My daughter just turned 12. Ages 1-10 she was always in the top 95-98% for her age and height. She was 22" long at birth. Today we went for her 12 year check up and at 59 1/2"... she's at 44%. ?? Is it normal to have 11 years as one of the tall kids and suddenly be one of the short? My mother is 4'11 and my father is 6'3.. I am 5'3 and my husband 6'0 so it's not to say that she can't fall anywhere in between.. but should I be concerned that where she fell percentage wise changed so drastically, or could there be a growth spurt ahead? I didn't think to ask the pediatrician about her height in front of her because she's already self conscious that her friends are getting taller. Should I call the dr back?
Thanks for the quick responses. I'm okay with her being 5', just wasn't sure if going from the 90s to 50s was fine. I calculated 54% too.. not sure why they wrote 44%. The doctor said she was very healthy and normal at her appt yesterday. Thanks for calming me down! =D
That's a bit drastic, but if her doctor wasn't concerned, I wouldn't be. They're the expert. If you want to call - if you would feel better - then call them back, and get their thoughts.
Mine started out in the 90th percentiles. At puberty, they went down more to average. That was over several years. Sometimes their height would still be high, but weight was lower. Or vice versa. So long as they were healthy we had no concerns.
she may be headed for a growth spurt, if you want peace of mind you could call the dr, but i wouldn't worry about it. if it were an issue the dr would of mentioned it
Is your daughter healthy otherwise? The pediatrician didn't say anything to you about her height being a problem. It is what it is. She may have a growth spurt. You can't stretch her out and make her taller.
At 12 yrs old and just about 60 inches tall - I get that she's at 54.8 percentile.
She's close to your height already and it's reasonable to assume she'll have several growth spurts over the next 4 or so years.
With her Dad being 6 ft - it's possible she'll end up taller than you - but it's no crisis if you and her end up almost the same height.
Of course she feels what ever she's going to feel - but if you are confident about yourself and your own height - she should be able to pick up on that sooner or later and get use to her own height.
A lot of this is just being a teen and all the changes that come with it.
My best friends mom was 5 ft - and ALL 7 of her kids towered over her by quite a bit - she was the nicest lady you could ever want to meet - and fun to go shopping with.
my daughter was always tall when she was very young, then she seemed to slow down and many of the shorter girls grew taller than her...then her height picked up again, she's 5' 8"!
Right around age 12-14, girls are going through puberty and get their big growth spurt. The charts reflect this, so if your dd hasn't gone through hers yet, the difference would be visible. My dd is an extremely late bloomer and grows slow but steady. All the kids are waaayyy taller than her now (she's 13) - much more so than when she was younger. But, she is still very undeveloped and hasn't hit full puberty yet - so it makes sense that she hasn't hit a big growth spurt yet. They usually say that after girls get their period they only grow a few more inches.
I grew very young and only hit 5'1" as my adult height. I pretty much reached that at age 12-13 and that's when I got my period. So it really depends on her puberty situation.
Where does your daughter stand with respect to going through puberty? A lot of girls slow down their growth at that point.
I have a good friend who was the tallest kid (girl or boy) in the entire 5th grade. She was 5 feet tall. She's still 5 feet tall - she hit her growth spurt early and was done. On the other hand, I was small in middle school didn't even start my growth spurt until I was in 8th grade, and now I'm slightly above average in height. All this is to say - I think it's impossible to know and as long as the dr says she's healthy, no worries.
This is definitely a question you need to ask a medical professional. If her doctor said this was normal, I wouldn't be concerned but I would like to understand it. MY grandchildren's pediatrician has always explained what thee numbers mean. YOU could call the office and talk with the nurse.
yes, call the doctor back.
this doesn't raise any red flags for me. she's still well within the normal range, and kids have growth spurts. she could go shooting up in the next 8 months.
khairete
S.
Okay, that is a drastic change. If she had always been in the middle and stopped growing then I'd say she had reached her adult height.
But since she's been the tallest one around her whole life and suddenly she is shorter than everyone else, YES, I'd be worried too.
Call the pediatrician back tomorrow and ask about this.
I have a whole family of cousins that are mostly tall. Dad is 6'11 3/4" tall. Mom is 5' and roundish. So they look like a lower case "b" when walking side by side. Her youngest girl went through what your girl is doing. Then stopped growing for years. Suddenly she shot up and is over 6'. She has 3 brothers and they are ALL 6'6" and taller. She is 6'2". Her sister's are both like mom but thin like dad. But they were never taller than anyone else in their class. The others were.
Kids grow at different rates. Your daughter might have done her growing early? I wouldn't worry, as long as she's healthy.
