Growth

[titchy]

Does anyone have any experience of height charts as an indicator of final adult height? My ds has consistently been right down the bottom (0.4 centile) since birth - actually thought to be small for dates, but obviously just small as he has not moved up the chart any (his weight is fine though - he's quite a guzzler in fact!).

At this rate he'll only be about 5 foot 2 when he's grown up. I know lots of people are short (including myself), but while it seems ok for a girl it's much harder for a man. I keep having visions of him being bullied at school, girls not looking twice at him, not being taken seriously at work.....

He's only one a half so has plenty of time on his side but is he always going to be so small???

I know it's pretty trivial considering what many others have to put up with, but it concerns me. Any help or reassurance, or tips gratefully recieved.

Hi Titchy, I cant say for sure if he will be taller or shortly. A doctor can probally only give you an estimate by his growth chart but that is not even certain. I say this because a child can be short and not grow as fast in the younger years and have a major growth spurt somewhere down the road and I do mean major. Which can make all the difference. My db was always skinny and so short in his young adolescence years. He was always picked on. When he hit the upper teen years everything changed. He grew to be over 6 ft. Taller then our mom and dad. You can never really know for sure till later. The charts are great to track growth but they can be going one way one min and another the next. They are good for estimating. My dd is and has always been a short and petite child. In the whole entire 3rd grade (all classes in the school) she was the 2nd smallest child in height. Not sure how they came to that conclusion. She is pretty small. When I took her to our doctor he looked at her chart and in his opinion he figured she was going to be about 5ft 11 in tall when she is fully grown if she stayed on this track. None of my kids are tall but he said he feels theyll be taller then us in the end. Hopefully his estimation is right. The point is dont worry about how tall he is now that will change as he matures. Sometimes youll even be amazed how much.

I've heard somewhere that a child will end up twice the height they were at age 2. Does anyone know if this is true, or is the average adult just twice the height of the average 2 year old?

Have also heard anecdotal evidence from someone who was so tiny as a child that he was taken to growth clinics, he is now a perfectly respectable 5'10" or so, he shot up as a teenager.

Titchy how tall are you, and how tall is ds' father? It is usually the case (but not always) that a child will reach an adult height of somewhere between the heights of its parents.

titchy, I have 2 daughters, now aged 20 and 17 - dd1 was always near the bottom of the centile charts (below 10th) and dd2 was over 75th. They have both ended up at 5'7. dd1 was also "small for dates".

How tall are you, and how tall is your dh? He will almost certainly be quite a bit taller than you and may even be taller than his dad.

Height charts are just averages and designed more to show variations in one child's growth pattern than to be an actual indication of final height. As long as his height and weight follow the curve, or at least move together (ie you wouldn't want him going up to 10th or 25th on weight but staying at 1st for height) he will be fine.

sml, I have heard something like that too, but it was 1¾ for a girl and 2¼ for a boy. (Wouldn't have worked for me though as I was average as a child and ended up extremely tall.)

I heard that at a certain point during the child's third year they are measured, and their adult height is twice that of their height at that time. Don't know if this is true.

I am short, and my dh is not overly tall (5'9" ) but ds is on the 91st percentile for his length. (Only 25th for weight though). The HVs tell me that he is genetically tall and slim, but I don't know. If my dh's and my heights are anything to go by, he should be a right tiddler

Some men ARE short, but it doesn't affect their lives. My short cousin married an Amazon of a woman, and they are still together after about 20 years. I was going to say look at Nicole and Tom, but, maybe not!

Don't let statistics worry you.

You could always let him stand in a bag of manure for an hour a day

chinchilla, found it in my trusty baby book - I think this is the one you are thinking of - "A boy will be twice as tall as he was at 2.2yrs of age, and a girl will be twice as tall as she was at 1.4yrs."

Here's another one:

height of mother + height of father - 5" divided by 2 = girls adult height

OR height of mother + height of father + 5" divided by 2 = boys adult height

BUT there is a standard deviation of about 3" in the above equations!

Another interesting fact is that children today are growing taller than their parents did, so even if you are both very short, your kids will probably be slightly taller than you. Boys now are growing almost an inch taller on average than boys born in 1933; girls about half an inch; teenagers are 1.5-2" taller than those born in the 30's as kids are reaching maximum height 2 or 3 years earlier than they used to. And it is true that children grow most when they are asleep!

Don't forget that a lot of growth charts are based on formula fed babies, who tend to grow in a more even pattern than bf babies who often have growth spurts and then periods of little growth and so on. Also the data used might be out of date...so try not to put too much credence in them. But if you are worried about it, ask for a referral. HTH!

Thank you all. Glad to hear some children shoot up in their teens. We will keep our fingers crossed this is what he does too.

janh and mollipops - thanks for the '2 and a bit and double it' measurement. I had heard of this but wasn't sure what the maginc age was. Looks like he's getting a stretching machine for Christmas (mind you Chinchilla the manure trick might be worth a try too - bit smelly though! LOL!)

I'm only 5 foot, and dh is 5'9", although his parents are 4'11' and 5'4", so there isn't a lot of height in the genes. As long as he's bigger than me I guess.

Mollipops - I hope that is wrong, as my nephew is only the same size as my ds (ds is 13 months, and nephew is 2 yrs, 3 months) My ds is 81cm (98th percentile), which means that nephew would only be 160cm as an adult, which is about 5'3". Not good! Oh well, perhaps I'll lend my SIL a bag of my manure!

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The red book has a formula for guessing adult height from parental heights. Otherwise 2x girl height at 18 months, 2x boy height at 2 yrs.

My DS is only 25th percentile for height, which suggests he'll scrape in around 5'7". It doesn't make sense when all of the close relatives are well above average height (typically 6' for men, 5'7 for women), except my mom who is just 5'3.5". MIL says she and DH were always small kids, and they're taller than average today.

sb34, you must remember what my mum (5' and half an inch) has always reminded her towering family: "Diamonds don't come in bricks"

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@titchy I know this was a looooooong time ago, but in the off chance you’re still on here was wondering how tall your DS ended up?!