When your baby's born can you instantly tell who they look like?

Question

I'm expecting my first baby on December 8th and I can't wait to see who he (its a boy we know) will look like!

From the last scan we had it looks like he has his daddy's nose (shape) but obviously we can't be sure.

When they come out are they just red and wrinkly, and it takes a month or so for you to see who they follow? Or could you tell almost instantly?

I know they sometimes don't even take after their parents, but other relatives. My fiance looks like his uncle and his brother looks like their grandad. I apparently look like my dad's mother!

Both my fiance and I have dark brown hair and eyes so thats a foregone conclusion, but I can't wait to see whose features my baby will inherit!

Thanks for your answers, I'll love him whoever he looks like!

The only reason I think he's got his daddy's nose is that my fiancee is part Spanish and has a prominent, meditteraenean style nose and on all the scans in profile the shape of the nasal spine is identical! Everyone whose seen the scan has remarked on it! But we'll have to see.

Answer 1

My daughter was born 12 weeks ago. It took a day or two to really see who she looked like. But, I can tell you, their looks change DAILY. She looks totally different now. When she was born just 3 months ago, she looked like Daddy. Now, she looks likes me. hheheheheh

Answer 2

As a newborn, you can see the features on their faces such as noses and cheeks and chins. You can definately see stuff in you baby that look totally familiar to you or your fiance. The hair color is NOT a foregone conclusion. I have four daughters and two different dads. The oldest three have the same dad and all three have different colored hair and the same birth parents. I have three nieces that also have the same mom and dad and their haircolor is also three different haircolors. My youngest daughter has light blond hair and her dad and I are brunettes. Most things like hair and features are genetically a one in four statistic. As each of my children grew, their features developed with them in different ways. But interestingly enough, their baby pictures still look just like them even though they changed so much since birth. You'll probably find a relative somewhere that has something that your child has that you don't have. But all in all I'd say you can see some things immediately. Here's and article about newborns that a good one:

http://health.discovery.com/centers/baby/development/physical.html

Answer 3

My husband and I both have dark brown, almost black, hair. And our youngest daughter is a towhead. So it's not a foregone conclusion! (Even though we're dark haired and olive skinned, we both have green eyes and family members with light hair and light skin.)

I would say that our kids had a few traits (or even mannerisms) that seemed to take after one parent or the other right away, but it really took years to see "who they looked like." We have a toddler and a preschooler, and they're still changing so quickly and so much that it's still difficult to say with any certainty. I definitely think the older one looks more like my side of the family, in general. And the younger one has some of my family traits, but overall seems to take more after her daddy?

Baby noses all look the same. Seriously. Get 5 friends to show you pictures of their kids immediately after delivery, and you'll see how alike they are. I definitely don't think you can say yet that your baby has your fiance's nose!

Answer 4

Before I went into labor, I loved that child deeply from the time I knew I was pregnant, just fiercely in love with the baby inside me, so I didn't think I would have any problem once it was born. At the moment my son was born, though, I had been in excruciating pain for so long with an induced overdue childbirth that I don't think I could really have loved anyone. I just wanted the pain gone and the baby out of me. When he finally was, they were having trouble getting him to breathe, so he was almost blue, and as they rushed him out of the room to the nursery, they paused just long enough for me to get a glimpse of him -- purplish blue, covered in blood and slime, with a cone-shaped head, and -- just as I focused on him, he coughed up thick yellow slime (that had been keeping him from breathing). I said, "Oh, he's so ugly!!!" And they rushed him out. Ten hours later, they brought him to my room to nurse. He had been cleaned up, his head was reshaping to normal, and he was the most gorgeous shade of velvety, peachy pink with the deepest blue eyes I've ever seen -- and was the most exquisitely beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. I cried such tears of joy that I nearly drowned him, lol. And he's been beautiful ever since. I'm sure the experience is different for everybody, according to their background, their upbringing, how much pain they've been in during labor, etc. But if you look at the 'goop' on them and remember that it washes off quite easily, it doesn't have to be so gross. And if you're normal, you'll be madly in love with them before the week is out, at least -- and probably before you leave the hospital.

Answer 5

There may be some features when they are first born that are similar bu babies do change a lot as they grow. I recently looked at a picture of my 7 month old when she was a newborn and she doesn't even look like the same kid. Just watch as your baby grows, it may go back and forth.

Answer 6

Everyone else see someone in a baby - usually themselves!

My Mother In Law was adamant my son was the spit of my husband whereas my Nan said he was so like one her own babies she was amazed.

Its all in the eye of the beholder so to speak!

Now as my son is getting older his features bacame more distinguished and I see him very like his dad, I also see him like my mums side of the family.

But all this irks me a bit - a baby is a completly new person and should be allowed to look like themselves!

As for the dark hair - not nessicarly! Me and my hubby are both dark and have the blondest boy ever! (and he isn't the milkmans honest!!!)

GOod luck with the new arrival!

Answer 7

If they are a good weight they aren't red or wrinkly. Neither of mine looked new born and they went straight into 3 month clothes - for a short time.

Their heads can be misshapen after birth for a while and their eyes (not to mention genitals) can be swollen - which has to alter their looks.

Answer 8

It's really hard to make out who they look like when they're babies. You should wait a few months, I'd even dare to say wait until the baby is 1 year. Babies change really fast. You're not always so certain until their 1 year.

Answer 9

I think they change so much in the first 2 years of life it's diffficult to say who they look like and as doting parents you and the extended family will all coo over it and say "ah does'nt he have Aunt Daisys' chin or uncle Barts' eyes" etc etc.
Just let him/her be whoever they can be they have attributeds from both parents and genetic historys' so just wait and see!

Answer 10

When I was expecting my kids, I read somewhere that for the first three months the babies look like thier dad. It said it was natures way of making sure the father knew that the baby is really his. Luckily my two grew out of it and look like me now!!