never call him "Big D"

I hate to pidgeonhole the kids but Dd is gloriously large and since he's so young I think it's still okay to talk about it without giving him a complex.   Also, I promise to stop comparing the kids to each other .... any minute.

At birth Dd was larger than average but not exceptionally big and actually Dd's birth weight was a pound less than his older brother (D was 9 lb 15 oz at birth and 20.5 inches and Dd was only 8 lb 14 oz and 20 inches).

However, by the age of two months, Dd soared past D on both height and weight to be in the 97th percentile on height and the 86th percentile on weight.  One month ago at his 18th month check-up he was a nicely proportional 97-99th percentile on height, weight and head size.  This makes him the size of an average three year old.  (https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1clinical/cj41c021.pdf)

Our kids have some tall genes at work from Jack's dad's side of the family, but we have many tall friends with tall kids so at each doctor visit Dd's percentiles, which are based on global statistics, still surprise me a bit.

Being the second baby, I nursed Dd better from the start and he lost less weight than D did in the week after birth.   We also started him on solids at 4 months instead of 6 months like we did with D and Dd took to solid food quite well.   On the other hand, poor D was sooo hungry at 6 months and although my milk supply kept up (I remember bringing in about 30 oz of milk a day to his daycare) I think he would have benefited from earlier solids too.   The medical advice on allergies has changed to support earlier introduction.  Dd started with pea soup and watery peanut butter, with antihistamines standing by (thankfully unused).

Dd didn't gag or reject any type of food until recent months with his increased ability to make his demands known.  Both kids got teeth fairly late but it was truly impressive to see what Dd could handle in his 8 months of eating solids with zero teeth.   With D we made and served more special, limited ingredient foods and with Dd we fully embraced the "baby lead weaning" method, which just means we encouraged him to eat what we were eating, as independently as possible, without letting him choke.    I think the amount of time baby Dd observed the rest of us eating before he got his shot at food also contributed to his readiness.   Then again, maybe it just boils down to appetite.