People always say not to compare your babies to help avoid sibling rivalry. But when your babies are born 18 months apart, it is sort of impossible. Every move my younger child (my son) made was immediately compared to his sister who was just 18 months ahead of him. And my poor boy did not fare as well.
Through every milestone except talking, my boy was slower. He pulled up a month later, grabbed things weeks later, walked months later and is now potty training 18 months later and counting. People say boys develop slower than girls, but I had always believed that to be one of those things "they" tell new parents. But in our case, it has been so true.
Alan, my sweet and curious and gentle little boy, has done everything just a bit behind his sister.
She learned to read at 3 and he, at 3.5, still does not know all of his letters. She learned to go in the big girl potty on her own at 2 and he is now 3.5 with no signs of going. The fact is, I would be remiss not to mention or notice it. But it isn't because he is slow. It is because he isn't interested.
Alan can take a car apart and put it back together in five minutes flat. My daughter has no interest. Alan can focus in on a book about tractors and be occupied by photos for an hour. My daughter has no interest. They are different children and this fact means they develop differently, too.
It is not better or worse and it does not make me love one more than the other, but it is a factor and something I notice. The thing is, in the end, I don't think it is so much a boy girl thing as it is an individual thing. A person could have five girls and at least one of them would develop slower, right?
All babies develop at different rates. Larger babies might hit their physical milestones later. My son, for instance, has a 99th percentile head, so it was harder for him to balance. Of course he was going to hit those milestones -- rolling over, crawling, walking -- a little later than my uber petite daughter.
Meanwhile, my son had more people talking to him because of his chatterbox sister, so he actually hit the talking milestone a little earlier. By age 2, he was carrying on complete conversations, which is the complete opposite of what people told me would happen ("he will talk soooo much later," they all said). The fact is, boys and girls -- and babies in general -- all have their own timeline and there is no one right way to be.
Of course, it would be much nicer to have a potty trained son. But that's a whole different issue.
Did your boy develop slower than your girl?
This Hot Dad Wants to Do Your Ironing
This Hot Dad Wants to Cook You Dinner
This Hot Dad Cooks AND Does the Dishes
Kanye West is Gay?! 
Comments 16
I don't have a girl, but on everything except talking, my son was right at or early for his milestones according to guidlines and my pediatrician. Oh, and as for the talking, I think he just didn't want to! Our family worried a lot that he had a problem, but I didn't, he was a listener, and when he thought no one was around (or paying attention) he used to "practice" talking in his nursery to his stuffed animals at a year old. Outside of that, hardly a peep!
He's five now, talks fine (little hard to understand when he's excited) reads well, writes, adds and subracts to 25, knows his numbers and letters, and a great deal about science and how the world works. He's very social, athletic, and so on. I did notice all this was easier to teach him when applied to things which interested him, like, adding five tractors to three tractors is cool, adding apples, not so much :P
This has nothing to do with being a boy or a girl. Every child develops at their own pace regardles of gender. My kids hit their major gross motor milestones early in general. my son was a whirling dervish of activity who started with roling over before he was 3 months old then packed roling over the other way, sitting up, crawling, puling up, cruising, and walking into the next 4 months-his first steps at a little over 7 months was the pinnacle of an exhausting "infant" phase that didn't last long enough for me. "They" said his sister would go slower cause girls do gross motor development later. Big deal she accomplished it all by 8 months instead of 7. This doesn't even touch the other stuf that made them both super talkative, busy busy babies. Milestones are guidelines-not set in stone. There are so many factors that affect the rate that kids go and gender while being the biggest scapegoat is one of the least important. I am a preschool teacher who ses many litle ones at various stages development. We only wory when we se a child very behind , or lagging in more than one general area.
colette, you are RUDE. every parent is different, every child is different. my brother wasn't potty trained til almost 4, and that was not due to lack of my dad and step-mom trying - they tried hard. they tried rewarding him, sitting the potty in the playroom so he couldn't miss it, sitting him on it until he went, etc. they're not ready til they're ready.
You can't make a child use the potty any more then you can force a horse to drink water. Kids potty train when they are ready, which is culmination of mental maturity, physical, and parental encouragement. My sister didn't sleep through the night without wetting her bed til she was six, for her, the urge to pee isn't strong enough to "make" her wake up or get to a bathroom. To this day (at twelve!) she keeps herself on a potty schedule, if she misses a potty break she won't "feel" the urge to pee until she leaks. She is just different like that! And as a result, very late on the potty training, but at that age, she couldn't verbalize her issue!
You are rude to suggest a child at the age of 3 and a half must be potty trained. Shame on you!
@ Collette - Potty training requires a certain degree of readiness on the child's part. Most children don't have physical control over their sphincter muscles or their bladder until past the age of 2, and there needs to be a certain level of gross/fine motor and language development so that they can tell you they need to go, recognize they need to go, walk (or run!) to the bathroom themselves, and manipulate clothing so they can physically use the toilet. It's not about parenting at all and has everything to do with development.
As for the article, yes, every child develops different, but boys and girls do develop at different rates. Research has shown that time and time again. You can't just say research is wrong because you don't like it, and anecdotal information is NOT research. Girls tend to develop faster in pretty much everything, especially fine motor skills and language. Boys tend to excel in gross motor development and not in fine motor or language. It doesn't mean boys are slow, or that girls are fast. There are many theories as to why this is, though one of the leading theories is that chemical differences between boys and girls make boys hard-wired for action (running, jumping, etc.) and girls to language.