So not cool.

“Don’t worry; he will thin out when he starts crawling”

“Oh it’s ok, chunky babies are cute!”

“Haha! What on earth does your mummy feed you!?!”

Attention: EVERYBODY

In my eyes, Bobby is the cutest f**king thing on this planet…the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. He has a large family…three sets of grandparents, in fact. Has has a total of 10 aunties & uncles combined. And about another 8-10 of our best friends that we refer to as his ‘aunties & uncles’. All of these people mentioned above, and only these, can refer to Bobby as ‘fat’.

Bobby was a big baby. He was born at 8lb 5oz (3.8kg) at 38 weeks. Quite a decent size for a baby that came 2 weeks early. It was always a given, Jaryd & I are not small, and certainly weren’t small babies either. Jaryd is a professional athlete, and I’m nearly 6 foot tall & a size 12. We have every ingredient under the sun required to make a big baby. Bobby loves to eat. There’s no hiding that. Jaryd’s a wog, and I still maintain the nickname ‘Seagull’ from when I was 2 as I would eat everyone’s leftovers off of their plates. So, we can obviously both eat. Again, if we had have had a small baby, something must have been wrong.

Bobby was breastfed until nearly five months old. Yes he was supplemented with one formula bottle from birth, but his first few months of growth came from mummy’s good titty milk. He thrived. You know those stupid f**king baby books that say ‘babies will feed for 20 minutes on one side, and then 15 on the other each feed’ or some crap?

Well, f**k no.

The reason I didn’t sleep for the first few weeks was because I had a newborn who would go an hour, an hour & a half, on each boob. And solidly! Where the hell all that milk went…I’m not sure. Especially when each individual breast was bigger than his entire head BEFORE my milk came in. So I can’t begin to imagine how much milk he was taking in when he emptied each side.

The boy has always been a trooper when it comes to eating, so when it came time to introduce solids (which I did at 4.5 months because he was hungry) absolutely nothing fazed him. I didn’t think a baby could grasp the concept of opening his mouth, using his tongue and swallowing as quickly as Bobby did. But again, I reiterate, Jaryd & I were never going to produce a fussy eater. Approaching 7 months old (holy shit balls I have a 7 month old soon!!!)  I am yet to come across something that Bobby doesn’t like. We have tried him on almost everything (almost… so don’t panic and tell me I shouldn’t be feeding him this, shouldn’t be feeding him that) He loves all fruit & veg – whole and pureed, porridge, toast, pasta, rice, meats…he even ate half of my piece of salmon the other day, and the next night my mum’s risotto. I couldn’t be prouder of the eater I am producing, and I know his Daddy and his Maltese grandfather are exactly the same!

I guess what I’m trying to say here with all of this is that I feel like I almost have to justify myself as to why we have such a big baby? When I shouldn’t? Just like a mother shouldn’t have to feel the need to justify or try to explain why their baby is on the smaller side… like you would starve your own child?

Yes, Bobby is huge! We are well aware of that! We recently took a photo of him on the couch with his 18-month-old cousin and Bobby is officially bigger! Not ‘fatter’ – bigger. As in his entire body is on a larger scale than Jack’s, his cousin.

I do some serious pelvic floor tensing when I lift Bobby, I can assure you of that. We know he’s big when we go to buy him floaties that are ‘Up to 12months old’ and we go ‘great!’  until we read the ‘Up to 11kg’ and I worry if he’s too heavy for something that’s suppose to be appropriate for a one year old.

Are we concerned for him? Absolutely not. And why? Because I know the food we fuel his ever-so-active body with is 100% the best stuff we could give him. If anyone knows my partner Jaryd, you’ll immediate think of the word vain. Ha! Jokes! No, but Jaryd as an athlete has some serious respect for his body and one of his best qualities is his self-discipline when it comes to food – hence the way he looks. He works so hard to have the physique he has so he is allowed to be proud of himself when he looks in the mirror. Yes he has a gigantic appetite, but he is strict with himself and his limits. Therefore, even if I tried, Bobby won’t be bought up to eat junk (not too much anyway).

So Bobby eats. And eats a lot. But do we give him anything and everything? Absolutely not. Below I’ve listed what Bobby would eat on your average day. And for a baby approaching seven months old – the schedule is about on-par with what is “recommended”.

Breakfast:
7.30am – Bottle
8.30am – 1 X WeetBix, 1 Tbls Greek Yogurt, 1 Tbls pureed pear OR Oats with home stewed berries, banana & pear.

Lunch:
11am – Bottle
12.30pm – Variety of home cooked puréed vegetables / sometimes with chicken.

Afternoon Tea:
3.30pm – Bottle

Dinner: 5.30/6pm – Whatever we are having (that’s baby appropriate) i.e. Meat & 3 veg, Risotto etcOR Same as lunch – Variety of home cooked puréed vegetables / sometimes with chicken/beef.

Bedtime: 7.30/8 – Bottle

Snack: (if we’re out & about and he wants to nibble on something) – Cut up apple or orange

So to the next lady that says to me in passing “Shit! What are you feeding him?” with a giggle, I’ll happily lay out my menu for you.

We love our chunky monkey. Our ‘Buddha’. Pumba is what he gets called on some days. We LOVE it that people call him all of these things. Nothing makes me happier when ladies comment on my photos saying, “ahhh I LOVE his chunky legs!!” or “I just want to eat his chubby cheeks!” Honestly, it’s such a compliment to us because that’s everything we love about our son. Our big strong healthy bubba. It’s what makes him. Each of his three chins that protrude under that beautiful big grin, and his scarily-defined deltoid & quadriceps muscles that have to be bigger than average.

Yep, he’s above average on every scale there is. Height, weight, head circumference…mummy might have self-diagnosed his above average ball size too. I was above average my entire life. Never fat (other than when I was a chubby baby), but big. Bigger than everybody my age. I’m nearly 6ft now, but haven’t grown (in height) since I was 15 years old. I’m three years younger than my big twin-sisters, but we were continually confused as triplets. So, Bobby’s our above average baby. I’ll happily take that because he’s above average in EVERYTHING in our eyes.

Call him chubs, rolly-polly, Bert Newton, plump, well-fed, solid, or say, “wow, he’s…. healthy” all you want. Hell, I’ve been called voluptuous my entire life and take that as the biggest compliment ever. Just don’t call my Bobby fat!!!

Has anyone ever called your baby fat? How did you react?

This article originally appeared on The Young Mummy and has been republished here with full permission.

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