First of all yes he has a pediatrician etc. But she has mentioned that measurements are in the 90th something percentile at points.
TLDR just turned four and is 3 and and a half feet tall and proportional, but towers over peers. Is mistaken for 6-8 years old. Freakishly big by the standards of both parent’s families, no older person can remember anyone being this big.
If he’s freakishly big he must be taller than 3 1/2 feet at 4yo - that’s 80 something percentile and unremarkable.
I think a kid would need to be a real outlier before you thought about growth disorders or something like that, like 99+ percentile. The paediatrician would no doubt have guidelines in these matters, so if they’re happy then I wouldn’t be concerned.
Kids grow at different rates. Just because he is a tall toddler, doesn’t mean he will be a tall adult. Take the advice of the professionals.
Ninety-whath percentile? Because there’s a pretty big difference between 90% (one in ten kids his age is taller than him) and something like 99.9% (one in a thousand kids is taller).
Pediatric growth charts typically range from the 5th to the 95th percentile. As with any aggregated data, someone has to populate each end of the range.
The two factors of concern are progress along an individual’s curve, and absolute numbers.
A kid shooting from 20th to 80th percentile (or the reverse) over a short period of time is a concern.
A kid far above or below the 5th and 95th percentiles is a concern.
An otherwise normal child who is simply an outlier at either end of the range is just an outlier, unless an experienced clinician picks up something of concern. Tall and proportional is less concerning than is obese, in my view. A tall child still within the 95th percentile is not “freakishly” tall. Just tall.
As an aside, tall males are more financially successful ($750+/yr/inch) than short people. Or so I’ve heard. I don’t know if the measures of success extend to how often they get some.
If the kid has always been in that percentile then the kid is probably just big. Assuming gestational diabetes et al has been ruled out, if the child were in the 90th centile when they were born then doctors should have had a quick look at him, his blood work and his family history at least. Some babies just are born big and stay big for a while. They won’t even necessarily be big adults, though.
If there’s been a change from <50th to 90th then doctors should get involved.
My granddaughter is off the charts for height according to her pediatrician, he projects her to be about 6’2" her brother is also showing to be very tall at about 6’4". My bet is that they quit growing early.
Someone mentioned in your other thread (about eating) that there is a correlation between boys’ height and autism. Boys with autism produce more of certain growth hormones. I thought this was largely seen in head circumference, but with lots of growth hormones going around it might be something to look into.
ETA: cite.
ETA2: bearing in mind that this doesn’t necessarily mean anything wrt your son. Just something you could ask about if there are other indicators.
The sprout has consistently been 99% in height (well below that percentile in weight, but still reasonably proportioned). The pediatrician has a couple of times said ‘height’s still low enough to not be concerned about growth hormone issues or anything’.
My advice is, if the kid looks reasonably proportioned and the pediatrician isn’t concerned, then don’t worry. Maybe you could pick up an interest in following basketball or volleyball, in case that’s an option for him.
Since this is basically medical advice, let’s move it to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
My daughter was in the 95th percentile for everything when she was a toddler but at 16, she’s a nice normal 5’8" (huge feet tho)
My 6 yo grandson is in the 5th percentile for weight and 60th for height. Yes, he is skinny. But he eats good things with enjoyment, just doesn’t eat much of it. Th pediatrician says not to worry. He was a preemie, if that matters.
One day 42 years ago, I had just moved in and was painting something in the driveway. A tall kid came by and started talking to me. He looked about 7 or 8. I asked him why he wasn’t in school. He replied that he was only 4! Now he is fully grown and, while he is tall, he is not over maybe 6’3", about like his father.
My daughter started off at 10 lbs and continued at the tops of the charts. Since she was also amazingly verbal at a young age it led to situations where people asked her what grade she was in when she was three. Also people looked at her funny when she acted like a baby in public even though she was a baby. Now that she is 14 the others in her school mostly caught up. She is about 5-6 and normal.
My brother was a huge kid, always sized like someone 3 years older than him. He started out huge (11#11oz at birth) and stayed that way till he was about 15 and everyone else caught up to him. He finished out right at 6’1".
My son was waaay off the end of the height/size charts when he was 0-5 years, then settled down to more reasonable rates of growth. He’s now 15 and average height, though athletic as heck.
I know so many kids who were “off the charts” including my own kid for awhile there, that I suspect the charts aren’t correct. I mean, mathematically, my child was for six months the largest two year old in the world according to how far above 99% percentile he was. I’m guessing this wasn’t the case in actuality.
One of my nieces was a very tall child (and is a very tall teenager) and her mom told me that she sometimes struggled to treat her age-appropriately. She would know that niece was four, but she towered over her older sister and my SIL said it was hard not to think she was just as old or to start treating them the same rather than according to their actual abilities.
I think that is a risk of having a tall or big child. I have nothing to offer about the medical stuff.
My son at one visit was in the 99th percentile but he has dropped from that, but yea even now he gets mistaken for 6-8 routinely. Which is even worse because he is delayed in language, so people expect more from him than his peers which he can’t deliver.
Yea his head size was 99th at one point, they have stopped measuring. I don’t remember being tall as a child but had to shop for hats in the men’s section.
*They just stop measuring head size as a matter of course.
A lot of peds will mention something off, and ask if either parent had the same issue and if so they seem at ease.
I’m 6’5" as an adult and was not the tallest kid in my class until basically senior year. I was around 6’0" the summer before senior year, and I had basically been around that height stable for about a year. By the end of senior year I was 6’4", and the first time the Army measured me I was 6’5" and that’s been my height ever since.
In junior high on the football and baseball teams I’d say I was very average, lots of kids my age were taller than me. By High School I was maybe in the top 25% of height on the sports teams, and by the end of senior year I was taller than all but maybe 2-3 kids in the school.
So how tall you are relative to your peers doesn’t seem to always matter about how tall you end up.
A lot of the men in my family are of average height or low height (I had a 5’4" grandfather and great-uncle.) I have a nephew who was 5’9" and 170# in 8th grade, which a quick check shows is like the 97th percentile for height. We figured he was on track to be more like me and be very tall.
His height as an adult? 5’10", unlike a lot of kids he basically only grew an inch between 8th grade (around 13) and when he stopped growing.