sick of hearing "my baby is bigger than yours/she's so small" !!

[justonesherryformedicinalpurpo]

My daughter weighed 6lb 8oz at birth and was born 4 days over due date.

she's now 9 months and weighs just over 17lbs so she's put on a steady 1lb+ a month.

she is ebb and I know this can contribute to some bf babies being more slender than plump but my partner was small growing up and I was so skinng (until I had my first serious bf at 16!).

She is developing very well, cruising sofas, crawling and babbling away etc. Always been very alert and fidgety. I basically have no concerns whatsoever!

But I am SO fed of people guessing her age. Someone guessed 2ms the other day! Bloody moron!

I always here "oh my baby is younger but huge compares to yours" and "wow she's so tiny, by baby weights X amount".

How do I respond. I just say wow or woah. I feel like they are very naive and also comparing as if their baby is better than mine. Which I know is so ridiculous and no one means any offense but it still irritates me.

some lady said to me yesterday at a baby group "wow she's so clever!" to which I responded with "well she's 9 months..." surprise surprise I'm greeted with "oh... she's so small".

Help me not take their comments defensively as I know they mean nothing by it!

Any other mamas with small babies?

Breastfed babies do follow a slightly different growth curve. I have no idea why, but it is well documented. Breastfed babies tend to put on weight quicker in the early months, but are more slender whey they get a little older.

www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/growthcharts/who/breastfeeding/

No one really knows why breastfeeding does have an affect on size and slenderness in the first year. Certainly there is little difference when they get to school. Don't see my post as a stick to beat formula feeders with. It does show that you need to use the right growth chart for your baby.

"The growth patterns of breastfed and formula-fed infants are different. For example,

Healthy breastfed infants typically put on weight more slowly than formula-fed infants in the first year of life.1-2
Formula-fed infants typically gain weight more quickly after about 3 months of age.
Differences in weight patterns continue even after complimentary foods are introduced."

My dd is on the 9th line for weight and I get this a lot too. It got to me a bit in the early months when we were getting feeding established and she looked a lot smaller than her peers. Now I just think it's how she is. The most annoying thing is getting trousers to fit her. She grows out of things length wise but the waist of the next size is far too baggy.

I get it all the time at baby groups.
My DD weighed 5lb 15oz when she was born (38 weeks) and is still teeny at 6mo. The mother of the most gigantic fat baby I have ever seen asked me if I feed her or if she is ill the other day no she is not. She's just small!! As am I! (5'2" size 6) some people just have little babies!!!

reallytired where are you getting the figure of 25% obesity levels in under 2s?

The BBC article you linked to says nothing about under 2s.

I'm just interested as it was my understanding that the terms "overweight" and "obese" only came in to play after age 2.

Reallytired i was about to say the same as above- there's no mention of under 2s never mind babies in the bbc article. Which is important as up to 12m most people are just feeding babies milk, on demand as recommended. Your comments about sumo wrestler babies and them bring fattened up are really off.

I misread the graph, but there are overwieght babies. Even newborns can be overweight.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2395903/Rise-overweight-newborn-Doctors-worry-mothers-health-number-large-babies-grows-nearly-25.html

Big does not always equal beautiful. Such chidlren are likely to have problems in later life.

I expect it would be very easy to find evidence that some small babies have issues in later life but that would be insensitive on a thread about hurtful comments about babies size.

There are definitely such things as over-fed babies ReallyTired - the huge baby who's mother commented on how small mine is had a 9oz bottle, a handful of rice cakes, a banana and a yoghurt....then an hour later her mum said she was taking her home for lunch!....having said that, most "chubby" babies I have been around (my cousin had 5 absolute whoppers!) lose the chub when they become more mobile don't they? I think the bbc article is more about obese primary school children.

Cringe, my partner guessed someone's baby's age and said two months and LO was 11 months- the mum took it well but I was embarrassed because I'd said 'guess how old this little girl is?' like an idiot

I didn't think 'terrible mother, tiny baby', I'm just calibrating my baby age guessing skills and thought I'd really got it wrong.

End of the day there are so many ways to be a healthy baby. I don't think smaller babies are lesser. The 11MO was adorable!

I just heard a version of this at the school gates earlier this afternoon. Mother 2 saying to mother 1 how big her baby was. Mother 1 replied saying Oh really you think she's big? everyone else says how tiny she is!

She then went on to give examples of how huge someone else's baby was in comparison to her teeeeeeeeny princess. She was actually offended someone was implying her baby was not super model material. There was an awkward silence until teacher released the children to us!

Reallytired statistics say that birthweight has increased over the last 30 years in the uk, but only by around 2lb. If you read that macrosomic babies have increased by a fifth, that only means that it would have to go from 10% of all newborn babies to 12%. May correlate with an increase in gestational diabetes, but also lots of those are simply at the upper end of the variant as they always have been, just like the smaller babies are at the lower end. So your (unpleasant) judgements about sumo babies and babies having been stuffed like turkeys, are likely aimed at babies who are there through natural variation rather than the result of an increase in 'obesity in babies' as you put it.

Sorry 'overweight babies'. And they're 'likely to have problems later in life'. I'm guessing you mean heart attacks, diabetes etc. How likely? 1% more likely? 100%? Without trawling data I'm guessing it's unlikely to be the second, these correlations are on a population wide level and there's lots lots more risk factors at play.

And that should be an increase of 2oz not lb!

Esme yes, trousers are a problem here too. Dd was measured at 14 months and was just over 9th centile for weight but 75th for height! I tend to stick to pinafore dresses.

Mine's living in tights and smocks at the moment MrsMilky. Much easier dressing a skinny baby in the winter months!

My 9 month old is still wearing 0-3 tights lol.

I'll plead guilty of picking up my friend's baby and commenting on how light he felt compared to mine who is a week younger! I honestly didn't mean anything by it, it was just a surprise (he actually looks chubbier so it was a real surprise, my DS must just be taller). I agree with PP about it being tough with a big baby too, DS was mistaken for a toddler at just 4 months old, so people do expect him to be a lot more advanced.

Being big isn't good. Neither is being small. People vary. And that includes babies and toddlers.
My ds was born at 6.13 which is 25th but then tracked the 9th centile. He's 2 now, he's small but super cute, very physical.
He was never "chubby" like most toddlers but he eats really well, goodness only knows how he burns it all off but he does.

I've never been offended by anything anyone has said about his size.

My DD was born 7lb 13oz's and 24 inches long, she used to put on 1oz a week and was formula fed.
She was 20lb at a year and started on solids at 16 weeks.

My DS was born 8lb 1oz and 20 inches long, he used to put on a 1 lb a week, 16lb at 13 weeks, 24 lb at a year, breastfed and didn't eat any food until over one year.

Today they both weigh 14st and are 5ft 8inches tall.

I am 5ft 4 ins and weighed 5lb 12oz at birth. On the other hand my DH is 6ft 4 ins and weighed 12lb 4 oz at birth.

Yep, had this with one DC. Drove me mad. Adults of the same age aren't the same size, why should babies be?!

Ignore the idiots.

Ignore all negative commentsjust. Both my boys seemed quite petite in comparison to their nursery peers. Both are now 6'2''.

Think of all the positives of having a small baby/child!

-people will think she's advanced as she looks younger -> "genius child!"

• you get more wear out of clothes
• they can stay in rear facing car seats for longer
• you can get into theme parks cheaper! A lot of them only charge for 'over 90cm' or something (or you can pretend she's younger and get the 'under 2s are free' entry)

Mine were all huge heifers and I got comments, too - from my GP asking why my not-quite-3 year old wasn't at school one morning; to the health visitor who said we 'need to do something' about my youngest son who was growing above the growth chart - he was 4 months old and exclusively breastfed! Not sure what kind of diet she had in mind
I generally find it most annoying that people expect more of them because they are tall and look older than their peers; so at least you won't get that!

My DD was 7lbs 3oz at birth but has always been really tiny (Consistently 45th percentile) She's now 14 months and people frequently look shocked when a toddler they'very presumed to be about 7-8 months stands up and runs across the room!
I don't appreciate the 'are you sure you're feeding her enough?' comments. She eats like a horse!