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Original poster

Being told who your baby looks like

110 replies

Emfrancesca · 05/06/2023 04:01

Is it just me or does anyone else feel annoyed when someone from your other half's family says that your baby looks like their dad or someone from that side of the family?!
It's like I grew this baby for 9 months and for what? 🤣

OP posts:
Hardbackwriter · 05/06/2023 08:07

I think unless it's really strongly one way or the other (which you say it isn't) it's always easier to see more of the people you know better in a baby. DH and I are relatively physically similar (same hair and eye colour, both tall) and people who know me better think the kids look like me, people who know DH better think they look like him. Whereas I think we have one that is my double and then one little changeling who looks like neither of us!

In any case, people talk about this a lot less once they're not babies so I'd grit your teeth and ignore it as I really don't think it's worth getting annoyed over.

SpringHexagon · 05/06/2023 08:07

Everyone says my DD is like me, my family and DH family. The only person who doesn't is this really annoying awkward woman at my work who has never once admitted my DD looks like me and always says she just sees my DH. I feel she says this just to be different 😂

TinySaltLick · 05/06/2023 08:09

It has half of your dna, usually to the grandparent it does have aspects which resemble that of their child

Zonder · 05/06/2023 08:12

I got it all the time with my eldest. Didn't bother me. In fact I heard it was an evolutionary thing to help dads bond with the baby because they didn't grow them. Funnily enough he undeniably looks more like me now he's a teenager.

Elysiaxo · 05/06/2023 08:18

My daughter looks identical to her dad. People ask if I'm her nanny 😅
I've mostly accepted it now but it still irks me

Original poster
Emfrancesca · 05/06/2023 08:19

Just to clarify I have absolutely no issue with her looking like her dad 🤣 her dad is very handsome and has some lovely features! I do just think she is a mix of us both and because of this I feel like his side of the family say it just to make her seem more like "theirs".
They even said only a few weeks ago that she was a mix of both of us now all of a sudden she looks like him 🤣

OP posts:
lanthanum · 05/06/2023 08:29

Wineismybestfriend · 05/06/2023 04:10

Me. It really irks me. Only because it’s evident that DC is my absolute living imagine. And any time we are around his MIL (super often, weekly basis) she’ll say, my friend said DP is DC double, so and so said it too. We were out for brunch on Saturday and she said to her friend. Do you still think DC looks like DP, I think so too. 🤣🤣 I just laugh internally lol

I saw a picture of a child of people we hadn't seen for a long time. She strongly resembled one of the parents, so I showed DH and said "guess whose child this is". He guessed correctly - because he thought she strongly resembled the other parent! So it obviously is possible to have a strong likeness in both directions. It might be very interesting to see if there's any pattern to which likeness different people see - is it the parent they know better, or the parent of opposite gender to them, or just random?

Swannyb · 05/06/2023 08:30

I’m super awkward around babies so I’m guilty of this because I don’t know what to say as I’m uncomfortably smiling at the baby. Sometimes I can’t see either parent in them so I just make it up for conversation. 😂😂😂

Original poster
Emfrancesca · 05/06/2023 08:32

It's my MIL and her dad (my partners grandad) who have said she looks like him.
Our friends who were friends with my partner before we got together said they could see me when she was first born but now they don't know who she looks like but one of them said they could see my MIL in her! 😣

OP posts:
JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon · 05/06/2023 08:33

People see different things. Especially if they know one certain family members from when they were the same age.

People resemble multiple family members in different ways because of the way genetics are passed on

MagpieSong · 05/06/2023 08:37

I loathed it. Firstly because it simply wasn’t true, he was and is a mix of both of us in appearance and had markedly different features to his dad, different hair, different nose, different eyes and different lips. He was closer in look to paternal grandad. Secondly, bit of a silly one, but I’m adopted and waited my whole life to see someone who slightly reflected my own genetics and then got told a huge majority of the time he looked nothing like me and only like his dad. His dad was also being an idiot at the time which didn’t help. However, I find it weird. He honestly didn’t and doesn’t look ‘just like his dad’, so it just really infuriated me. If he had, I would have inwardly sighed but been ok with it. I will say their eyebrows are identical though (bar colour). Then again, my daughter is the spit of me and someone said she looked like her paternal aunt, so some people are just weird.

Fandabedodgy · 05/06/2023 08:41

Maybe baby does look like dad?

Who does baby look like is part of the small talk you will for the next few years.

Who does baby look like
How is he sleeping
How is she eating
Gosh how big/small he is
Is she enjoying her food yet

Plus lots of unasked for advice.

Smile. Nod. Ignore

FlowersareEverything · 05/06/2023 08:41

I am the living image of my dad’s sister and it becomes even more obvious the older I get. Everyone, from both sides of my family as well as strangers, commented on it. Sometimes it’s glaringly obvious and people are more likely to comment. It never bothered me or my mother to be honest. She would just laugh and say yes I know 😊

shivawn · 05/06/2023 08:43

People always say my son looks just like his dad but has my eyes. It makes me laugh because it feels like an unintentional Harry Potter reference on their part.

Honestly though, I couldn't waste energy getting annoyed over anything like this. I really don't care who he looks like. I'm pregnant with my second at the moment and couldn't give a hoot whether this baby comes out looking like me or his/her dad or completely different to us both.

BreviloquentBastard · 05/06/2023 08:44

I mean my daughter looked like a potato that vaguely resembled Winston Churchill for the first several months of her life so I was always glad when they said she looks like her dad. Why yes she does, doesn't she, Mr. Potato Head?

IggyAce · 05/06/2023 08:45

Honestly I’d let this one go. Both my dcs were the absolute doubles of dh when they were born. My Ds still looks very much like dh but dd now looks more like me.

Hardbackwriter · 05/06/2023 08:47

lanthanum · 05/06/2023 08:29

I saw a picture of a child of people we hadn't seen for a long time. She strongly resembled one of the parents, so I showed DH and said "guess whose child this is". He guessed correctly - because he thought she strongly resembled the other parent! So it obviously is possible to have a strong likeness in both directions. It might be very interesting to see if there's any pattern to which likeness different people see - is it the parent they know better, or the parent of opposite gender to them, or just random?

Show quote history

Yes, this is very true - they can somehow look strongly like both at once! Another anecdote: everyone (including me) think that my brother and SiL's three children all look just like my SiL. So, so strongly like her that it's what everyone comments on. A friend of mine saw SiL (who she had never met before, or seen any of the children - but she knew they lived close to us) out and about and asked if she was my SiL and said she knew instantly because the three children all looked so like me (I look a lot like my brother)!

thewonderfulthingabouttigger · 05/06/2023 08:49

DD looked like her dad a bit as a tiny newborn. But then she changed into the spit of me as a child. Everyone says it. However, the only person to have ever said it from the in laws is SIL (who married into the family also) 🤣

justasoul · 05/06/2023 08:50

It did sting a bit when the dpd lady said DD looked just like her dad Grin 14 years later not that I hold grudges or anything I have to say she does look more like DH’s side of the family.

GodspeedJune · 05/06/2023 08:50

This has made me giggle since having DD. A few family members saying she looks like they did as babies, or their children. Either she’s the most diverse looking baby around, or people look for familiarity and tell themselves they’ve found it.

DappledThings · 05/06/2023 08:53

Nope, didnt bother me. DC did look much more like DH than me. Appearance isn't a competition you deserve to win because you were the one pregnant. Weird.

I still find it a bit surprising sometimes that they both have blue eyes but not upsetting.

ApocalypseNowt · 05/06/2023 08:55

I've had this. With DD1 it was fair enough as she's the absolute spit of DH.

DD2 though is definitely all me. Not according to MIL however. MIL dredged up a sepia photo of great great Aunty Bimble as a child to show how much DD2 looked like her and proudly pointed to a.....hair clip that was in a similar position 🤣

Apparently I am just a vessel for DH's family's genes....

Auntieobem · 05/06/2023 08:56

It irritates me too. DMIL will casually go through lists of random relatives on DPs side who our children look like, with no thought at all that they maybe got some of their DNA from my family.

Dd2 is quite tall for example. Most of women in DPs family are pretty short. So MIL goes back to some great aunt who was maybe 5ft 6 and claims that's where dd "gets it from." I'm 5ft 8, my brother is over 6ft tall, as was my dad and my grandad, but no, dd gets her height from great aunt Edna.....

roseopose · 05/06/2023 08:57

I had MIL exclaiming over my newborn DD that she 'got hiccups, just like her Grandma!' I don't think I know anyone who doesn't get hiccups Grin

roseopose · 05/06/2023 08:58

Auntieobem · 05/06/2023 08:56

It irritates me too. DMIL will casually go through lists of random relatives on DPs side who our children look like, with no thought at all that they maybe got some of their DNA from my family.

Dd2 is quite tall for example. Most of women in DPs family are pretty short. So MIL goes back to some great aunt who was maybe 5ft 6 and claims that's where dd "gets it from." I'm 5ft 8, my brother is over 6ft tall, as was my dad and my grandad, but no, dd gets her height from great aunt Edna.....

I get this too. DD has curly hair as do I but of course she gets that from MIL sister, not from her own mother 🙄

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