I’ve got a seven-month-old baby. How do I make sure she doesn’t feel the same body shame I did?

‘By explicitly telling your daughter there’s nothing wrong with how she looks, you raise the possibility that there may be.’ Painting: Le Berceau (The Cradle), 1872, by Berthe Morisot. Photograph: Peter Horree/Alamy

I’ve never been happy with my looks and was often overlooked as a child and high school for the prettier girls which was very hurtful. I’ve got a seven-month-old baby (brown hair and brown eyes), quite chubby compared to other babies her age, and when I see pictures of her with my friends with babies a similar age I feel worried that she will always be seen as the “less than” one in the group due to her looks.

The other babies in my friendship group have bigger eyes, blond hair and blue eyes and my friends and extended family have made comments about her “not taking after this side of the family” (ie by being blond and skinny) or “oh no, she is going to have brown eyes!”