then went above it but still followed the line if you see what i mean. He's an adult now and 6 foot 8.

I love that the first reply confirms your suspicion that 'the 1% of parents with 99% children very keen to talk about that'

@Sweetpeasaremadeforbees should say the child in question is a girl. I think there is a stigma about not having a ‘big strapping lad’ that is unfair

@Rowgtfc72

Dd also on the 99. something centile. 15 next month and 5ft 11, size 9 feet. It is no fun having a tall child. You spend a lot of time explaining why your massive 3yr old is having a tantrum. Got bored of being tutted at personally.

Also, superhuman strength that is required. I am really petite, trying to wrangle a giant 2 year old for a nappy change is impossible some days!

And yes, being judged because they look older than they are. Not helped by him having great speech [/stealthbrag before anyone else calls it].

@MrsTimRiggins

I don’t even know what centile my boy is, I don’t think I’ve ever been told 🤣 I expect it would be a 90-something. I guess it’s one of those things that you don’t mention unless it’s very high or very low, so you just notice it mentioned more iyswim?

Yes this I think, my DS average birth weigh and fairly average height until he hit puberty and is now 6ft at 15, I have no idea what percentile he was / is (if I want to really embarrass myself as a parent, I don't even know where his red book is). However, my DD was 4lb 1oz at birth and 3lb 10oz on discharge from hospital, we had weekly, then fortnightly weigh in's for months. I could tell you exactly which percentile she was until she went to school. She mostly followed the 0.4 percentile which the odd dip now and again. When your children are usually tall, short, slim, bigger built people constantly comment on it so you get used to saying, oh yes they have always been ....

Better nutrition doesn't outdo genetics though, it may just allow people to meet their full genetic potential. Sometimes children who are overfed might be tall children but their bodies might be pushed into puberty early and therefore not meet their potential either. It's complex.

As i said, I come from a tall family. My parents were both born in the early 1930s. DM was brought up in a poor but not exceptionally poor house, they mostly had enough to eat albeit nothing fancy. She was 5'6. My DF was brought up in abject poverty, orphaned, at times went into a children's homes etc. Ended up 5'11. Myself and brothers and sisters are all above average height, brought up pretty poor in the 60s. All the male grandchildren are over 6'2 despite some of their mothers being around 5 foot. The female grandchildren are more of a mixed bag with the taller girls coming from my sisters rather than SiLs. I'm sure my dad would have made it over 6 foot is he'd had access to regular and decent food.

@Talipesmum

Why couldn’t it be true? Some people are a lot taller than other people. Their kids are very likely to be consistently taller than their peers throughout their lives. Class photos often have the same few kids towering above others on the back row year after year.

It can all go a bit awry when they start hitting puberty as the growth spurts associated with that all depend rather on when puberty kicks in.

I'm stood at one side the teacher on the other side in all class photos. People would probably wonder why the TA was in school uniform if they looked at them now.

Both DDs over 99th last time I looked which was about age 1 for both of them. It was so obvious when they were born that it wasn’t going to be a useful tool for them, as DD1 went straight into 1 month old baby grows and I had to cut the toes out after a week as they were too short.

DD1 is now 12 and 5’11 and DD2 is 10 and is 5’7 - having tall kids is a giant PITA - DD1’s school uniform is already too short and she is in the tall version, both wear size 9 shoes and if they grow anymore I don’t know what I am going to do about school shoes, as it’s a nightmare when you are 44/10 above in shoes (speaks from bitter experience)

Recently DD2 had to have an operation, when I went to pick her up from recovery, the was a chorus from all the theatre staff ‘ahhhh mum’s tall!’ (6’1) as they were very bemused by how long DD’s legs are

Both DDs are slim, (I’m not, I have an arse you could balance a pint on, but they are much more athletically built than me and take more after DH (6’5) I have no idea why this is controversial, it just is what it is for our family and nothing to do with breeding a super race of rowers

Extremes get talked about. That's all.

No-one feels the need to say 'oh your dd looks like a very average 4yo, is she in fact precisely on the 50th centile line?'. No-one says 'I cannot find any age-appropriate clothes at, that fit my perfectly average DS'.

You also have to ask if it is your perception, it is partly what you as the reader take in, so you are not noticing all the people saying "my dd isn't particularly tall" " my ds has always been average height and build" " dd is a shirt arse just like me" etc but you particularly not the ones who's child is notably tall, so is it your perception?

I certainly don't see that a disproportionate number of people declare their dc to be in the 99th percentile.

A lot more than 1% of British kids are above the 99th centile as it is based on WHO data and British kids are a lot bigger than the global average

Centile charts don't take a lot of factors into consideration. It's one big pot.

Decades ago my lovely friend from Asia who is very petite by British standards (size 4) had a baby.
She was jumped on from start. Health visitors said she wasn't feeding him properly (she was), wasn't attending all the checks as he was underweight.
He was tiny but perfectly in proportion to her. He's grown up and is the same size as his grandad who is also a petite build. He also looks identical

I remember her being made to feel so bad when it really was a case of genetic factors governing his size!

Your probably hearing from a lot of 99th centile mums as it's a difficulty in its own right. Nothing fits, they are constantly expected to behave older than they are because people mistake their age.

Meh. I probably have mentioned it a lot as, as with other posters, my oldest has always been so tall that people expected her to be older than she is. Also, it's sort of amazing to me because I'm small myself, and so is my family - she only has one tallish grandparent on the paternal side. Not sure if she's still quite 99% or whatever, she's 10 and about 5'3" and can wear my clothes and shoes but one of her friends is actually taller..!

Additionally, we are getting on average taller within the West, so I do wonder how often they recalibrate the percentiles? Perhaps it no longer represents the range of heights?