My niece’s youngest daughter is 19 months old, 38" tall and weighs 50 lbs. Googling suggests that at 19 months, 32 lbs puts a girl into the 97th percentile - so this kid is 156% of the 97th percentile weight - absolutely huge. Clothes aimed at 6-year-olds are about the right size for her.
She is not especially fat-looking for a 19-month-old (though is certainly not thin). She seems happy and extremely healthy (has never had anything worse than a short cold). She walks well, talks as you’d expect, seldom cries and in general seems quite normal for her age - except for her size.
Her mother is 5’10" tall and about 160 lbs - rather athletic. Her father is an inch taller and about 200 lbs - a bit chunky but not excessively so. Her brothers (6 and 4) are both large for their age, but around the 90th percentile, not off the chart.
She has been extensively checked by a couple of doctors. They report that if she were short and fat there would be reason for concern, but because her height and weight are in proportion she is simply a very large kid.
Is there cause for concern here? Are there other things her parents should be looking at?
No answers here, but my nephew is also very large for his age - 17 pounds at 5 months, wearing clothes for a 2 year old at 9 months. Normal baby chubby, not fat, no advanced skills, just big and tall. His mom is 5 foot 3, tiny, and Peruvian, and his father is 6 foot 3, skinny, mixed northern European. Nobody else in our family was that big, that young, but we figure that the Viking genes won out this time.
My four-year-old daughter is 42" tall and weighs 38 pounds. She’s a bit soft and her doctor would like her to weigh a pound or two less. How can a 38" tall, 50 pound kid not be fat when my taller, significantly lighter daughter is pushing maximum density? I can’t square these sets of data. I guess what I’m asking is - if my daughter suddenly gained 12 pounds she would be a real porker, so how is it that the girl in the OP is not a porker?
> She has been extensively checked by a couple of doctors.
Then don’t second guess them. They know more about normal infant growth than we do or you do. People make too much of a child being more or less than average in size.
I echo **EJ’s girl **- I don’t understand how a 4 year old kid who weighs 38 pounds and so is in the 72nd percentile for weight & at 42 inches tall and so 89th for weight can be said to be “soft” - even with 12 more pounds she would only be at the 97th percentile – hardly higher than proportional for her height & certainly not enough to be classified as a “porker”
Different building blocks. I babysit a 15 month old, who’s about 3 inches shorter than my daughter (2.5 years) and they weigh exactly the same. Neither one is underweight or overweight, they’re just built differently. He’s a tank - solid muscle on very sturdy bones, with a barrel chest (well, all babies have barrel chests, but his is the kind it doesn’t look like he’ll outgrow). She’s got lighter bones and even less body fat percentage than he does. The same doctors see both kids, and actually want him to gain another pound or two, and not her. Beats me. They’re individuals, and that’s all there is to it.
Whether or not the child is following the proper proportions and growth line on the chart is more important than what percentile they’re in.
You’re probably right. But I have too much dubious experience of doctors to trust them implicitly.
Present with my niece this past weekend was my brother-in-law who just now is able to walk after a tendon injury 7 months ago. This should have kept him laid up for a month at most, but was massively mishandled by two separate well-recommended doctors.
I absolutely agree with this in general. I spend a lot of time on the “Doctors are not Divine” soapbox. But you yourself say she isn’t fat, she isn’t abnormal in development and she’s not sickly. I assume that by “extensively checked”, you mean they’ve tested for an excess of growth hormone and diabetes and found nothing to worry about. Don’t borrow trouble. Enjoy your beautiful, healthy Amazon Queen of a niece.
Chances are good that by the time school starts the other kids will have caught up - she might just have had her first coupla growth spurts early.
If her parents are very concerned, a specialist (endocrinologist?) might be their next step. At her age, though…I think I’d monitor her intake more closely and make sure she’s active enough. It could just be a weird phase. My son’s physique took on different types at different ages. As WhyNot said, they’re all different.
One of my boys was 20 # at three months, just big. Until he was about 7 or 8, he was *way *off the charts. He comes from two big families, and was always proportionate. The next kid is lucky if she was 20# at a year and a half. So long as they aren’t overweight, let them be. I think now he’s about 90-95th percentile. All things being equal, he’s going to be a big guy. His dad’s about 6-6’1" and the smallest man in his family by a couple of inches. My uncle was 6’5." Not sure what I am going to do when they all start getting bigger than me.
Psychological tactics, I guess.