# Pot-bellied toddlers?



## blumom2boyz (Jun 13, 2006)

Any moms out there have a pot bellied toddler? My son will be 3 at the end of May and he still has a pot belly. Sometimes it looks so big, it is as if he has a baby in there!!! My older son is a skinny guy, so I really don't remember him having this, or at least not this noticable. Ds2 doesn't gorge himself all day. In fact, his appetite has dropped conciderably over the last several months. Oh, and it isn't squishy, so I am not concerned about him being overweight (he has been 32# for pretty much the last 8 or 9 months and about 38" tall).


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## sbgrace (Sep 22, 2004)

I have one of those guys too! In our case, it is less about the size of his belly and more about the form of his back--he has kind of a sway back which makes his belly stick out!


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## chinaKat (Aug 6, 2005)

DD is almost 2.5 and still has an adorable belly!

Must be genetic, early photos of me show the same.

It does eventually go away... I had a nice flat stomach after that... right up until I discovered beer and wings in college


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## the2amigos (Apr 27, 2005)

My guy has one too - it's so cute!


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## RachelW (Sep 30, 2004)

DD has this too! I joke that I need to buy her "toddler maternity" clothes. In all seriousness, our doctor reassured me that she was fine and that her abdominal muscles hadn't fully developed strength to hold her developing organs.







He told me she'd "grow out" for a bit and then begin to "grow upwards."


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## doitmyselfmama (Dec 31, 2005)

I was expecting a little more of a pot belly for DS, because my brother sister and I were all pot belly kids. I'm sure it is genetic. My brother and I grew very lean after about age 4, where as my sister was always on the heavier side, so I don't think it means anything in particular about body type. I think it's so cute!


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## Synchro246 (Aug 8, 2005)

I sometimes wonder if my little pot-bellied kid has worms.
Is that possible?


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## shishkeberry (Sep 24, 2004)

I have a pot-belly boy, too.


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## hottmama (Dec 27, 2004)

My oldest son turns 4 in a couple weeks and gets a pot belly, then grows taller, over and over again for the past 3 yrs. I love when he has a potbelly! Although then I know he's about to outgrow every piece of clothing he owns and look older overnight.


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## avendesora (Sep 23, 2004)

My DD has a potbelly at the end of the day - but by morning she's skinny again! I think she just does all her digesting at night or something.

Aven


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## ThreeBeans (Dec 2, 2006)

DS has a HUGE pot-belly. And he's so skinny in other places...i can wrap my fingers around his thighs. He looks malnourished







:


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## moppity (Aug 15, 2005)

My DD has it too, she also has a sway back (as do DH and I). Actually she was sitting after her dinner last night and I joked to DH that she looked more pregnant than me


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## myrrhmaid (Aug 20, 2002)

I remember reading in The Well Baby Book that the swayback/potbelly is a characteristic of a 2 y.o. body. No worries mamas! I just wish mine looked as cute!


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## bjorker (Jul 25, 2005)

I thought all toddlers had that?









In all seriousness, though, I love her belly. She was "diagnosed" FTT in infancy and was very tiny and skinny (to sum the whole ordeal WAY up), so when the belly finally came I was quite overjoyed.


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## GooeyRN (Apr 24, 2006)

Pot bellies are normal in toddlers. Its from not yet developed abdominal muscles. They will develop more over time.

My dd is almost 15 months old, and she has a pot belly. The funny thing is, she is only in the 7th percentile for weight. So she is this super skinny thing with a pot belly! Its so cute!


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## mamablair (Dec 15, 2006)

Yeah! I'm so glad to hear there is more pot-bellies. My DS has quite the pot-bellie and the chubby cheeks to go with it. Most people call him fat, which really irritates me. He's a little "overweight" but so active and eats very healthy. That's just the way God made him and I'm sure he'll stretch out sometime. But it's good to know that I'm not the only one. I think it's just the cutest!


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## cheeseRjedi (Jun 5, 2005)

My DD has the cutest Buddha belly. I especially love it when she's naked b/c her legs and waist are so small then she has this big ole gut hanging over







.


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## TwinMom (Dec 27, 2001)

Chances are all of your babies just have cute little bellies, but I wanted to mention that have a large belly on an otherwise-average sized baby can be a sign of celiac disease. My son was recently diagnosed, so now I'm seeing symptoms everywhere I look.







Just wanted to throw it out there in case anyone was seeing other things going on in their child.


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## Faerieshadow (Mar 31, 2005)

My son has quite the pot belly as well. He's short for his age (35 inches at almost 29 months) and weighs 31 pounds. Everyone always mentions how husky he is and how he looks like he's going to be a football player.







: It's definitely genetic, though - pictures of me at that age look identical to his body type - and I'm 5'2 and 102 pounds now - so not husky and football player like.







I've always had a slight pooch though, except when I've been sick and gone underweight.

Ds loves to eat, and he still nurses a lot. And his belly starts off smaller in the morning and looks huge by nighttime as well! All the kids we know are really skinny, I mean REALLY skinny, so I think in comparison he looks even "bigger" to everyone.

It's actually nice to know there are other kids out there with pot bellies.







I always thought it was normal, but out of like 15 children his age I can think of off the top of my head that we know, only 2 or 3 of them have pot bellies!


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## speairson (Jul 25, 2005)

My ds never had one, his tummy is totally flat and he's a skinny kiddo who eats everything in sight. Dd has a big ole pot belly and doesn't eat nearly as much as he does. I always thought it was more genetic than anything else because they're both totally healthy.


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## wombatclay (Sep 4, 2005)

We love kissing and "zerberting" dd's pot belly. It's adorable and it sticks out SO far.


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## AEZMama (Jul 24, 2005)

It seems like just in this past week or so ds' went from being 21 mos to about 65 yrs and all of his pants go below the belly! I've been calling him my little pot bellied piggy and he loves it! Or poking his belly button like Poppin' Fresh!


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## BookGoddess (Nov 6, 2005)

Another mama of a pot-bellied toddler.








DD looks slim from the back but she has a cute tummy if you see her from the side. Her ped hasn't said anything about it so I'm not too concerned. Even with the tummy, DD is still in the 55-60% percentile for weight though she's taller than average for height.

*Twinmom* - thanks for that heads up. I checked out Celiac Disease on Goggle and I don't see the symptoms in my DD but you did everyone a service by mentioning it.


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## AmyC (Jul 3, 2005)

My girl (almost 3 years old) is slim all over, but has a pot belly, too. Sometimes it looks huge. It's hilarious because she's got this skinny little tush and slim hips, long and skinny legs, narrow shoulders, slender arms, a thin and narrow chest, and this bulging mound of a belly.

It's pretty gratifying, frankly. At least the calories are showing up somewhere. (And she does get pudgier before a growth spurt, too. Her cheeks look fuller, her belly is big and seems more solid, and then she wakes up taller. And more lean for awhile. The pot belly doesn't go away completely, though. Or at least, it starts right up again.)

Having a pot belly doesn't really keep her pants from falling down, though. Cloth diapers are our only salvation in that department.


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## mamablair (Dec 15, 2006)

*TwinMom*-Thanks for the head up. Could you tell us what other signs/symptoms to be aware of?

Thanks!


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## minkl (Oct 30, 2005)

oh yeah! Ds has a huge pot belly. I think it's just his frame is so slender. DH and I are super skinny and it's clear that DS has the same frame, so with skinny arms, legs, and body, i think his belly is the only place he can store that fat (and his chubby cheeks!) I also think that if DH gets chubby as an older man, it would go straight to his belly too.


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## Erin+babyAndrew (Jan 2, 2004)

I don't want to worry any of you, but if you think your child has more pot belly than average, get them checked out. My son had a large belly as well, and he was telling us he had a baby in his tummy and it was time to go to the hospital so the dr could help him have his baby. We thought he was being silly since I had recently had a baby,but he kept on with it and eventually was in a lot of pain so we took him in. It turned out to be a large malignant tumor on his kidney, called a Wilm's Tumor.


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