Does my baby look big in this?

[shinyshilling]

My baby is 3 months today, weighs 14lb and measures 65cm.She is bottle fed and the HV says she is totally fine and just will be a big baby. I have never been bothered how people look etc and I am quite happy with the way she is as long as she's happy and healthy, which she seems to be. However, I am growing increasingly irritated at people commenting on her size and appearance. It seems as though people can say what they like about babies. Yesterday I took her into work and people said "God, she's massive, what are you feeding her?" Everywhere I go, people comment on her size, so it's not just one or two. I get sick of all the comparisons people make as I think all babies are different. How have other people dealt with this? Does it make you cross and defensive? What have you responded with to fend off the negative comments?

Rant number 2! I'm also sick of my mil going on about how much she looks like her daddy. It's not that I don't want her to, it's that I'm sick of mother in law going on about it. She actually said the other day "You know she looks nothing like you, she's just the double of her daddy and everyone thinks so". I felt really hurt, like I've just carried her for 9 months and now she's nothing like me.She also bought her babygrows which were 6 to 9 months and clearly far too big for her as she's "a big baby" I'm quite shocked at how irritated and hurt I feel about these comments as I've always believed that commenting on people's appearance is shallow. Any tips for coping strategies would be appreciated. Thanks

At 1 month it's who she looks like
At 3 months it's size
At 4 it will be weaning
At 5 it will be "is she sitting"
At 6 it will be "is she crawling"
At 9 it will be "is she pulling herself up?"
At 11 it will be "is she walking"
At 18 months it will be "why isn't she potty trained yet"

And on it goes...

My mother always buys enormous clothes for skinny ds - it's better than too small, at least you will use them at some point.

It does sound like everything she says will irritate you at the moment, at 3 months there isn't much to say about a baby that isn't based on how they look.

I don't sound very supportive, but I am honest. MIL goes on about obscure relatives looking like ds, calls him by the wrong name, and constantly wants to examine his skin, and don't even get me started on her wanting to look at my nipples. However now ds is 3 and can stick up for himself it's easier to let it wash over me.

shinyshilling, I sympathise. DS2 was biggish at birth (9lbs) but has grown extremely fast. He's now three and is as tall as some of the five year olds in his brother's class. What bugs me is that people assume that he is five, and look sympathetically at me with that "Has the health visitor checked him out yet"? phrase because he can't talk properly yet.

Grrrrrrrrr.

Ditto threebob, it just doesn't stop.... my DD is 3 years old and quite tall for age and seems to have bigger shoe size than all her peers, people are always commenting about how tall she is how she looks older than her age and consequently expect her to be advanced in development, which isn't true. Infact her speech is a little behind, which causes me no end of stress. Its no surprising she is tall though I am 6ft 2"!

Where MIL is concerned tell me about it! As they get older it lessens a bit, but I do remeber at about 4 months we had a family do and my MIL bought photos of DH to show my Mum just how much my DD looked like him. Infuriate was not the word my Mum was seething!!!

Sure you feel better for having a rant

DS is 6 months old in 9-12 month clothes but not for much longer. Weighs approx 23lb and if laid down next to my 4 yr old who is 104cm comes up to her elbow.

I keep on being asked if he is a little slow as people seem to think he is about 10 months old due to his size and they are quite shocked to be told no he is only 6 months. I do wish people would stop asking me if I am sure of his age though.

Lets form a little clique ! Stand up for ourselves and our big children. I swear i watch how much my babies eat and drink because i know that naturally my babies will be big and tall. I hate the comments - they are babies not bruisers etc! My bigs ( 13,11,9) still get it cos they are tall

my ds4 is big - will have a check up next week but he's in 12 month clothes Was big at birth 4.570 kgs & has follwed his growth curve - despite being bf for 6 months- bf babys can be big!!!

Hi Mummyhill!! - know what you mean! I've been asked is he crawling!

Ignore peolple who make nasty remarks. They may say things with the best intentions, but it best to point out to them that they are being rude/hurtful, as this will embarras them sufficiently to think about what they are saying. Check my recent post and you'll see I have been having the same problem with a "friend". She bottle feeds and I breast feed (she is miffed about this as she was desperate to BF) She has been passing smarmy comments about ds...such as "the HV will say he's fat" and "But he has cellulite". Thanks to the advice people have given me I am unwilling to put up with it. DS was 8months on wednesday, and weighed 25lb on the day. Don't put up with the ignorant jelouse remarks of other people. Its your baby and you are doing what is best

i had a big middle baby. dd1 is average, dd2 is massive, dd3 is tiny.

at the age of 1year old dd2 weighed in at over 30lbs. she didnt eat excessivly, or drink excessively, she was just big. i was told to put her on a diet at the age of one as her weight was so much (off the charts totally). i insisted they checked her height. surprise surprise she was off the chart there as well.

when she was 2years old we took her to dd1 school for dd1 to meet her teachers. dd2 played up so i took her into the library whilst dh sat through the introduction talk. I was asked why dd2 wasnt joining the other children in the classroom. 'because she is 2' i said. the look on the staff members face!!

I wouldnt worry about the size of your baby. My 3 were all biggish babys. My son was 9lb4oz.. so you can see at 3 months would of been bigger then yours, My daughters were 8.5oz and other one was 8.9oz. My son was right chunky and i used to get comments about his size...I never thought much of it. Only that he was healthy and so were the girls when they were born.My son is 15 now and like a stick. On the thing about your mother in law ... well they all say that.. i know it drives you up the wall ..it did me. I use to say i looked exactly like that as a baby... used to make her mad lol. Turns out now there a bit older my son and my youngest daughter looks like me and my middle daughter looks like her dad.

my two are right skinny minnies so I always used to get the 'are you feeding them enough' properly stuff. But I was always jealous of mums with babies with those cute rolling thighs and chubby arms. My mum always used to go on about how her kids were like that ie mine were far too skinny.
tbh there's not much else to say about a baby though is there apart from comment on their appearance, shallow though it may be. So I guess you could always say to anyone that you'd rather they didn't comment on her appearance/size because it upsets you. Or just not make eye contact or talk to people much when you're out and about with your baby. Laughing it off might be better though?

Both my DC were over 10lbs. DS was 14lbs at 4 weeks. People used to say well you and DH are both big..............hmm thanks for that
So if you have a child that isnt particularly gorgeous would it be ok to say "well both you and your husband are ugly"

can totally sympthasize.
i overheard my mother whispering to my ds2 (aged 9 weeks) 'we don't want you to get too much fatter do we?'. he's 50th centile...it brought tears to my eyes, but when i stopped to really think about it i realised i was thinking about myself (my mum has always had a thing about MY weight and her own).
my ds1 was 50th centile too until about five months or so and then began a steady decline and is now at nearly 5years on the 9th centile, and has been for some time. my dd was born on the 25th centile, grew very slowly, went down to the 2nd centile, was sent to the hospital for tests and they concluded she was small and would end up about 5'1". i'm 5'2" so this is hardly dramatic news! at 2 and a half, she's still small.

so i have concluded that there is nothing one can do to influence a baby's weight really - they will just settle where they will go naturally. i expect ds2 will be smallish too, eventually and in the meantime i'll have to put up wiht the comments about what a sturdy big boy he is!

i was asked why my son was not in school when he was 2 !!

Thats easy to deal with - its the big baby having a paddy scenario when you want to shout at strangers 'well he is only 2' scenario i cannot bear!

BluePink, totally understand that. My DS is 2.3 and very tall for his age - he wears age 3-4 clothes. He's also very articulate and sounds as though he ought to be 3+. I'm seriously considering having a badge printed saying 'I'm 2 and 3 months, that's why I'm behaving like this'. Everyone just assumes he's a horribly behaved child when he's just a toddler doing what toddlers do. Makes me so cross.

My dd was 7lb10oz at birth but was a big baby, big toddler and now big 5 yo. She'd used to be told by the tesco's checkout ladies she didn't need nappies anymore as she was too big and why wasn't she at school etc. She is now 4 stone and 120 cm. She is tall and slim but looks 7 yo and gets treated like it. Her brother on the other hand is avg for his age and gets away with murder because he looks 3 yo. My dh thinks dd will be a supermodel but then he's a devoted dad She doesn't mind being tall at the moment as she gets to wear more grownup styles - she wears 7y clothes but sometimes a 5 yo justs wants to chuck herself down a slide with her knickers on show

That sounds like fun is it just for five yr olds?................

No go ahead

Both my boys were biggish - 8lbs 9z and 9lbs 8oz! (can you see why I'm not going for No 3? :) )
They were both bf and one quickly lost a lot of weight, so people used to ask me if I was sure he was getting enough milk etc .
Have encountered many of the problems above, people making comments, having to wear bigger clothes and people expecting too much of them for their ages. DS2 used to be asked why he wasn't at school or if he was starting next term at 3!
But now they are very tall and very skinny! (8yrs and 5yrs).

I fully understand where you're coming from SS, DD was a big baby and I was really sensitive to comments on her size. I'm not a small person (weight wise) and I think I related comments to weight i.e. by someone saying 'Gosh, she's huge' I read 'What a very fat baby you have'! The best piece of advice I got was to smile sweetly and say 'Thank you' to the comments made. 99% of people won't mean anything by it, it's just a baby comment and by saying thanks I changed my percerption of the comments and it somehow didn't seem so bad to me annymore.

Mine's a biggie too and tbh I've always felt quite hurt by the comments aswell BUT I've just realised what a god send that can be....friend's daughter has been poorly with sickness bug and very quickly became v poorly and dehydrated, my DS had similar symptoms but as he's bigger seems to have fought it off. That could be for any number of reasons but I honestly think that the fact he is bigger has meant that it didn't have such drastic effect on his big little body iyswim! Thankfully friend's beautiful skinny dd is fine now but it really knocked her for six.

All babies are gorgeous no matter who they look like! and I know I've said to new mums in the past that I thought their LO looked like one or other parent just for something to say! Before I had one of my own who is obviously the image of me! Not!

Oh this thread is just my saviour! Have just come back from dh's grampa's funeral (), but it was just one long line of relatives saying "he's how old? Gosh he's so big for his age isn't he?" and "he weighs a tonne doesn't he?" and " now that's a (dh's family name)'s shaped head isn't it". One ruddy woman (mil's sister) said, "oh I think I can see some of 2Happy about him" then he smiled and she said "oh no, I take it back, he's just all dh!"
And then she said, "oh he's 10mo. So he's walking?" me: "er, no" her "oh, what's wrong with him"!!! I just keep a tight hold and remind myself that I'm his mummy!

I had a big baby at birth. Joseph was 9lb 7oz big for my first baby. He got weighed on Friday and weighs 17lb 15oz. He is 9 & half months old. He had gastroenteritis last week. He is long for his age, but the HV says he needs to put on weight & they need to see him again in 2 weeks. He is back to his usual bright & breezy self & eats well, so i cannot understand what more they want me to do to make him put on weight??!! Do they want me to stuff him full of unhealthy snacks. Surely if a baby is small or big for their age - as long as they're healthy, alert, playful etc does it really matter? Then they wonder why children are suffering from bulimia & anorexia! If they're happy & healthy, but not medically obese or dangerously thin what is the bloomin problem? :(

Thank you all for these comments. It's obviously a touchy subject and it's nice to know I'm not just over sensitive. It's strange how people seem to think they can just say what they want to about babies. I've been childishly fantisising all day about people saying "Look at those chubby cheeks" and me saying "Oh, can you see your own a**e from there?" I wish I didn't take it to heart. I think it's because none of my family are alive except my sister, and I want my own little family now. I have no-one fighting my corner saying "Oh, isn't she like you" or "You used to be just like that". I just have to imagine. MIL is being very hurtful though. You'd think she'd know better. Maybe I should just tell her it hurts me, but I think she'd have a wobbler and make it all my problem? Thanks anyway everyone. You all sound lovely.

Could you possibly 'confide' in MIL about some of these comments (not hers) and how they hurt you. It's a less confrontational way of bringing it to her attention, makes her feel wanted and hopefully would make her think about what she's saying too.