do overdue babies develop faster

[bez]

as some of you will know my son was over 3 weeks late. Does this mean that he is likely to be 3 weeks early doing things. The midwife came round when he was 3 weeks old and saw him smile and said it wasnt wind as I thought it was and at 4 weeks old he had amazing head control, so is it right to expect him to for example, to be at a developmental age of 12 weeks when he is 9 weeks old

Not in my experience I'm afraid. My son was about 1.5 weeks overdue. His head control was amazing early on but we put that down to us being totally useless at holding him properly so he learnt head control out of self defence (not for one minute suggesting that explanation for your cutie, btw!!)

For everything else he was a little "late" ... e.g. later than "average" crawler, later than "average" first words, later than "average" walker... none of which made the slightest difference to the running whirlwind chatterbox that is my 2yr 10mth old son! I recommend binning the developmental lists as soon as you can, btw...

Not necessarily because length of gestation is not an exact science.

My DS1 was 15 days over, smiled v early at 2 1/2 weeks and is top of the class but I put that down to taking after his dad. He wasn't quick at walking (15 months) Mind u thinking about it he did roll at the breastfeeding club at a few weeks old to the amazement of the other mums.

My ds is was like Georgina's. He was early at smiling, sitting up etc, but very slow at rolling, crawling, walking and talking. Now, at 2y 8m, he is doing all of the above. I know that it is always something that first-time mothers do, but comparing is not worth doing, because each child is different. Not that this stopped me comparing my ds to other children!

Don't know whether it was due to being 10 days overdue or just being younger sibling/different personality but dd smiled earlier and had better head control than ds from birth. She walked and sat earlier but got teeth a few days later than him !

Think any real advantage would even out within a few months and nurture rather than nature start to take over. After all they say that most premature infants catch up their peers developmentally at around 2.

DD2 was 16 days late, but she was doing everything at the usual time. Like Georgina, she did have excellent head control very early on, but I put that down to the fact that I used to "forget" to support her head

She walked at 13 months, rolled at 4 months, crawled at 6 months etc etc so very "average".