Activity #144: Predict the future

by Whitney on October 24, 2008

in Geeky,Month 6

I read this in a magazine recently. You can get a sense of your baby’s future height based on the heights of the two biological parents. For boys, add 5 inches to mom’s height. Your son will be between that height and his daddy’s height. For girls, subtract 5 inches from her dad’s height. Your daughter will be between that height and mama’s height.


In my case this is not a helpful predictor at all because with a 13 inch height difference between me and my husband, we still end up with a 7-inch range for a prediction. At least I know my son will be taller than me. Maybe it calculates more precisely for you.

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

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How to make predictions about baby's future | Baby-Log, New Mum's Blog
October 27, 2008 at 4:36 pm

{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }

Heather March 1, 2006 at 10:02 am

So Holden will be between 5’9″ and 6’1″ by your game. Is there no chance he will be taller than his daddy? Are people just getting shorter over time? Is this because of global warming?

Mandie October 24, 2008 at 7:57 am

I have also heard if you double your daughter’s height at 18 months or your son’s at 24 months, that’s a good prediction of the height they will grow up to be.

wren October 24, 2008 at 8:37 am

What about when mom and daddy are around the same height? We’ve got a boy with a 5’7″ mom and a 5’8″ dad.

Emma October 25, 2008 at 4:12 am

I guess you and our child health nurse are reading the same magazines. She totally blew me away when she came up with this height prediction – and I somehow thought it was a method she invented in her 29-years of being a nurse :)

kay October 25, 2008 at 9:07 pm

i am not sure how this works with me considering my husband is shorter than me. Does that mean my son will be way taller than both of us?

Elisa October 26, 2008 at 9:33 am

My children were born in the UK, where we were given two formulae (one for boys, one for girls) for calculating our children’s growth potential based solely on the parents’ heights. It’s a little more complicated than the ones above. I blogged about it soon after my son was born: http://weblog.xanga.com/blissful_e/643364169/growth-potential.html

And a friend told me just two days ago about a height predictor for children aged 8 to 16 from the University of Saskatchewan: http://athena.usask.ca/growthutility/phv_ui.cfm?type=2

Meg (B2B) October 26, 2008 at 1:51 pm

I am in the same boat as you Whitney. My husband is almost a foot taller. That means Boo will be between 5’6″ and 6’1″ ?

Judith October 27, 2008 at 8:31 am

I’ve heard the same thing as Mandie (2), but I can’t find any measurements of when I was 18 months old :)

Emily October 28, 2008 at 3:29 pm

Two problems with this: first, why does it matter? Second, I am four inches taller than my sister. My dad is 12 inches taller than my sister. My mom and I are the same height. My sister is, therefore, four inches under the possible range predicted. No formula can predict height–based on the formula my parents used, I am 6 inches taller than they predicted when I was five.

Sue October 31, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Not very accurate! My father is 6’4″ and my mother is 5’7″ – I’m 5’6″! So much of height depends on factors other than genetics, such as nutrition, stress, etc.

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