Anonymous wrote:Op, as a fellow preemie mom -- in no way were you being over sensitive. When your baby is a preemie, there is a huge emphasis placed on size, weight, and catching up, and thereafter a huge emphasis on milestones. It's relentless and mothers of term infants simply do not understand how painful it is and how guilty you feel. Being "tiny" at birth can have life long consequences for preemies and it is devastating for the mother to have the baby's size remarked upon by strangers and acquaintances, making her feel like the baby is so different and a freak. People said amazingly insensitive things after I had a preemie. Women remarked that I was so tiny and I guess that was the trade off. My mil asked what I had done wrong. My coworker gleefully informs me, at every stage, that my now 90% percentile baby was the size hers was at basically birth/ four months prior. Having a preemie means your child has special needs -- for the first few years, it is monitored closely and development is watched like a hawk. People think its no big deal, but they need to try to have some compassion and understanding. Late term preemies, babies born from 34 weeks to 37, are three times more likely to have autism, dramtxually more likely to have ADHD, learning disabilities, and delays. It's fu$&&@@ scary and isolating. I don't care if you just say your friends preemie baby is tiny because it is to you and you don't mean to insult. You don't tell disabled people they don't walk. You don't tell obese people they are fat. Grow some sensitivity.

Anonymous wrote:Op, as a fellow preemie mom -- in no way were you being over sensitive. When your baby is a preemie, there is a huge emphasis placed on size, weight, and catching up, and thereafter a huge emphasis on milestones. It's relentless and mothers of term infants simply do not understand how painful it is and how guilty you feel. Being "tiny" at birth can have life long consequences for preemies and it is devastating for the mother to have the baby's size remarked upon by strangers and acquaintances, making her feel like the baby is so different and a freak. People said amazingly insensitive things after I had a preemie. Women remarked that I was so tiny and I guess that was the trade off. My mil asked what I had done wrong. My coworker gleefully informs me, at every stage, that my now 90% percentile baby was the size hers was at basically birth/ four months prior. Having a preemie means your child has special needs -- for the first few years, it is monitored closely and development is watched like a hawk. People think its no big deal, but they need to try to have some compassion and understanding. Late term preemies, babies born from 34 weeks to 37, are three times more likely to have autism, dramtxually more likely to have ADHD, learning disabilities, and delays. It's fu$&&@@ scary and isolating. I don't care if you just say your friends preemie baby is tiny because it is to you and you don't mean to insult. You don't tell disabled people they don't walk. You don't tell obese people they are fat. Grow some sensitivity.

Anonymous wrote:Op said her neighbor was aware baby was a preemie so yea fools its rude. It's like telling you your ADHD kid is pretty darn hyper and wild. Not a compliment.

Anonymous wrote:Op, as a fellow preemie mom -- in no way were you being over sensitive. When your baby is a preemie, there is a huge emphasis placed on size, weight, and catching up, and thereafter a huge emphasis on milestones. It's relentless and mothers of term infants simply do not understand how painful it is and how guilty you feel. Being "tiny" at birth can have life long consequences for preemies and it is devastating for the mother to have the baby's size remarked upon by strangers and acquaintances, making her feel like the baby is so different and a freak. People said amazingly insensitive things after I had a preemie. Women remarked that I was so tiny and I guess that was the trade off. My mil asked what I had done wrong. My coworker gleefully informs me, at every stage, that my now 90% percentile baby was the size hers was at basically birth/ four months prior. Having a preemie means your child has special needs -- for the first few years, it is monitored closely and development is watched like a hawk. People think its no big deal, but they need to try to have some compassion and understanding. Late term preemies, babies born from 34 weeks to 37, are three times more likely to have autism, dramtxually more likely to have ADHD, learning disabilities, and delays. It's fu$&&@@ scary and isolating. I don't care if you just say your friends preemie baby is tiny because it is to you and you don't mean to insult. You don't tell disabled people they don't walk. You don't tell obese people they are fat. Grow some sensitivity.

Anonymous wrote:How on earth was a neighbor she's never even met supposed to know the baby was a preemie!!! The point many of us keep making is that the neighbor wasn't being rude or insensitive...she merely made an innocuous comment that virtually any rational person might make when encountering a baby human...bc babies ARE small (even those who are ten pounds at birth).

Also, OP is not saying her neighbor was being "mean." She said that her neighbor's remark touched a nerve because of the anxiety OP has dealt with in the NICU, etc, relating to size. Can you seriously not understand that, whether or not it makes sense to you or is something you would feel, that it is possible a woman might feel stressed to hear her kid looks tiny? I didn't have a preemie but we were always falling on and off the charts. It was a constant stress, with a feeding specialist consulted. I had to consciously work to keep my mind OFF of his size, off of what he was eating or not eating, off of how he might appear. So when people would say "oh, he's tiny!" it's not like I thought they were assholes or anything, but it reminded me of something that I was trying to cope with already. Maybe all of you on this thread might take heed at how people here are telling you that whether or not you meant harm, [b wrote:saying "tiny" to a baby is actually rude.[/b] It's not rude if you say it without knowing, but now lots of people have told you. So if YOU personally say it again to a mom with a tiny kid, you now know you might be hurting her feelings. So just don't do it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD was born at 8.5 lbs - pretty big for a newborn. Nevertheless, everyone from family to neighbors to friends made comments about how "tiny" she was in the first few weeks. How "small", "tiny", "teeny tiny", etc. I think these are words that people assign to newborns (and yes, OP, 8 weeks is still very close to newborn) and really young babies, period. Get over it and move on.

You're determined not to get it, huh? It's not what the people mean that causes the harm, it's that dozens of people have now told you it touches a nerve and you're determined to tell these parents to move on. It's like if a child is getting slightly obese and you comment "oh she's growing up to be such a big girl!" You might have meant nothing, but those words are still going to be a reminder to mom of something she's stressing about. Just stop saying it, kay?