Starting to get a bit disappointed in people's comments about how our baby looks

[Sevendayhigher]

This is a bit of a silly post but six months in, it's starting to bother me...

I ADORE the way our baby looks, but we're told by the same couple of people time and time again that he looks EXACTLY like DH. That's not the part that bothers me - it's their opinion at the end of the day even though neither me nor my DH see it (comparing baby photos, he 100% has my face, and it's obvious because my DH and I look very very different, but that's besides the point.)

What bothers me is this. The same people who say that our baby looks identical to DH again and again are the ones who consistently brag about the fact that their baby looks identical to themselves. And no, I don't mean they just say their babies look like them, I mean they actively say things like 'I'm so lucky, he looks exactly like me!' or 'I'd be so annoyed if anyone said he looks like my DH!' or 'He has nothing of DH in him, it's all me!' and even 'I'd feel like just an incubator if he didn't look like me!'/ 'I'm so glad he looks like me now, I felt like I wasn't his mother at the beginning!' One of them even said they were furious when a family member suggested that their son was starting to look like their DH.

It's striking me as a bit tone deaf to talk about how dreadful it is for your child to look exactly like your DH while also constantly telling me that mine does?? Just wondering if anyone had could relate. It's such a silly, petty point in the grand scheme of things but it's driving me a bit nuts haha. It's not the people themselves, as I know they mean well and they're genuinely lovely, it's just this specific thing that's making me go a bit crazy!

Your child doesn't look EXACTLY like anybody else. Just loosen up and enjoy being a parent.

Gawd, not much fun are they? I'd just change the subject to the next time you can all go for a daytime pub lunch.

I'm.about to head off for a long weekend of hedonism with two of my antenatal group friends (20 years and counting). It isn't compulsory to keep seeing each other if you have nothing in common.

It is a stage some mothers go through. You are going through it yourself when you say "actually my baby looks 100% like MOI". There is some evolutionary explanation for it in terms of parents wanting to nurture their offspring.

In ten years when you look at photos you will realise the babies all in fact looked like Winston Churchill.

Are you sure they don't look like their dad?

Maybe they’re relieved it looks so much like them and not the chap they met in the nightclub toilets a year ago. You have nothing to worry about, so it doesn’t matter so much which one of you it takes after

Do people really get their knickers in a twist about this? What is so bad about your child looking like their dad?

Ours looked like my husband when born, now looks more of a mix of us.

If they’re saying they are so relieved that their child looks like them, it implies they don’t think their husbands are very attractive.

Next time they say your child looks like your husband, say, ‘I know, I’m so lucky I have a gorgeous husband, and now a gorgeous baby!’

We've got a picture of baby DS1 and DH where they look identical. But as DS has grown up, he looks more and more like my brother and Mum.
So, I guess we can say DH looks like a baby??

It also implies that they think that they are really attractive! I find it really… narcissistic maybe? that people are so desperate for their child to look like them. I’m glad mine look like DH, he’s far more attractive than I am!

I look exactly like my father's sisters. My poor Mum had to put up with those comments for years.

My own children don't have a single feature of mine - nothing! They're exactly like their father and I just had to learn to live with the endless remarks "You'd never know they were yours!" Yeah, thanks...

Sounds like a very toxic mindset emerging amongst women who are clearly self absorbed. Although they know they know how babies are made they somehow feel better about themselves by pretending they 100% made the child. Constantly pointing out features of the child to anyone who will listen and crowing about how X is a 'mini me' / all me!, or some other nonsense purposefully ignoring the fact the child's make up is 50% the father..
Whether the child looks 100% like them or the father is beside the point..the child has 50% each of their DNA. They might not take after them in looks, but maybe in character, voice, expressions, talents/giftings. It's all very silly and not all good for the child's self esteem.

I think there’s the impulse to always comment on which parent a baby resembles is actually a bit weird and usually nonsense anyway. A colleague of mine had a baby with donor eggs and people still commented all the time on how much the baby looked like her- I think that made me think much carefully about making comments like that myself because you just don’t know.

Yes it is Petty just ignore it Very childish I couldn't even entertain it tbh just change the subject who cares

It all sounds very dull!

Say 'Did you expect him to look like the milkman?'

You're being nuts, besides all newborns look like potatoes.

I think people just parrot out this stuff. Everyone constantly says DS is the spit of his dad.. having seen childhood photos, he is very like me at the same age. He also bears a strong resemblance to my sisters DS - they are constantly assumed to be brothers.

Invent a mysterious ancestor whoo’s practically your son’s identical twin looking at photographs from the 1940s. Great grandfather or great great uncle should do it.

That's really really weird of them

Start doing it back to them.

’Wow she is the SPIT of her dad! Look at that nose!’

Not the same but a child came up to my friend and told her in all seriousness that her baby boy looked like a Shrek baby - she didn't know what Shrek was 😬 - her boy definitely looked more like his dad!

I genuinely do think they're just being tone deaf because the comments they make about how much their children look like them are said at different times to them saying that our son looks like a 'mini DH', but it's just quite frequent

So, help them out ? Explain to them that they are being quite offensive in saying both these things. Point it out so it is clear to them, as they haven't made the connection themselves.

I also know someone who's foster child, had the same colour of hair and people commented on how much she look like her mum (foster mum).

OP Given these are people at a baby group have they even met the Dad?

Children also change as they get older. My friends baby looked like her husband. As a teen that girl is mums double. To the point a photo of mum at the same age it was the wall paper that made me look twice!

Often it depends how well someone knows the other parent too, I thought my friend's son looked just like her, then I met his dad and he's the double of him! People see different things, my dd10 has completely different colouring to me, and features more like her dad, but her personality is a mini me!

And your friends are weird

Either that or, "Yes, he really is the spit of you. Ears can be easily fixed these days though!"