It is one of the universal truths of parenthood: the moment you hold your new baby in your arms, your older child somehow appears to instantly grow bigger.
But of course older brothers and sisters everywhere aren't going through sudden growth spurts to coincide with the arrival of their younger siblings. No, it's just "baby illusion" magic, new research shows.
This illusion causes parents to see their youngest child as smaller than they actually are - until a newborn arrives on the scene to take the place of that smallest family member.
Swinburne University of Technology researchers say this doesn't happen simply because the older child looks big in comparison to the new baby; there's something biological at play, too.
"It happens because the parents were under the illusion that their first child was smaller than he or she actually was. When the new baby is born the 'spell' is broken and parents now see their older child as they are,'' senior research fellow at Swinburne's Brain and Psychological Sciences Research Centre Dr Jordy Kaufman says. "A lot of parents had expressed the feeling that they almost lost a baby when they got another one.''
To prove the "baby illusion" phenomenon really exists, researchers surveyed 747 mothers online. Seventy per cent of the women surveyed reported their first child appeared to get bigger after the birth of their second baby.
Mothers were then asked to estimate the height of their children, aged between two and six, by marking a blank wall. When researchers compared the estimations to the actual height of the children, they found that the heights of the youngest children had been underestimated by an average of 7.5cm, while estimates for the older children were fairly accurate.
"Many mothers saw their youngest child as being more than 10cm shorter than their actual height," Dr Kaufman says.
Mother-of-six Monica Stanfield agrees that each of her toddlers seemed to get bigger overnight when their younger sibling arrived.
"I found that it was most noticeable when changing nappies. My toddler's previously tiny bum became gargantuan compared to the newborn's little tush,'' she says.
Monica, whose children range in age from 10 years to 22 months, finds the "baby illusion" discovery fascinating, but wonders what other factors influence how parents perceive the size of their children.
"I see [10-year-old] Julia as being quite tall, even though she's a head shorter than everyone else in her class. Maybe it's because she acts more mature than my other kids, I see her height as bigger," Monica says. "I might have to mark a blank wall to see how my mind is really working!"
The discovery of the "baby illusion" explains why mothers will always refer to their youngest child as "my baby", even if that baby is now six-foot tall with children of their own.
But it's believed the phenomenon also serves the more useful purpose of encouraging attentive care-giving to our youngest offspring.
"There is a lot of evidence that baby features elicit attentive caregiving and positive emotional responses in adults," Dr Kaufman says. "What we find is that knowing a child is the youngest makes parents more likely to see that child as having such features."
"By exaggerating the smallness of the youngest child, the baby illusion helps parents give greater attention to the that child, regardless of his or her age."
Dr Kaufman said the shift of parental attention due to "baby illusion" effect could also help future researchers understand how and why birth order effects many aspects of a child's development.
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