Yes, long babies do tend to grow up to be tall adults.

The height of a baby's parents is another clue to whether or not he'll be tall enough to slam dunk. Babies do inherit their parents' body types — tall, short, heavy, or slender.

Based on this genetic factor, you can estimate your child's adult height by adding Mom's and Dad's heights (in inches), dividing that number by two, and adding 2.5 inches for boys or subtracting 2.5 inches for girls.

Another rule of thumb is that a person's height when full grown is double his height at age 3.

Of course, we've all seen kids who tower over both parents, who end up much shorter than expected, or who are shorter than average throughout childhood and then pull an Alice-in-Wonderland size change -- so none of this is guaranteed.

Tools you can use

If your child is 36 months or younger, you can enter his height in our Growth Percentile Calculator to find out whether he's tall for his age. If your child is at least 2 years old, try our Height Predictor to find out how tall he's likely to be.