Being told who your baby looks like

[Emfrancesca]

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? 🤣

Wouldn’t bother me straight off the bat, but it might if they banged on and on about it!

How did I know this thread was going to be about in-laws! 🤣🤣🤣

I think most kids have both parents in their appearance. I used to work in a school and usually saw kids with one parent. I often saw a definite resemblance, then would see them with the other parent and realise they actually looked like that one.

Since my granddaughter was born four months ago, I’ve been comparing her baby pictures with those of her mum & dad - her ears, cheeks & chin look just like the pictures of my daughter (especially the ears, they are identical) but the shape of her head & eyes are like my SIL, and I think her eye colour will be too.

Have only skimmed thread but apparently newborns are "meant" to look like their Dads so that they know he is his.
Also interestingly, they did a study on adopted babies and the babies features grew to resemble their parents, must have been them mimicking them or something.
Fwiw I couldn't care less if someone said my baby looked like Mr Bean he's my baby and I'd love him no matter what.
Although when he was only 8 weeks old I was severely sleep deprived, which did wonders for my mood... not..ha so I was definitely more sensitive to comments in general, perhaps this the case op?

I hesitate whether to say this, especially on a light-hearted thread where this clearly isn't the case for the OP, but in one friend's case being really upset by these sorts of comments was an early red flag for her PND; it tapped into a very deep fear about the difficulty she was having bonding with her baby. Again, I don't think this is the case for the OP but if anyone finds that they are disproportionately upset by benign comments it's not something to ignore.

@JustCakeInDrag

Very good point. All recently post natal women should keep a close eye on their mental health. The "baby blues" are normal and common but PND, and post natal anxiety and intrusive thoughts are also very common and need nipping in the bud. I wasn't depressed with mine, I was more manic and I had awful intrusive thoughts basically about people trying to harm my baby or about him not breathing. Took me a long time to relax.

This is something you’ll really need to let go, it’s just something people say. DS looks just like DH and always has done, people say it all the time. One random person says DS looks like my dad but he doesn’t evenly remotely resemble him.

I don't mind. They're the product of both of us, so they have a bit of us both in their features.
Although our eldest is the double of his dad and as one random lady once pointed out to DH when she saw them together ' bloody hell, you couldn't get out of that one!' 😂

I do find it annoying, yes. It's not that I don't want my DC to look like my DP, they're more like me but a bit of a mix and when it's the two of us or someone else saying it I find it a pleasant thought when people mention the ways they look like DP.

It's just when it's his family that I find it annoying. I think it's because they have a strong "we are the X family, we do X, Y and Z" mentality that I find generally annoying, and it feels like they're trying to claim them as "one of theirs" when I want them to identify equally with my family (which they do). They already have my DPs surname which I'm not entirely at peace with (and my oldest has expressed she wishes she had mine) so it just feeds into that.

My MIL continuously points out that my daughter looks like her sister who is one of the least attractive women I've ever seen!

She doesn't look like her at all! Everytime she says it my blood boils!