2.8 year old, dropping height centiles, why?

[anybody]

when ds was born he was 56cm long, putting him well into 90+ centiles
now he's barely hitting 50th centile in height (but still in closer to 90th centile in weight!)

how worried should I be about this?

I'm 5ft 5 and dh 5 ft 6, so we're hardly expecting him to be a giant, but he seems to be getting smaller and smaller compared to his peers at nursery, and I'm wondering what's up?

his proportions are relatively normal, but a gp recently pointed out that his femur's are short compared to his tibia? didn't think anything of it at the time, but have since started to worry about it. I plan to go back to gp this week, but in meantime wondering if anyone here's got any insight or ideas?

just did a little reading, it seems to be that for adults the tibias are supposed to be 20% shorter then femurs

I found this out: "an undisplaced or minimally displaced fracture could cause tibial overgrowth - which in turn could cause genu valgum (knock knees)

if he's had a fracture due to a fall or hitting his shin an X-ray would confirm that. he 'll probably need treatment to correct the problem

although it sounds that he has longer tibias in both legs, no idea what could have caused that or what the implications could be

I'll call my osteopath tomorrow to find out more...

You shouldn't be worried at all.

I bet in a year he'll grow four inches.

Ds is the shortest in his class. He was on the 90th centile when he was born. He's definitely at the bottom end now.

I am assuming that he will catch up a bit at some point, (dh is 6'2") but to assume any kid will stay on the 90th centile when both you and dh are well below the 90th centile is a bit daft. Why would he stay on the 90th centile?

I have quite short femurs. I'm quite short. Unless you are planning on him being an Olympic cyclist or weightlifter, I wouldn't worry unduly about this femur/ tibia ratio. It was probably an offhand comment that the gp had no idea you were going to stress over.

Amazingmum, interesting about the fracture. There's been no injury as far as I know and both legs are the same. He does have knock knees though!

Womanintheattic I really hope I'm worrying over nothing!

Hi anybody,

I have been slightly concerned about by DD, she has just gone 2 but is still in 12-18mo clothes. I asked my sister (who is training to be a childrens nurse and has 3 of her own) if I should be worried but she said usually if her weight is still in line with what it should be then there is nothing to worry about.

DD is due her 2 year check so I am going to ask the HV when they visit. She is a happy, healthy, cheeky little 2 yo so the sensible part of my brain says she is ok but the nervous mummy part still has doubts. In my opinion it is always worth asking the question!

Good luck hope you LO is ok.

I was told at my first meeting with the HV when discussing the red book charts etc that the height measurement they do at birth is not accurate at all because they have to use the tape measurement and go in and out etc and the measurement is pretty much useless so we weren't to use it too much as a guide when charting future height. DS was 56cm as well at birth but he has basically evened out somewhere around the 75th when he was able to be measured standing up which would mean he would end up the same height as his Dad at 18.
A friend has a toddler with short femurs and his Dad and Mum are short as well.

I asked my osteopath what the significance of shorter femur/longer tibia in a 3 year old would be and what would be the reason for this.

he texted back this:
"Depends on the difference. no significance as it is likely to even out. reason likely to be simple difference in growing plate activity."

so there you have it, it's probably nothing, no need to worry for now.

the man is my hero btw, and very good at what he does, if you have any other questions I'll ask him if you want.

My DS1 was an enormously long baby (58cm) and stayed "tall" (was on 75 centile at 1 year check) until around 2, since when he has really slowed down in his growth and is now (at 4.6) one of the smallest in his class - I think he'd be on about the 25 centile. I'm 5'2 and his dad is 5'7, so the odd thing is that he was ever tall! It had never even crossed my mind to worry, I think he's just "normalising". He is health and well and developing in other ways - and still growing, just not at the rate of a weed.

When DD was born, we idly wondered if she'd be likely to take after DH (very tall) or me (pretty average) - she was average length at birth and remains so for her age. The HV told us that girls grow at a much steadier rate than boys, who can suddenly shoot up, then stop for a bit, then shoot up again. So a girl's eventual adult height is more predictable than a boys.

Whether this is true or not I don't know but if it is, it might explain your DS bobbing up and down the centiles?

DD1 was pretty long at birth. All the midwives commented on it (that and her full head of thick brown hair!)
We assumed she would be tall as Dad is 6ft. Checked her red book and can only see 60.5 cm at 7 weeks.

She's evened out and became average height. She's now 4.5 and I presumed Average still but when I saw her class photo she is the smallest by far!

DD2 was 54cm at birth, so on the 75th. By 1yrs she dropped to just under the 50th and at her 2yr check was between the 9 and 25th centile.

She has also dropped centiles in her weight too but is in proportion. Born on the 50th and now at 2.7 is on the 9th centile! She has stayed (23lbs) the same since she was 1yrs old. How I dont know because she really loves her food!!

Please dont worry. I was panicking about her not growing but as the HV pointed out shes a perfectly happy, healthy, active thriving little girl, Just small!

Someones got to be on the lower centiles :)

My dd is 2.6 an small (12 - 18 mn clothes 0.4 centile so bottom of the charts). She was small at birth and prem so we've seen drs regularly since birth. I was told that up to 3 height has a bigger link to how they developed in the womb and its from 2 onwards that it starts to normalise and be linked to geans this process seems to take longer if there were extremes before birth(such as IUGR). It is more important that weight, height and head size are in proportion. So really I wouldn't worry.

thanks everyone for sharing your experiences
just wanted to say that your responses put me off taking it up with GP this week
don't know why but it hadn't occurred to me go to my osteopath, I really rate the one I've seen recently and I will see if he can do anything about the knock knee thing.