Oh my, DD is already starting to mature (TMI on female devp)......

[mom2binsd]

DD who will be 8 in June, is only 50lbs, a skinny little thing and she's upstairs with a tender growing breast tissue....last night she asked me "mommy when your boobies were growing did they hurt?".

One of her nipples was tender and I noticed some harder tissue below the surface, silly me I start thinking infection, pulled muscle, all types of things.

We go see the ped this morning, and it's the early early stages of breast tissue development, which he said doesn't mean puberty right away. A further exam did not reveal any other signs (pubic hair etc), and he said one side usually starts first and yes it can be very painful.

Poor thing is pretty uncomfortable, we're doing Motrin to help. She understands that everything is normal, and is fine, although tonight she was worried that one side was going to be really big and the other side flat!

I didn't develop until about age 12 so I was completely taken by surprise, but the ped and school nurse, who I ran into when dropping her off said she's within the normal range.

Any other mom's of younger girls gone through this???

[StantonHyde]

ack!! I feel for you. My 8 yo DS is only about 50 lbs but then he has the emotional maturity of.....an 8 year old boy. Poor girl. Poor mommy!!

[daisymommy]

Poor little gal! That has to be tough on her.

I know you will hear that girls start developing around the time that their mother did (especially starting their period). And that has always been true when we were talking about in the range of adolescence.

But there is also alot of information and studies going on lately about the fact that girls are developing and entering puberty when they are still little girls. It is all linked, since it sexual development is hormone based.

Speculation is being made about the added synthetic hormones in milk and beef, and endocrine/hormone disruptors in personal products and plastics, BPA in toys, chemicals in our environment, etc.

If you do a Google search for "girls developing earlier" several recent articles will come up.

[wendmatt]

Poor little thing. My DD is 8 and a skinny 50 lbs too, no sign of anything yet thank goodness, so I'm no help to you. Poor you, your little girl growing up has got to be hard, I'm so not ready for that. Hope the pain subsides soon.

[bubbaray]

I'm so dreading this....

What about the AG book -- maybe that would help her: http://www.amazon.com/Care-Keeping-You-American-Library/dp/1562476661/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298949293&sr=1-7

[american_mama]

I am not there yet with my girls, but I will be. Heck, I was there when I was a girl and developed early, as did my mother and my MIL. DH and I have been talking about how our girls will be early bloomers since before they were born.

I remember reading a lot about girls developing earlier back in 2000 or 2001 when I worked near some maternal and child health offices. There are all kinds of theories for it, including children having higher levels of body fat these days. Also, some of the classic, commonly cited data about pubertal development set an overly high baseline (was based on British girls in post-WW2 orphanages or some such thing... a kind of nutritionally depleted group, as I recall). But, even if some of the data on age of puberty was skewed too high, I still have no doubt that girls are hitting puberty sooner than they were. I was visiting a 5th-6th grade school last week and saw a student who honestly looked 16-19 years old to me. And DD1 and I just ran into a schoolmate at the grocery store who is roughly 8 years old and had small breasts;I asked DD1 about three times what grade the classmate was in. Both of these girls were curvy but not overweight; the 8 year old, in fact, had strong, muscular arms and a body like a track star.

Anyway, back to you. I am just going on memory here, but I think in my reading 10 years ago, it said that average age of breast development was lowering, but average age of menarche (first period) was not lowering as much. So puberty is starting earlier and being more stretched out.

Which is really not tons of help from a parenting perspective, since how girls look physically affects a lot of how they are treated. I plan to be very alert to unwanted boy attention or boy attention that is more than my daughters are ready to handle. I will also alert to girl jealousy over how physically developed a girl looks; I had a friend in high school who was labeled a bit of a slut solely because she developed early and had a big chest. In actuality, she was not a slut in any way.

On the upside, I was taller than many of my peers for a lot of my childhood and early adolescence, until I'd ended my growth spurt and my peers were just taking off. It meant that I never felt small, overlooked, physically less than anyone. I was honestly in my 20's before I realized that I was short, and most people think I am taller than I am, for whatever that is worth.

[mom2binsd]

When she was a baby and started drinking milk she only got organic as I had read studies linking the hormones in milk to this, and she drank lots of milk. Once DS came along and we switched to nonorganic but hormone free milk.

It's so wierd as she is the epitomy of the "little girl", no body fat and she doesn't favor the grownup clothing style of some of the girls her age, although luckily at school many of the girls still wear a lot of gymbo, hanna, and little girl styles.

It was sad at DS's last hockey game she just said, I want to go home it hurts so much. I think I just need to get the pain managed and it'll be not so bad, the doctor said it's unlikely she'll actually start to show much development in the near future.

I guess for little girls at age 5/6 they actually consider giving them shots to prevent the onset as it's too early.

It's been interesting reading about "precocious/early puberty" but apparently age 7 3/4 isn't technically early puberty, just the low end of average.

Thanks for the support ladies.

[Gracemom]

I feel for her! I was that age and I remember how much it hurt! My DD will be 8 in May and she is much bigger than your DD - 78 pounds and very tall for her age. I developed early and I'm sure she will too. It's great that she can talk to you and has your support.

I second the American Girl book. I got it for my DD and read it myself. I wish I'd had a book like that when I was that age.

[pinkmomagain]

My girls really didn't start until closer to 10. I third that AG book!

[egoldber]

I agree that the AG book is a really good one.

My older DD started developing beast buds last year (age 8). She did get them first on one side and then the other. This year she has also started developing in other ways. I got my period at age 10, so it would not surprise me if she did as well.

[alirebco]

But there is also alot of information and studies going on lately about the fact that girls are developing and entering puberty when they are still little girls. It is all linked, since it sexual development is hormone based.

Speculation is being made about the added synthetic hormones in milk and beef, and endocrine/hormone disruptors in personal products and plastics, BPA in toys, chemicals in our environment, etc.



:yeahthat:

Even if you were having her drink organic or hormone free milk, there are still hormones in meat and also the plastics, phathlates issue.

[mom2binsd]

I got the book and it is very good, we have been reading it together, she is quite fascinated by her development, they describe it in stages, she's really in what the call stage 2 (very early part where breast buds develop), but she said tonight, I think I'm getting close to stage 3 and then we'll definitely have to go shopping for a bra.

As for why it's happening so early, hard to say, when she was a baby BPA wasn't even being talked about, and I'm not sure I'd have been able to prevent her from ingesting hormone's in all of her food unless we'd were vegetarians but even then who knows.

We do the best we can as parents and learn and carry on!