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Original poster

Can I predict my son's future height?

35 replies

valentine · 07/10/2004 20:17

My DS is 10 months old and between the 2nd and 9th percentile for height. Does this mean he will always be in this percentile (and therefore according to the charts, 5ft5 when he is 20) or can babies/kids jump between percentiles? I am 5ft4 and my husband is 5ft8 so i would have thought my son would be a bit taller (not that we are giants!). Any views on this?!

OP posts:
beansmum · 07/10/2004 20:22

isn't there a page in the red book that tells you how to work it out? will go and look

edam · 07/10/2004 20:24

There's a calculation somewhere in the red book; on average you'd add your heights, divide by two, and add something like 2.5cm?
Think children do jump centiles, and just thinking back to my own childhood one of my friends was the smallest girl in our year but shot up over Easter, would you believe, to be 5'10" (age about 15). Her mother was just 5' but her father was 6'2"

JanH · 07/10/2004 20:29

They can jump about a lot, valentine - I have 4 kids, the 2 eldest have finished growing and neither ended up as predicted (small one is taller, tall one is smaller, both are the same height in fact!), the 3rd at 16 is still growing and already taller than predicted.

Charts are just averages - I'm not good at statistics but I think maybe half the kids on any one line will end up taller and half shorter? And that's if the stats are based on current trends, which they probably aren't.

I think the main reason for having them is so that once a child is on a particular growth path it will be noticeable if there are any significant variations in weight or height away from that path during childhood, so that they can be investigated if necessary.

JanH · 07/10/2004 20:31

edam, I did that - not quite that fast but I went from 5'3 to 5'9 in 5 months at 13.

Original poster
valentine · 07/10/2004 20:32

I know about what it says in the red book - something like add parents' heights, divide by 2 and then add 7cm (not sure what that is in feet), but i just wondered whether it is common to jump percentiles and also at what age you can accurately predict someone's future height (my gp mentioned something about how at 2 years old you had a failry good idea but I wondered if anyone else had heard anything diffferent...

OP posts:
JanH · 07/10/2004 20:35

I was a comparatively short child and ended up at 6'. Doing that calculation at age 2 or whatever would have been totally misleading for me!

Skate · 07/10/2004 20:37

Valentine - I've not heard anything different but I'm not sure I believe that calculation thing or that you can predict their height by their height at 2yrs. Surely everyone grows at different rates and have growth spurts at different rates. My ds1 is only on 9th percentile so 'apparently' at the shorter end of the scale but I can't believe he's going to be a short adult as I'm 5'6" and dh is 6'3"!!

Plus, similarly to what others have said, my best friend from primary school is now only 5'2" whereas I'm 5'6" but when were in primary school I was the smallest in the class (nickname 'titch'!) and she towered above me! So anyone predicting our adult height even at age 7 or 8 would have said she'd be taller than me and they would have been completely wrong!

I could be talking crap of course - I'm not a doctor! But I'm still convinced my ds1 will NOT be short - I just can't see it happening!

Original poster
valentine · 07/10/2004 20:38

really? that is interesting to hear...I probably shouldn't pay too much attention to charts..I have to say, the whole weight/height thing drives me mad...

OP posts:
Skate · 07/10/2004 20:44

Drives me mad too! I'm sure it sometimes just gets Mums worried unnecessarily. When ds1 was a baby I certainly stressed about it but I don't bother anymore - he's perfectly healthy and happy so who cares if he's only on the 9th percentile.

Tell you what though - he does look funny next to his friend who is the same age (10 days apart) and is on the 98th percentile or something - as a much bigger child his mum has been asked what school he goes to, even when he was only just 3!!

JanH · 07/10/2004 20:45

Here is an American website which has links to 3 different future height calculators - 2 of them are the red book's one and your doctor's age 2 one.

When I started school at 11 I was barely 5' and there were girls in my class of 5'5 and 5'7 - they seemed impossibly tall. They are 5'5 and 5'7 to this day!

Original poster
valentine · 07/10/2004 21:10

thanks JanH - that website was interesting...quite a few different predictor methods on the market!

OP posts:
Beccarollover · 07/10/2004 21:19

Isnt there something that says that a boy will never be smaller than his mother?

Skate · 07/10/2004 21:19

Thank Gawd for that!!!

JanH · 07/10/2004 21:36

There is, becca, but it's more folklore than fact. Most men are taller than most women!

rosies · 07/10/2004 22:10

when your child is 2 they are approx half the height they will be as an adult.

this is about right... well it has been for my 2 anyway!

teadrinker · 07/10/2004 22:14

The 2 year old thing says that if you measure a child's height at 2 that is half their adult height.

Should work for dd1 as she was 3ft at 2 so should make 6ft. Sounds right as I'm 6ft 2 and dh is 6ft 4.

Tall people rule!!!!!

teadrinker · 07/10/2004 22:15

Oopsie roses - didn't see your post before I did mine. Apologies.

Ghosty · 07/10/2004 22:21

Don't worry valentine ...
I have two stories for you ...

  1. DH was always small ... his parents took him to a Harley Street doctor when he was 13 as they were worried about his height. My mil took him to numerous tests and a lot of money later the doctor called them in. He sat behind his desk and looked at FIL (who had never met him before) and said, "Don't worry Mr W ... your son will grow and will be 6 foot tall". FIL and the doctor stood up to shake hands and FIL was mortified to see that the doctor was about 5'1"!!!!
  2. My brother was always small. He is two years older than me and when we were children we were often mistaken for twins or people thought he was younger. I had my growth spurt at 13 and when I was 14 and he was 16 I was almost the height I am now (5'7") and DB was 2 inches shorter. 2 years later at 16 and 18 I hadn't grown even half and inch and DB was 6 foot tall. By the time he was 20 he was 6' 2" ...
Branster · 07/10/2004 22:22

if any of you remember one of the series made by Dr ??? (the guy with a moustache on BBC1 who did the Body , Mind etc), on one of the episodes (Don't know of which programme and have tried rememebring for the last 2 years!) he said that height at 2 yrs old is roughly half of adult height, but there was also a precise calculation whcih was written on the screen to accurately (??!!) predict adult height of a child based on parents' heights. Does anyone have any idea what I am reffering to? Does anyone has that formulae? I looked it up on BBC website a while back and couldn't find it. Bearing in mind he did a few different series, I don't even rememebr which one was the one I remember (could be Child of our time even).
So that was helpful, wasn't it?!

Ghosty · 07/10/2004 22:23

Forgot to mention that the doctor was right about DH ... he is exactly 6 foot tall!

JanH · 07/10/2004 22:30

branster, it's here - not the formula but a calculator. (I think it's different for boys and girls).

Thing is that if these formulas were right, all the girls in a family would be exactly the same height as each other, and all the boys would. And they patently aren't!

marthamoo · 07/10/2004 22:36

Winston, Branster.

Ghosty · 07/10/2004 22:38

Good point JanH (I am stalking you or are you stalking me ) ... my sister is 5'10" tall and I am 5'7" ..

marthamoo · 07/10/2004 22:41

According to that, Jan, both my two are going to be 6 foot (I am 5'7" and dh is 6'). But I already suspect ds1 is going to be taller than ds2..they have completely different body shapes/leg-body proportions. Interesting though...

marthamoo · 07/10/2004 22:45

And..even more interestingly..I just put in my parents' heights and worked it out for my brother and I:

I should have been 5'3" (and, as mentioned, am 5'7")

My db should have been 5'8" - and is 6'2"!!!

To be taken with a pinch of salt then, I reckon