Dd age 9, 48 inches heigh not grown in over two years

[IncessantNameChanger]

My dd is tiny she is out of cohort so should be in year 5, but she is in year 4. She by far the shortest in her year. She has been the same height for just over two years as we draw on the wall with a date. She is in 7-8 clothes easily for height. In fact she is still top end of age 6-7 clothes. She can fit comfortably into age 4 skirts.

I told this to the gp in August and they said she is right by the 1% centile, but it's not a worry until she drops centres. She is slim but I think she is gaining weight. Shoe size again she has been in the same shoes since year 2. In fact I have only bought her three pairs of school since she started reception. They break before she grows out of them.

Even should go back to the gp? I was thinking after a year. But it's been 6 months again of zero growth

Yes of course you should. Presumably when you took her in August she had dropped centiles - did you not point that out?

If she hasn’t grown for 2 years she must be dropping centiles. I think you should take her back to the gp and ask for a referral.

So at age 7 she was 50th centile, now she pretty much off the bottom of the charts.

Dd1 was tallest in reception then one of the shortest in year 5. She grew 4 inches in year 6. Then, she was little in years 7-9. That summer she shot up to 5’4” then in year 10 grew to 5’8”! (I’m 5’4” so at 16 she towers over me). She’s size 4 and has the waist of a 7 yo.

dd3 is year 8 and still fits 8-9 year old clothes.

they all grow differently. If they’re eating and developing in other ways it’s fine.

It was all done via email consult. The gp asked mine and dh height via text then didn't reply. I'm 5,4 dh is 5,6 so we are just above the 25th centile

My eldest was 0.2 centile at birth and stayed there until about 12. He is a painfully thin 5,8 now. However he always grew within each year even if only by a cm or two. Dd really has not grown a cm within a few years. She was a shoe size 9 in reception 4.25 years ago. She is shoe size 11 now. In just over four years she has gone up two shoe sizes.

I find the gps sometimes don't even reply to my econsults.

I might have to type this all out for dh and get him to submit a e consult

What centile was she on in her first few years OP? If she was always very small, grew a lot a couple of years ago, so briefly moved up the centiles, and hasn't since so has gone back to the centile she was on for ages maybe it's ok, but any other circs I think you're right to be concerned, she must have dropped centiles significantly. I would ask your parents and other relatives too though, sometimes there's a family pattern -- eg my cousins (all boys) all had a really late puberty and were very small for ages but all ended up quite tall in the end, they just grew really late.

Crossing more than one centile was, I thought, a reason for investigation. I would go back as 2 years is a long time. My children are below average height and seem to grow slowly, but they have always been that way. They should have at least a few cm of growth each year, although that will come in spurts.

Do you have the record of her height/weight when she would have been measured in reception?

I'd be less concerned about her overall height, but the lack of growth.

Get your DH to ask the GP for a referral to a paediatrician.

The most important thing is to mention she is exactly the same height as 2 years ago.

The short people I know who don't have another known medical condition that caused their failure to thrive, had thyroid conditions.

is your dc alert, full of beans, never sitting still during the day?
how is dc's diet?
sleep?
exercise? (at least one hour vigorous exercise a day, preferably outside)
is dc sicky? has a lot of colds?

Ask GP for Paeds referral

That's wasn't shared with me, but I do have her height and date on the wall. I took a photo for the gp

She is never ill. She is very active, quite hyper. Does judo, gymnastics and swims. Does cubs and Brownies which can be full on hikes across the countryside and keeps up fine.

She can either be picky with her food or sometimes eat a adult portion and ask for more. Generally she is a good non fussy eater. She ASD so that means she can decide she won't eat certain things but more often than not she's clearing her plate. Vast majority of food is cooked from scratch.

If she's aged two years and not grown at all then she HAS dropped centiles. Quite dramatically.

I'd go back to the GP and point this out.

I'd ignore posters saying they all grow at their own rate and all the anecdotes about dc suddenly shooting up. 48 inches at age 9 is REALLY tiny. My average height 6 year old is taller, as are the majority of his class.

I would be concerned and would push urgently for further investigations.

Thanks all. I'm going to re take the wall photo and circle dd as her brothers are also on there. Note her shoe size changes. Point out my econsult and her red book ( if I can find it) and get dh to send it.

For whatever reason dh doesn't get ignored. Possibly because he never raises issues with his gp

I would go back just for peace of mind but at your/your husband’s heights it strikes me as not overly worrying as she’s healthy and active.

We’re taller but our youngest didn’t grow at all between 7 and 8 and was in the same school shoes for 18 months. Shot up after latish puberty (15ish) and extremely tall now.

Do follow up with your gp but mine did grow very erratically, eventually reaching 5'2 and 5'5 by 18, they grew a fair amount 14-18 though, and were very tiny at primary, twice dd2 was referred to hospital for not growing by school nurse, picked up in routine screening aged 5 as being on bottom centile hence repeats. Honestly, they are both fine now, the smaller is super fit playing semi pro sport!

Always were checking ...

Using the nhs predicted height on parent height, she should be over the 20th centile. She must be under the 2nd centile now

It's quite difficult to get an accurate height measurement, especially at home. Even when we got to the hospital it takes a few minutes to get my daughter in the right position. Her height can vary by a cm or two whilst they do an adjustment. Being over on 1 measurement and then under on the next a few months later can make it appear that the growth has stagnated especially with low percentile children that grow so slowly. Length measurements were even worse. My daughter lost 4 cm in 4 weeks when she was 1 between too measurements at the hospital just because of how tricky it is to get a good reading.

I was a 1st percentile child and my daughter is 2. At 8 me and my younger sister shared clothes - she was 4! My mum took me to the Dr a few times about it but as my dad is only 5ft5 they didn't do much. As adults I'm 5ft2 and my sister is 5ft3 so I moved up the percentiles a little through puberty and she moved down so we ended up about the same position.

My daughter is 3.5 and on the 1st for height and 25th for weight. Until 2 she was on the 25th for both. Once we had a couple of measurements tracking the 1st for height the paediatrician and dieticians haven't been worried. She sees them every 3 months for reflux and allergies. She was wearing an aged 1-1.5 aged dress yesterday but is mostly in aged 1.5-2 clothes. She doesn't outgrow clothes very quickly she was in 9-12 month clothes for a year and 1-1.5 clothes for a year and a half. My older sister was under the 0.4th percentile for every thing until 1 on it until 2 and then on the 50th percentile and as an adult is the tallest of the 3 of us at 5ft4 but never out grew shoes and is only a size 3 now!

Being small isn't necessarily a problem and low percentile child go so slowly. Mh family are all small but our growth as children doesn't seem to have made a huge difference as we have all ended up in about the same place despite different journeys. I think a lot of what you have described is typical for a low percentile child it's about checking that is expected that they are a naturally to be here and that they are following their line. I would push for a face to face GP or nurse appointment to get some monitoring put into place

Just ring the Dr and get an appointment not an e appointment you need to see the Dr.
Ask for blood panel

We are re-enactors and when my youngest daughter was about 5 (she's 30 now) I got her kit out one spring ready for the new season and realised nothing needed letting down. Mentioned it to my husband but we discussed things like she was an active child, her parental grandmother was only just over 5' in height, so maybe she was going to take after her in height and not be as tall as her sisters and never really thought much of it. Over the following years she did grow but not as much as her friends and I always had to take her school trousers in at least 4" on the waist to get them to fit her. The majority of food was home cooked, out of three children she was the one who would try anything, so not fussy and went through a period of being a vegetarian from the age of 13. When she was 16 her GP tested her for celiac disease and she tested positive. She had never shown any symptoms or complained at any time to me. Once gluten was removed from her diet, the slightest amount causes her incredible pain and other symptoms but back them she just put up with tummy ache. She is still only a size 6 but is now 5'6" tall and has been since she was about 14. It's maybe worth asking your GP to consider testing your daughter.

No one can phone in any more. Unless your a OAP or LD you have to use e consult. Even when when it's an emergency and your deciding on the gp or minor injuries.

OP if you don’t have a complete growth chart in the red book put all the data you have on your door frame into a growth chart (height against age) and you will see what she has been doing as regards centiles. If she has dropped centiles, tell the GP e consult that she is not in the normal range and you need a face to face appointment to discuss or a referral to a paediatrician.

She’s slightly taller than my 9 year old daughter, with slightly bigger feet. The difference is that mine has always been short and does grow every year (just not much). Mine is 119cm with size 10.5 feet. I’ve just started buying age 7-8 clothes, but they are still a bit big on her. Her feet have grown half a size in two years. She gets weighed and measured every year for her asthma check and the nurse was initially worried until she clocked that I am also short (5’0). If it’s unusual in your family though, and she hasn’t grown at all in 2 years I’d say you definitely need to go back to the GP.