3 week old's skin darker than both mother and father's skin.

[lovie]

My baby is 3 weeks old and he has (lovely) olive skin. Both me and my DP and very very pale. Our baby is darker than both of us.

DS was a little jaundinced just after birth but his skin now looks more brown/red than yellow.

There is no paternal questions, my DP is DS's dad, he also was conceived the month before we were due to start IVF, if he had been conceived through IVF I would be thinking they mixed up the embryos with a tall dark handsome couple.

Is it normal for a small baby to have flushed/dark skin? Could it be an indication of a problem?

We are seeing the HV tomorrow she is pretty useless though.

 

[Banshee]

Are there any grandparents with olive skin? Skin colour can skip generations.

 

[Irish Eyes]

My hubby is mixed race and my baby is pale! At one point his hair looked red but has changed to brown.
Colouring can go back generations and can also change as the baby gets older

 

[LegoHouse]

If there's anyone in your families with olive skin then it's perfectly explainable If not then.. well.. miracle?!

 

[bananaz]

It's possible for light-skinned parents to have a baby with olive skin assuming there's olive skin somewhere in their ancestries, but it's also possible for a baby's skin color to change as they get older. When my LO was born her skin was really tan-colored but over time it lightened up and now she's as pale as I am.

 

[kwood]

I was born jaundice and I went from the yellow skin to very nice olive skin for a few months. I also had jet black hair (both my parents and big brother were blond) Our family photo from when I was newborn looks like I was adopted..hahah After a few months my skin went to the same colour as my parents and my hair turned almost white blond.

 

[lovie]

All the grandparents are white/pale, I have celtic colouring and my DP is swedish. My baby has blue eyes but i think most babies have blue eyes, his hair was really dark when he was born but now it is growing through blonde.

It is not like we have taken him out in the sun because it has been cloudy here since he was born I don't think he has even seen the sun.

 

[bananaz]

All the grandparents are white/pale, I have celtic colouring and my DP is swedish. My baby has blue eyes but i think most babies have blue eyes, his hair was really dark when he was born but now it is growing through blonde.

It is not like we have taken him out in the sun because it has been cloudy here since he was born I don't think he has even seen the sun.

I think you'll just have to wait and see how his skin color changes over the next few months If you and your OH both come from fair-skinned backgrounds then chances are your LO's skin will lighten over time.

For illustration purposes, my baby shortly after birth...

And my baby now...

She wasn't jaundiced at all either, that's just how she came out for some reason

 

[lovie]

Thank you for sharing the pics bananaz, she's adorable! What a difference, I wonder if the same will happen to my baby.

 

[Shadowy Lady]

My dad is olive skinned and both of his parents are pale with blue eyes. Olive skin can stay in many generations and skip a few.

My baby is mixed race...I'm Mediterranean and hubby is 1/2 black and 1/2 native american. She was born with light reddish skin but now at 4 months she has a beautiful olive skin. They do change (or not like my dad, hehe).

 

[Jslyn9996]

My LO was darker skinned than oh and myself for a couple months. took him a while to lose that newborn pigment. But now he has joined his daddy and I and is white as snow.. Maybe he will lightwn up with time.

 

[yrose20118]

my LO had lovely olive skin when he was born but its starting to go really pale like me now... he is 5 months and its been the last month or so where ive noticed he's actually inherited my VERY pale skin... poor little mite!

xxx

 

[mommy0629]

All the grandparents are white/pale, I have celtic colouring and my DP is swedish. My baby has blue eyes but i think most babies have blue eyes, his hair was really dark when he was born but now it is growing through blonde.

It is not like we have taken him out in the sun because it has been cloudy here since he was born I don't think he has even seen the sun.

I think you'll just have to wait and see how his skin color changes over the next few months If you and your OH both come from fair-skinned backgrounds then chances are your LO's skin will lighten over time.

For illustration purposes, my baby shortly after birth...

And my baby now...

She wasn't jaundiced at all either, that's just how she came out for some reason

This is a good example of how my lo's skin changed too. When she was born, after she got all cleaned up of course, I thought - WOW, her skin color doesn't look like she could be ours! Now she's just as pale as me, DH and DS lol. Her hair has lightened up some already also.

 

[summer rain]

One of my sisters is olive skinned, kids at school used to ask if she was adopted. We used to call her Esmeralda after the Character in the hunchback of notre dame, quite ironic because recently we have found we do have gypsy ancestry on my mum's side, my mums great great grandma was gypsy born on a site and there are a few other of her direct ancestors who we strongly suspect were travelling folk as well. She also has more exotic stuff much much further back, such as Moors who were in Spain at that time. My mum and dad are quite pale but my grandma and grandad on both sides were quite 'swarthy' with brown eyes and hair. It could be in your family that its just from much further back. Another thing is some jaundiced babies are born with an excess of red blood cells which take a while to break down fully even if they no longer look obviously jaundiced xx

 

[Aden]

hi there, I wonder how dark your child is since I have the same issues too regarding with skin color coz we are both have fair skin and my LO when he came out he was so dark like no one ever likes him.. and everybody we're expecting a very pale baby...

 

[donnarobinson]

My babies are born dark skinned and they lighten up my last baby was the darkest I thought he would follow his dad's colour he's mixed race but nope he's really light now X

 

[themisfit]

My sister is olive skinned, but me, my oldest sister, my brother, my mother, and our father are and were all pale. It turned out we have both Greek and Italian in our families. The dark skin merely skipped a generation. Interestingly, Raven came out with olive skin, too. I'm pale, my fiance is somewhere between pale and olive skinned. We both have olive skin in our families (he on his dad side, me on both mom and dad's!).

So, yes, it can skip generations. It is very possible for two pale people to have an olive skinned child.

 

[Teri7489]

My son had bad jaundice for the first 2 weeks then went a dark olive colour, and he also had jet black hair. He's now blonde and has such pale skin like myself and his daddy x

 

[Gym knickers]

My dd1 had a lovely olive skin tone as a newborn, I wasn't surprised as I'm half Greek and hubby is olive skinned, she slowly went paler and paler and now looks really odd as me, DH and dd2 are all olive skinned and tan easily! We all also have brown eyes and hers are green/blue. There's no paternity question either and facially she's the image of DH, we just think maybe she follows my mums paler side of the family! We've all just come back from holidays so it's really obvious at the moment, she's so fair compared to all of us.

 

[mandy81]

I have really dark skin (my granny was indian), my OH has dark skin, both our older children have dark skin and brown eyes but our youngest baby who just turned one has blue eyes and fair skin.
I always joke that the hospital give me the wrong baby lol..

I wouldn't worry too much about it, babies change so much in the first year. x