Does a fat baby become a fat adult - worried mother!

[bertie007]

My little baby girl is 5.5 months old and weighs 8.8kg (19.5lb) she is nearly 100 per cent on the growth chart for weight and length. She is still on just milk, I will start her on solids in 2 weeks. She gets 4 bottles of 8oz per day (4oz more per day than it suggests on my tin which says a baby of 5 months weighs roughly 7kg/15.5lb). Everyone comments on how enormous she is (and thinks she's a boy). At 4/5 months she barely fitted into half of her 6-9 month clothes (long body, big tummy, very big thighs and long legs).My husband and I are not overweight and my older two children are average or a bit skinny if anything. Will she stay a whopper as a an adult? Is this genetic? Do I need to be careful what I wean her on to? All advice welcome.

If her length is on the same centile as her weight she's not fat, just big. Are you and your DH tall?

Sounds like you have a lovely chunky baby

My dd was 10lb 20z at birth, and has always been on the larger side of average. She, like your DD is almost off the charts height and weight wise.

Shes 3.5 now, and is 108cm tall and weighs just under three stone. She's a big girl, but i wouldn't say she's fat - she hasn't got rolls of it, she's just sturdily built. She's solid.

I don't think a 'fat' baby nessicarily equates to a fat adult - ten to one your dd's body shape will change as she grows. Once she's walking independantly and running you ragged around everywhere, you may find she loses some weight. All you can do is give her a good diet and make sure she gets lots of exercise as she grows.

I wouldn't be too concerned about her just at the moment.

Yes, weight and length 100 percent. I'm 5'8" and my husband 5'10".
Plus, just saw this article in the telegraph:
www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5225119/Fat-babies-likely-to-grow-into-overweight-adults-researchers-claim.html
Didn't mention that my baby only has one kidney that works (I don't think this has anything to do with her size, in fact it's good that she isn't skinny) but this article made me worry that she'll get other health problems as it says that if a baby puts on weight rapidly in the first nine months they are more at risk from all the most common serious illnesses.

Not necessarily, don't worry at this stage. They do slim down a lot when they start moving around and even more when they become toddlers.

What I would say is, don't rush to move her on to a 'growing up' milk, as a first milk continues to be suitable up to one year and beyond - despite the marketing efforts of the formula companies. Also, try to let her be in control of how much milk she is taking in. If you hold the bottle at a very steep angle she will find it difficult to stop drinking, as the milk just keeps coming. A shalllow angle means that she is more in in control and will find it easier to stop when she is full. You may also want to move towards givng her milk in a cup - better for her teeth and again, she is in control.

The soft-teated NUK cups are good. The free flow top means that there is less danger of bacteria being trapped, unlike the valve in no-spill cups.

WHen it comes to weaning, remember that she does need lots of 'good fats'. Cheese, plain yoghurt, milk in cooking - all can be given to a a baby 6m plus. Make the food yourself or try Baby Led Weaning (where you give them part of normal family meals). Don't give her sugary foods or any added salt - I found myself becoming an avid label reader at this stage!

You know, i don't think your baby will have read that article

Seriously - you relax and enoy her. Someone has to be on the highest percentile - and please bear in mind that those percentiles are based on 1950's formula fed American children.

please bear in mind that those percentiles are based on 1950's formula fed American children

That used to be the case, but they have now been updated and are based on bf.

No, (I was a baby inflatable and am now 5ft 10 and according to BMI things, slightly underweight)

Likewise, dd was about 90 on centiles when she was a baby and is now a total skinnymalinks.

Just enjoy sqwudging those thighs, if she's still "big" when she's walking, then you can start to think about it a bit.

Thank you. I won't give any 'industrially evenly pureed' jarred food as had a nightmare with my oldest child with it. He couldn't take any lumps when I made his food without vomiting gallons, it was rough!

If her weight and height are both at 100% then she is simply large, not fat. My children moved through clothes sizes pretty rapidly too (and they are now skinny pre-teens). Re the gaining weight rapidly article, I'd take it with a fair pinch of salt, just because most health writing in the papers is very poor, often omitting or misunderstanding key parts of the original research they are based on. I tried to find the research paper by looking at the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism's website, and there are no articles by Dr Ong. The WCRF site also has no mention of this study. So already I am a bit suspicious. It is known that being fat in infancy is related to being fat in adulthood (all sorts of factors involved) and it is easier to overfeed a bottle fed baby (although I'm not sure how you'd know if you were over feeding a breastfed baby as there is no way to measure how much they are drinking).

So I wouldn't worry too much, but totally agree with BranchinOut's advice, and in any case baby led weaning just sounds so much less stressful (I hated weaning!). My tubby baby dd lost her knee creases and double chin pretty rapidly on starting to get active. I think that's fairly typical.

My ds was really chubby as a baby, checking his red book he was a little bigger than your dd at 9 months (just over 20lb) he is now 11 and is very thin. He lost most of it when he started walking.

My DS was a chubstix when he was a baby. He had a pot belly as a toddler but that vanished when he hit 3/4 yrs and is now a string bean. I think that if you eat healthy food and you and your DH are tall / thin then it will even out in time.

DD1 was HUGE, she had rolls on her rolls, lol. She was and still on on the 99th (weight and length) percentile but when she started walking she slimmed right down and now she's just very tall for her age (6 but wears age 8-9 clothes), she is more solidly build than the others, but definately not fat.

The general idea I'm getting from everyone is that when my baby starts walking (could be another year if like the other two!!) that the weight should come off and if it really doesn't, then to keep an eye on it and maybe speak to someone.

She sounds perfectly proportioned to me. In any case they rarely follow a line on the graph, they more usually zig zag their way either side of one. DD has been 50th for length and 75th for weight, and then the next time she's been 75th for both length and weight. She's just 1 and is now on the 98th. x

I was an 8lb baby in the mid-70s (so big for the time). My mum talks about the rolls of fat I had. I was a string bean child and am now a size 10 in my mid-30s, so I can say from my own experience, definitely not.

she is just big. my dad was one of those 1950s formula fed babies and as round as he was tall...and has been slim most of his adult life.

I was a big baby (8lb 8oz) - early 80s. Naturally weight is now around 8-9 stone, size 8-10.

DS was a whopper 9lb 4oz and his weight was further up the centiles than height. Aged 2, only in the last few months has he begun to slim down - his chunk has probably shielded him from pretty severe weight loss when he's had some vicious viruses. He started walking at 10 months and is very active. He's BF and only in the last few months has he started on dairy - before that his diet didn't have much fat really apart from BM.

So please don't worry - even when she starts walking, don't expect her to lose weight and don't put her on a diet. Just make sure she controls her intake - don't encourage her to "finish" a bottle (which is where the risk of early obesity starts) and certainly don't encourage her to finish a plate of food - these behaviours will set her up to ignore her "fully tummy" instinct making it likely she'll over eat. Babies and toddlers are very good at regulating food intake if you let them.

In all the pictures of my sister and me as babies, she is as wide as she is tall with enormous chubby legs and arms. She is now 40, five foot ten, weighs about eight and a half stone, has legs up to her armpits and eats like a horse. Not that I'm jealous or anything......

Her weight and length are perfectly in proportion. There is nothing to worry about!

Would agree that she sounds perfectly in proportion. Both of my daughters are on the 100th centile for weight, both off the top somewhere in height. She's just a bigger baby is all. I was really worried about dd1 over this I have to say, since I'm not exactly a skinny minnie myself, but now she is four, and just a gorgoeusly proportioned tall slim girl, and dd2 is heading the same way. They both absolutely raced through clothes sizes too, aleays a couple of sizes ahead of their ages.

People always comment on the size of them, and have right from when they were born, but I equally hear mums of smaller babies getting much grief because of their size. People just like to say something I think!

My DD was just off the charts for weight (so about the 101st if it existed!) and 99.8 for height from about 3 months to 23 months. She was a little late for walking milestones (the HV said this is normal for heavier babies) but around 2 (just as I was really worrying) it just dropped off. At around that time she really started running in earnest, for fun.

I really sympathise as I worried myself into a froth about this, reading all the stuff you're reading, and I can now see it was a complete waste of emotional energy

Her weight is in proportion to her length, she isnt fat.

Fwiw ds was 90th%ile weight but 50th%ile at this stage but is now a v lean 9yo.

My huge baby, 110 centile for weight, 100 for height, is now 11 5.8 very slim.
When she was a baby I was refered to the hospital but they just said she was going to be tall, she looked like a little sumo baby, you would never no it know :-)

I know this is only anecdotal, but I was a downright fat baby & toddler who went on to be a naturally slim child & adult. My BIL was the same apparently.

My sis had a ds who was enormous ( he was 10 10 born!) He had rolls and rools of fat but was only bf ( nn baby budda!)

He took a while to get moving (my theory is heavier baby = more muscle mass required to move the weight!) but once he got going he's not stopped!

He has slimmed right down now he is still chunky but there's not a roll of fat to be seen. He's just naturally solid! (and gorgeous but I am his auntie!)