Baby born with thick hair and mum claims she's 'never lost any' as it keeps getting thicker
A baby who was born with a full head of hair so thick she was often mistaken for a toddler, now has locks that can take up to an hour to wash and style.
Lottie Batchelor, who has just turned one, shocked her parents Emily, 28, and Matthew Batchelor, 32, from Lyndhurst, Hampshire, when she was born with thick, black hair that grew to 10 inches in her first year.
Describing their daughter as their "little miracle baby" because she was born after eight miscarriages, mum Emily Batchelor says people love seeing the youngster's thick hair.
"We call her lockdown Lottie and she's one in a million," Batchelor says.
"We were told we may not be able to have any more children naturally after the eight miscarriages and would have to try IVF but amazingly, she was conceived naturally".
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Batchelor says when her daughter was born she was surprised by how dark her hair was and how much of it there was.
"I wasn't expecting it at all," she explains.
"Her hair was the first thing people would notice when they met her; people were always commenting on her hair saying how lucky she was to have so much.
"She's never lost any - it's just got thicker and thicker."
Watch: Baby's big hair is going viral.
Now Lottie's hair is almost the same length as her six-year-old sister's Evie - with many thinking the one-year-old is a lot older than she actually is.
"Her hair goes half way down her back when it's wet and by the time she's two, I think it'll be the same length as Evie's," Batchelor continues.
"People are shocked when I say that Lottie is only 12 months old - most people think she's at least two."
Lottie's mum says she has to use an abundance of hair products to keep her daughter's locks tamed - including conditioner, anti frizz serum, detangler, curl serum and curl spray.
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The full time mum also has to style Lottie's hair every morning, which adds an extra 20 minutes onto her morning routine.
"I have to use conditioner because it gets so frizzy and it takes longer to blow dry her hair than my eldest," she says.
"It takes about half an hour to dry and 15 minutes to style in the morning; I have to put her fringe up everyday to get it out of the way and I make sure to brush it through.
"If I don't take the time to do it in the morning, it'll be matted by the end of the day.
"It's very time consuming - she has better hair products and more than me."
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Despite Evie being born with dark hair, her parents were not expecting the amount of hair Lottie was born with.
"Evie was born with dark hair but it was nothing like Lottie's so we weren't expecting it at all," Batchelor explains.
"I had dark hair when I was born and so did my husband but again, it was nothing like Lottie's.
"She's very lucky to have it and I wish that I had her hair!
"Lottie's hair is gradually getting a bit lighter so we think she'll be blonde in the next year or so."
Batchelor posted a picture of her daughter's hair on Facebook group Family Lockdown Tips and Ideas and received an overwhelming response.
"The post had around 30,000 likes and people were commenting that they were shocked by the fact she's only one," she adds.
Additional reporting Caters.