Can I help my children grow taller?

[Fiona2011231]

Could you pls advise?

I am 156cm tall, while my husband 174cm tall.

Today we measured our children's height.

Our first son, 5 years and five months old, 17kgs: 111cm

Our second son, 17 months, 12kgs: 80cm.

According to the red book, our two children are at the bottom 25% in terms of height.

Is there anything to do to help them grow taller?

My sincere thanks,

Great nutrition is the only other thing that makes a difference apart from tall genes.

Obviously don't malnourish them but I wouldn't recommend the rack

At 25% they won't stick out. Being very tall or very short can be a nuisance - people thinking you're older or younger than you are as a child for example.

Best thing you can do is encourage them in lots of self confidence. Taller people can get noticed more which can help in life. (I think statistically speaking managers for example are taller than average.) So if you get your DC to be noticed because they're nice, interesting and confident they won't care they're not tall.

And maybe get them to take up gymnastics where being short is an advantage rather than say basketball!

My DS was small as a child and shorter than his peers. He's now the tallest in our family having shot up at puberty. He's still stick thin though so buying trousers is a nightmare.
So I wouldn't worry just yet what will be will be.

apart fom optimum nutrition there is nothing you can do.

if there are concerns, like not enough growth hormones, that can be treated but that has a lot of nasty side effects so is only used in extreme cases.

but with both your and your dh's height it looks like they should become 'a little shirter than average' so not stand out too much.

Thank you so much for your kind advice.

Do you think vitamin D is helpful?

helpful as in important or good nutrition, yes. but I have no idea it would have an influence in height/growth.

Now this is purely anecdotal - before anyone has a go at me - but in my family there is no one above 5ft 6 apart from my brother who is 6ft 2. I believe that the answer is full fat milk - my mother would make him drink at least a pint of milk every day until he was about 16/17.

Luckily my dd loves milk and I encourage her to drink her as much as possible ( about a pint and half of full fat milk a day) and she towers over me - although her height can be explained by her dad who is 5ft 11!

I know not all children like milk and there are lots of other issues that people may have with milk ( we try to stick to organic - £3 for 8 pints from most supermarkets ) but that is my twopenny worth!

The flip side is...

I'm short and I like being short.(5foot) I used to wish I was taller, but I've embraced it. And wouldn't be tall even if I could.

It's ace. I am the person airline seats were designed for. I can get kids clothes.

I had some style advice recently along the lines of 'that outfit makes you look short... Er, yes that's because I AM short'

So don't stress too much about them, I've plenty of tall friends that wish they weren't.

I was tall as a child, at 11 I was the tallest in my primary school. I am now 5 ft 1. Only 1 inch taller than I was at 11. I don't think there is much you can do to influence overall height (unless there is a medical need for growth hormones for those who are simply not growing at all) nor do I think there is a need to do so anyway.

DS is 5 and slightly smaller/lighter than your 5 year old but I don't see it as an issue at all. He is who he is and as long as he is eating well and developing well then thats all that matters

dalek
there is something in that though. when the free nursery/school milk programme was started an average increase in height was observed.

My DS has always been short, usually skirting the blue zone at the bottom of the height chart (0.4th centile). I realised quite early on that I couldn't influence his height, so worked on things I could affect. He's now 13, 140cm, and very confident and self-assured.

Regarding the milk, my children love the whole milk. And sometimes I'm afraid they drink too much in case they suffer from constipation.

Hopefully the milk will have some effect.