How are my children tall with short-ish parents?

[Emmie12345]

Ds - 16 and 2 months , 6.2
Dd - 11 and 8 months , 5.4

Me and their dad are both quite short - me 5.6 and Dad 5.8

How can this be ??

@ParadeOfRemotes Jesus 11lb!!

Well they say baby weight is genetic ?

I’m quite slight but was a biggish baby 9lbs and my sister is v slight and was 10.10.. your bubs are whoppers !!!! Blimey ! Xx

I guess I’m using my neice and her friends as examples - she’s 7 and is 5 ft 3 already (women are really tall on her dad’s side of the family - she’ll probably be at least 5 ft 9) but has older friends through brownies (friendships I’m trying to slowly wean her off of!). All of them reached near their adult heights at 11 and only really grew tiny amounts after that. only the ones that were over 5 ft 5 at 11 were still considered tall later on.

Girls stop growing two years after start of menstruation

Jeez! That’s tall for 7 omg !!

I was once told by a doctor that boys are always taller than their mothers, genetically, as a throwback to olden cave dweller days when the men had to protect the women from predators.

Can't confirm this is true as I'm no geneticist but iv never known it be false 🤷🏻‍♀️

My dd is 12 and 4'10. I breastfed her for over 3 years! I don't think breastfeeding has much to do with eventual height.

You're hardly short OP. I'm 5ft1 and 5ft6 is taller than average for a woman.

@Shinygoldbauble

My dd is 12 and 4'10. I breastfed her for over 3 years! I don't think breastfeeding has much to do with eventual height.

This made me smile. I bet she’s cute!

@LaurieFairyCake so that’s gonna be at least 14 I guess x

I'm interested to see how tall my ds(13) ends up

Me - 5ft 6.5
Dh - 5ft 5

DS is about 5ft 2 at the moment with 7.5 size shoes. Is there a way to work it out? Probably won't be accurate though looking at OP!

Question for those with tall boys, were they tall at a young age or did they have a growth spurt in late teens?

I'm really short at 5'2 and hoping little 12 yr old DS has a growth spurt as his dad is 6'2.

@AnImposter

I was once told by a doctor that boys are always taller than their mothers, genetically, as a throwback to olden cave dweller days when the men had to protect the women from predators.

Can't confirm this is true as I'm no geneticist but iv never known it be false 🤷🏻‍♀️

I believe that is true. Sons always taller than their mums!

@AnImposter ah yeah think I heard that !

@Shinygoldbauble.

Don't think your daughter is that tall... She likely won't grow much from now. I was full height in yr7... 5ft 9.
Your son does seem tall towards you both... It does seem to jump generations sometime

@Anotherdayanother2 ds was always tall compared to his peers but I thought it was because he was a sept baby

Then about 15 he got really moody and grew very tall

I don't buy the breastfeeding/nurture line. It's nature.

I have one twin who is fairly tall and one much shorter.
It's simply down to genetics.

@Anotherdayanother2

Question for those with tall boys, were they tall at a young age or did they have a growth spurt in late teens?

I'm really short at 5'2 and hoping little 12 yr old DS has a growth spurt as his dad is 6'2.

DS2 was always tiny. His projected adult height was 5ft3. Then in lockdown he shot up. My mum saw him before lockdown and he was smaller than me. By the time she saw him again he was 5ft 5. I'm pretty sure he's still growing. (He's just turned 14).

A lad I was at school with was tiny. When we left after gcse he was probably 5ft at a push. I've seen him around town since, he's about 6ft4

I don't think previous generations heights are great markers as many of them would have been determined by diet. Food scarcity was common and would have impacted height, as would childhood illness.

I don't think any of us actually think breastfeeding has made our dc tall. We were joking. Well i was anyway!

I read somewhere years ago about growth hormones in cows milk...

My eldest dd is v tall for her age, loved cows milk. My youngest dd is little for her age, wasn’t bothered about cows milk.

Both BF’d until they were 18 months +

This is from the Mayo clinic website:

"There's no proven way to predict a child's adult height. However, several formulas can provide a reasonable guess for child growth. Here's a popular example:

Add the mother's height and the father's height in either inches or centimeters.
Add 5 inches (13 centimeters) for boys or subtract 5 inches (13 centimeters) for girls.
Divide by two."

Dts are on a giant trajectory. I'm 510 so is Dh, the kids look like they're going to push 6ft. Patterns grandad is 6'6.

Arf at bf making them tall ffs.

We're the same height as you with 2 sons well over 6ft.

I read you get your height from your mother's side. 5'6" isn't short for a woman and although my mother is 5'2", her father was a tall man and she has 2 male cousins at 6'6" and 6'4"

DH's parents are both tiny. My father is 6ft.

If average female height in the uk is about 5’3 inches you are 3 inches taller than average.

If average male height in the UK is about 5’10 inches your DS is 4 inches taller than average.

The averages have gone up by over 3 inches in the UK in the last 100 years due to better nutrition and younger generations are often taller than older ones.

Its strange.

My parents are 5'2 and 5'10.
I'm 5'9, so only an inch shorter than my father.
I should reasonably be approx 5'4