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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be getting fed up of comments about my long/tall baby

37 replies

MammaK · 13/08/2008 23:46

Am a tall mummy, & together with a tall daddy made a long and very very beautiful DD! She is slender but in the top centile for weight & off the scale for height.
Have friends with other babies in the below average centile for weight & people comparing them is really starting to irritate me. It does seem sometimes that even as a baby it is more acceptable to be underweight!
Anyone else feeling something similar or am I being too sensitive?

OP posts:

zookeeper · 14/08/2008 05:35

nowt stranger than folk. It's just something to say - people just care about their own babies and say the first thing that comes to their head when they see someone elses who of course will be nowhere near as special as their own.

SNoraWotzThat · 14/08/2008 06:47

I still get this with DD1 who is 11 now, 12 this week, and must be over 5'4 now, she has always been above 95th centile line (rubbish height chart thingy, I don't look now). Now she is taller than some of my friends, who say things like "Isn't she tall?" when she is clearly in ear shot. I simply reply, "Yes she is gorgeous". Lately she has started to walk with stoop and keeps hunching her back. People just don't get how their comments can have an effect. I keep boosting her confidence and she does have at least one friend who is the same height as her, so she likes to see them.

So IMHO, being over sensitive is actually normal. I understand throw away comments are not meant in a harmful way, but people should really connect their brain to their mouth before speaking at times.

mm22bys · 14/08/2008 08:46

It's not more acceptable to be underweight at all! It is very much more worrying as at least if a child is near to being average, you are not constantly worrying about whether you are feeding your baby enough, will he end up in hospital, on a drip, being tube fed.

Enjoy your beautiful, healthy, tall baby. Please don't worry unnecessarily!

Get used to the comparisons too. It is a needless, pointless nasty side to being a parent!

kittywise · 14/08/2008 08:50

get used to it, my kids are small and I'm always being told how 'diddy' they are. How I love that. After 10 years it still pisses me off, but less so than it did.

ScottishMummy · 14/08/2008 08:51

too sensitive!congratulations on your beautiful big ole baby

Bronze · 14/08/2008 08:53

Lucky baby she will grow up with enviable long legs.

PavlovtheCat · 14/08/2008 08:57

DD was the other way, very small, petite and on the bottom of the bottom of the chart, I am petite and v skinny, DH is slight in stature too. (I wont say short, as he does not like it )

We had exactly the same, people comparing, commenting on how 'small' she was, 'oh isn't she small?' 'oh she is so tiny, she is small for her age isn't she?' 'does she eat properly' 'you need to feed her formula' blah blah blah. We get it now but much less as she is closer to her 'normal' size now.

By the time she was a month old I was sick of it! '^yes I fucking know she is small for her age! Shut the fuck up!'

Lots of people seem to think there is some fomulaic size that a baby must be to be 'normal'.

I find it strange, and to be honest a bit bloody rude!

MommyHasaHeadache · 14/08/2008 09:00

My LO is also off the chart hight wise (and her Dad and I aren't that tall!) I get lots of admiring remarks though and have never had a negative!

greenlawn · 14/08/2008 09:00

Are you kidding? Try having a premature seriously underweight baby. For the last 5 years I've had to put up with comments like "did you forget to feed him?" I have never, never come across anyone competing over how small their baby is and if they did then they would be frankly stupid.

Enjoy having a bigger baby - I know I did the next time round.

MommyHasaHeadache · 14/08/2008 09:01

Meant to say - YANBU to be upset - if it was the other way round for me I would be upset too! This is your pride and joy people are talking about! It is basically insulting you!

Bumdiddley · 14/08/2008 09:36

YANBU - dd is 3 and as tall as a 5 yo. People ask how old she is and say 'Oooh'. Like "Oh I thought she was a slow 5 yo not a tall 3 yo"

My own mother says haha she'll be 6ft 5in like daddy and ds will be 5ft 5in like mummy

gagamama · 14/08/2008 09:38

I guess there's not much else to say about a baby to acknowledge it's there, is there? You can't pass comment to it about the weather or something like you would an adult.

I suppose people think mums would be happy to hear how special and unique their baby is. It's surely better than saying "oh, look, it's just like every other blardy kid I've ever seen and I am thoroughly indifferent to it's existence."

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