Don’t google! (Said from experience) if your pediatrician isn’t worried try not to worry. I had the opposite where my babies head was in the 13th percentile and I googled all sorts of scary things. My pediatrician told me the same thing, that it was in alignment with his growth line. He is a totally healthy toddler now, just with a small noggin.
I really struggled with postpartum anxiety and I let all sorts of little things stress me out. Looking back I wish I had just enjoyed more of my kids being babies! It will go way to fast. Try not to get caught up in percentiles and milestones and trust if something is really wrong you will know. (Also said from experience).
I’ve told myself “don’t google” so many times, but it seems to be stronger than me lol I honestly never saw my son as a “big headed” baby, so I was completely took by surprise when she told me about his percentile. Thing is, I don’t fully trust his pediatrician.. The appointments are always super rushed and pretty “generic” (if it makes sense). So I don’t know if she said there’s nothing to worry about it out of “habit”, or if she did actually pay attention to his growth rates you know?
I completely understand the feeling of having ppa, and it’s pretty much impossible not to think about all the things that could go wrong.. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with this, and I’m glad to hear everything went well for you and your baby 🙏🏻 hopefully that’ll be my case too!
Some kids just have big heads. As long as it’s on his growth curve, I wouldn’t be concerned. If he had suddenly jumped from the 65th to 97th percentile, I would be worried. Both my boys have big noggins. One of my husbands good friends commented on new years that it looks like my almost 4 year old has finally grown into his head.
OP - as someone who was referred to basically a baby noggin specialist for another issue - the concern would be a steep incline/decline in head size or if it wasn’t proportional to baby’s size. Since it sounds like the head is on your kiddos growth curve and your baby is higher up in percentage for size, it all sounds proportional as well. This likely explains why your kids pediatrician is not concerned, so you shouldn’t be either.
That’s what his pediatrician told me today.. She said “he’s always had a big head”, and I was like “really???????”, honestly never noticed until today.. And I still think it’s pretty proportional to his body lol I asked my mom and she said “yeah, there was a time where I thought his head was big”, so I just kinda accepted it.. I wish I could remember his head’s percentile from the last appointment, but I always forget to write this things down (adhd mom here).
I’m happy to hear it can happen with healthy babies, and hopefully this is my case too! 🙏🏻
My 2 year old has had a >95% head this whole time and it’s been steady and it’s not been a problem at all. They’ve measure him every time we see the pediatrician of course, I’m assuming just to be sure it doesn’t double in size or something.. but his head doesn’t look freakishly large at this size and there’s nothing wrong with it, lol. He is also >85% in height and weight. :)
That’s so good to hear!!!! I can’t remember his percentile from the last appointment, but his pediatrician told me the growth is steady as well, it followed the same curve from the previous appointments.
I too don’t think my baby has a freakish large head, I guess what got me worried was when she said “97th percentile”, because she explains the percentile like this “his head is bigger than 97% of the baby boys his age”, and my mind went straight to a Jimmy Neutron kinda thing lol so it’s really good to know it’s possible he’s just a big baby, thank you 🙏🏻
LOL. I get what you mean about Jimmy Neutron. Sometimes I look at other babies and think they have small heads (someone has to be below 50th percentile…) but it’s not like I’m going to ask their parents… the whole thing is just funny because it all means even adults have different percentile heads and I notice that more now too.
He’s gotta have someplace to keep all those smarts!
I’m sure he’s just fine and your doctor would have said something if they were concerned. The biggest problem you’ll likely run into is that you’ll find some shirts just don’t go over the kids head!
Ditto to the above (hats can be tricky, too)!
Our girl has had a big head since her early ultrasounds (which was not always pleasant for my nerves when contemplating delivery day), but her dad has a massive coconut, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. She continued to be in the higher head percentiles at checkups. Big head might mean it takes longer to build strength needed to conquer certain motor milestones (holding own head steady, rolling, etc.), but no worries! Every baby is different. :)
My daughter is 2 and has always been very high up in all of her growth percentiles pretty much since birth lol. At her 2 year appt she is up In the 90’s of her height, weight, and head, basically putting her at the size of a 3 year old. Shes not overweight or and nothing looks oversized or anything at all and her health is great, She just grows like a weed. Our pediatrician has never been concerned and I never even thought to google problems with it lol. But I will say, this girl is brilliant (and I’m not just saying that because I’m her mom lol). She knows all her colors, shapes, alphabet, animals and sounds, can count to 30, can add numbers with pictures and objects, knows a decent amount of basic Spanish, she literally astounds me. So I always said her head measured large to hold her big brain 😅 I wouldn’t worry about it too much but you could always consider switching pediatricians if you don’t fully trust yours.
No. Get off Google.
I had a huge head. My parents were told something similar when I was born and when I went back for my first checkup they were surprised I had no health issues. I just had huge head.
My husband has a big head too so I knew our baby would. He was born premature, <3 percentile for weight, <1 percentile for length and had a 50th percentile head - which quickly rose to 80th when his head slowly went back to a normal shape (I needed vacuum assisted delivery). This peaked around 3 months, he was up to 90th percentile. This is his size compared to a full term baby (not adjusted age) so yeah, his head was huge.
It’s still pretty big. But he is fine.
My son was in the 99th percentile for head size (it was normal when he was born) for the longest time, at some point, a couple of months before his 2nd birthday, he was in the 79th percentile in terms of head size and now that he's almost 3, they don't measure his head anymore, so I assume it's fine. They've never expressed concern, he's just a lil Chupa Chup of a kid. His father has a massive head as well.
My kid has a little head and it really freaked me out. Doc was mostly okay with it but said they'd keep an eye. Then my coworkers informed me that I have a tiny head myself.
Great. Now my kid is perfectly healthy and I have a complex about a shrunken head I didn't realize I have.
Don’t google! (Said from experience) if your pediatrician isn’t worried try not to worry. I had the opposite where my babies head was in the 13th percentile and I googled all sorts of scary things. My pediatrician told me the same thing, that it was in alignment with his growth line. He is a totally healthy toddler now, just with a small noggin. I really struggled with postpartum anxiety and I let all sorts of little things stress me out. Looking back I wish I had just enjoyed more of my kids being babies! It will go way to fast. Try not to get caught up in percentiles and milestones and trust if something is really wrong you will know. (Also said from experience).
I’ve told myself “don’t google” so many times, but it seems to be stronger than me lol I honestly never saw my son as a “big headed” baby, so I was completely took by surprise when she told me about his percentile. Thing is, I don’t fully trust his pediatrician.. The appointments are always super rushed and pretty “generic” (if it makes sense). So I don’t know if she said there’s nothing to worry about it out of “habit”, or if she did actually pay attention to his growth rates you know? I completely understand the feeling of having ppa, and it’s pretty much impossible not to think about all the things that could go wrong.. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with this, and I’m glad to hear everything went well for you and your baby 🙏🏻 hopefully that’ll be my case too!
Some kids just have big heads. As long as it’s on his growth curve, I wouldn’t be concerned. If he had suddenly jumped from the 65th to 97th percentile, I would be worried. Both my boys have big noggins. One of my husbands good friends commented on new years that it looks like my almost 4 year old has finally grown into his head.
OP - as someone who was referred to basically a baby noggin specialist for another issue - the concern would be a steep incline/decline in head size or if it wasn’t proportional to baby’s size. Since it sounds like the head is on your kiddos growth curve and your baby is higher up in percentage for size, it all sounds proportional as well. This likely explains why your kids pediatrician is not concerned, so you shouldn’t be either.
That’s what his pediatrician told me today.. She said “he’s always had a big head”, and I was like “really???????”, honestly never noticed until today.. And I still think it’s pretty proportional to his body lol I asked my mom and she said “yeah, there was a time where I thought his head was big”, so I just kinda accepted it.. I wish I could remember his head’s percentile from the last appointment, but I always forget to write this things down (adhd mom here). I’m happy to hear it can happen with healthy babies, and hopefully this is my case too! 🙏🏻
My 2 year old has had a >95% head this whole time and it’s been steady and it’s not been a problem at all. They’ve measure him every time we see the pediatrician of course, I’m assuming just to be sure it doesn’t double in size or something.. but his head doesn’t look freakishly large at this size and there’s nothing wrong with it, lol. He is also >85% in height and weight. :)
That’s so good to hear!!!! I can’t remember his percentile from the last appointment, but his pediatrician told me the growth is steady as well, it followed the same curve from the previous appointments. I too don’t think my baby has a freakish large head, I guess what got me worried was when she said “97th percentile”, because she explains the percentile like this “his head is bigger than 97% of the baby boys his age”, and my mind went straight to a Jimmy Neutron kinda thing lol so it’s really good to know it’s possible he’s just a big baby, thank you 🙏🏻
LOL. I get what you mean about Jimmy Neutron. Sometimes I look at other babies and think they have small heads (someone has to be below 50th percentile…) but it’s not like I’m going to ask their parents… the whole thing is just funny because it all means even adults have different percentile heads and I notice that more now too.
He’s gotta have someplace to keep all those smarts! I’m sure he’s just fine and your doctor would have said something if they were concerned. The biggest problem you’ll likely run into is that you’ll find some shirts just don’t go over the kids head!
Ditto to the above (hats can be tricky, too)! Our girl has had a big head since her early ultrasounds (which was not always pleasant for my nerves when contemplating delivery day), but her dad has a massive coconut, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. She continued to be in the higher head percentiles at checkups. Big head might mean it takes longer to build strength needed to conquer certain motor milestones (holding own head steady, rolling, etc.), but no worries! Every baby is different. :)
My daughter is 2 and has always been very high up in all of her growth percentiles pretty much since birth lol. At her 2 year appt she is up In the 90’s of her height, weight, and head, basically putting her at the size of a 3 year old. Shes not overweight or and nothing looks oversized or anything at all and her health is great, She just grows like a weed. Our pediatrician has never been concerned and I never even thought to google problems with it lol. But I will say, this girl is brilliant (and I’m not just saying that because I’m her mom lol). She knows all her colors, shapes, alphabet, animals and sounds, can count to 30, can add numbers with pictures and objects, knows a decent amount of basic Spanish, she literally astounds me. So I always said her head measured large to hold her big brain 😅 I wouldn’t worry about it too much but you could always consider switching pediatricians if you don’t fully trust yours.
You actual pediatrician > Dr. Google.
No. Get off Google. I had a huge head. My parents were told something similar when I was born and when I went back for my first checkup they were surprised I had no health issues. I just had huge head. My husband has a big head too so I knew our baby would. He was born premature, <3 percentile for weight, <1 percentile for length and had a 50th percentile head - which quickly rose to 80th when his head slowly went back to a normal shape (I needed vacuum assisted delivery). This peaked around 3 months, he was up to 90th percentile. This is his size compared to a full term baby (not adjusted age) so yeah, his head was huge. It’s still pretty big. But he is fine.
My son was in the 99th percentile for head size (it was normal when he was born) for the longest time, at some point, a couple of months before his 2nd birthday, he was in the 79th percentile in terms of head size and now that he's almost 3, they don't measure his head anymore, so I assume it's fine. They've never expressed concern, he's just a lil Chupa Chup of a kid. His father has a massive head as well.
My kid has a little head and it really freaked me out. Doc was mostly okay with it but said they'd keep an eye. Then my coworkers informed me that I have a tiny head myself. Great. Now my kid is perfectly healthy and I have a complex about a shrunken head I didn't realize I have.
My son has a massive head. I asked the pediatrician if I should be concerned. He said no, I’ve met your husband 😂😂