One baby ahead on everything

Hi All,

My baby A is ahead of his brother on everything. He crawled at six months, rolls all over the place, picks up pieces of food to eat them, and just generally seems more "mature". My baby B is such a happy little guy but is so behind his brother. He basically never rolls over, still needs to be rocked to sleep, tries sometimes to pick up food but isn't usually successful. Have others seen such differences in their kids? Is it possible they're just different at these early stages and he'll catch up later? I like that they're so different, just worry that there are such huge discrepancies.

Thanks for any insights and/or reassurance,

Amy

PS They were born at 37/5 with no issues reported. Thx

 

I'm on my phone so I don't know how old they are but yes they will catch up!. My boys were always about 2-3 weeks off each other for everything except walking....Jack was full blown walking at 10.5 months and JT not until 13.5 months!! Felt like forever!!! Try not to compare, I know hard, but they are little....pretty soon they'll be wrestling all over the house

 

Ditto what Kim said. My younger daughter (and the one with surgery after birth, longer NICU) was always way ahead of her sister in physical development. I think it's a personality thing. Alexis caught up (usually weeks or a month or so later), but Samantha was just more aggressive with meeting milestones.

Now, at 2.5, they're exactly matched in every regard. You'd never guess who did what first.

 

I am seeing this with my two. Livie (Baby A) was ready to come out at birth. Sophie (Baby B) would gladly have stayed in mommy for another week or two or three. Livie has always held her head up better and she rolled over a week before her sister. She also rolls all the time, while Sophie only rolls occasionally. The interesting thing for me to see is that Sophie smiled first and can more reliably suck her thumb. So it looks like Livie has a leg up on gross motor skills while Sophie's a little quicker to pick up social and fine motor skills. I can't say whether the differences will last in the long term but we'll see!

 

My behind baby is much more of a thinker than her twin. I think part is just personality. She had heart issue do she tired quicker so she was still more. She talked earlier and in larger sentences than her sister. At almost 7 she has a larger vocab, read better and is scoring higher than her twin. But her twin is much more active and athletic than she is

 

Well mine are b/g, but yes, they achieved their milestones at very different times. They have the obvious b/g difference. My boy rolled, crawled, pulled up, walked...etc first. My girl smiled, coo'ed, laughed, talked first. Boys tend to achieve the motor skills first, and girls the social skills first. There was almost 2 months difference in their walking, Liam walked at 11 months, Rylee not until 13 months. By comparison with my older 2 kids, my oldest son walked at 13 months and my oldest daughter not until 15 months.

Unless there are really obvious delays there's nothing to be concerned about. Even ID twins are still their very own little person. It's hard not to, but you really can't compare them to each other. There's a reason there's a wide range of "normal ages" for any stage or milestone, someone has to make up the top and bottom and middle of that range

 

Same here, Chana'le is pulling to stand, crawling everywhere, rolling, just way, way ahead in gross motor skills. Mushka is just totally unmotivated in that departement. She is sitting, but doesn't have the greatest balance and only this week has shown the remotest sign of frustration at not being mobile. I agree that it's a personality thing. Chana'le is a more!more!more! party girl and Mushka is a content sweetie pie.

 

When you start to think that there is a developmental lag in one baby or the other, you have to ask yourself, if I only had one baby, would I be concerned? Chances are, the baby is within the normal developmental range.

But yeah, it's totally a personality thing.

 

My kids are boy girl, but we had the same differences - Max was behind in the beginning, Vanessa was holding her head up first, she sat up first and she crawled first, but then they started walking on the same day - because of how competitive they are. Even now at 2, we notice differences - they are 2 different kids, so I think it's normal to have different personalities, but they challenge and copy each other a lot. I always joke by saying "same ingredients, at the same time, in the same place, but SUCH different results ".

Just like Bex, I always wonder if I would be concerned if I had just one kid, but I know it's hard not to compare them.

 

My DD rolled at 3.5 months, starting inchworm crawling right after that, has been army crawling now for almost a month and is now up on all fours rocking and attempting to do a proper crawl. She can also sit really well. Her brother just rolled over from back to tummy a couple of weeks ago and then would only do it while asleep. He just started rolling over while awake this weekend and he still can't go from tummy to back despite lots of tummy since he was a newborn. They will be 6 months next week.

I looked up the developmental milestones and discovered that DS is actually normal and DD is very early for her stuff. My first son was also very early with rolling and crawling, but not as early as DD.

My boy twin is very laid back and just doesn't seem interested in moving much. He much prefers someone to sit with him and make faces at him and he gets bored on the floor. Meanwhile, DD is moving all over the place and getting stuck in corners and finding every thing her older brother leaves on the floor extremely interesting.

That said, if I only had DS2, I'd still be worried since he's still far later to do things than his older brother! I didn't even realize it was considered normal for babies not to roll over until between 5-7 months and not to crawl until 9-12 months because my first son did those things earlier than that.

Monica: I'm laughing at your "same ingredients comment" since all three of mine are the product of a single IVF (the twins are from a frozen embryo transfer) so they were all technically conceived at the same time yet DS2 is wildly different from DS1 and DD.

 

My two were the opposite! Royce did everything first, Alice was so delayed, and because Royce is laid back, so I totally thought that they were delayed. But then I started thinking about how they were almost 6 weeks early, so in reality they were six weeks behind other babies their age. But oh, once Alice started catching up, she was actually the first one to walk at 13 months, but didn't even sit up unpropped until she was 10 months old. Now, she's so far advanced mentally and physically, she's roller skating and able to throw balls over and underhand, her handwriting is totally legible, and she's reading real books by herself. Royce OTOH, well, he's reading. And pretending to know karate.

So my point is, even if you do compare them to each other, your results of the comparison won't always be the same.

 

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the reminder about how things can change over time, how much personality affects things and how comparing is not really useful (though somewhat harder to avoid). I'll trust that they'll get there in their own way and time.