My 4 year old son has no male friends.

[FiveHoursSleep]

He goes to nursery 3 days a week, and the staff say he does play with boys but doesn't have any boy friends. His best friend is a little girl a year older than him, she's only there after school now, but they play together all the time she's there, say they love each other and he says he wants to marry her some day. Which I don't encourage as such, but I do think it's kind of cute.
DS is the youngest of 4, so has 4 older sisters. He also has a severe speech disorder although this is improving all the time.
He's a happy, social, caring sort of boy but he does love to run around, kick a ball and make a lot of noise as well. It hasn't worried me up until now but I've had a few comments lately and wondered if anyone else has had this with their boys?
He will start school in September, not with his little girl friend, in fact no one he his at nursery with will go to the same school he's going to.
Should I try and encourage some boy-boy friendships beforehand? I didn't bother with the girls and they were all fine.

My DS's best mate all the way through primary was a little girl called Sophie. At secondary his best mate is a boy. As a little girl my best mate at primary was Roderick :) I found the girls rather hard work tbh - too much falling in and out of friendships and wanting you to take sides all the time - whereas the boys seemed more 'normal'. It all changed when I went to secondary school. I don't think you need to worry. Ignore any comments.

It doesn't matter at all. My ds def was most friendly with girls at nursery, and at 5 his very, very, very best friend is a girl. But he does have boy friends too

Thanks for replying. I'm not hugely concerned, just wondered if it was harder for boys to make friends at school than it was for girls.
He's generally very friendly and chatty to kids his own age despite his poor speech. No one understands him but talks away to them anyhow!!!

When DS was at nursery his best friend was a girl. He goes to a different school to her and although they still see each other occassionally, his best friends are now boys and they like football, ninjas, spiderman, etc and hate anything to do with girls. Its a shame, I wish he was still friends with girls. Make the most of it!

When boys are playing together, they are quite often just all kicking a ball, all chasing each other - lots of movement and noise. They don't seem to spend as much time "playing games" together as girls do, or boys and girls mixed. So as long as he doesnt find boys unpleasant or scary, he's probably relating to them just fine. From what I remember the first couple of years of school all the boys in DSs class just "mucked around" together, and there weren't any strong friendships in the way girls seem to do.

Both my boys were more friendly with girls at this age.
In my experience boys don't do friendships in the same way as girls. They like someone to play with and as long as it's fun they don't mind whether it's boy or girl. They don't communicate much in a personal way .When they reached about 7ish girls became nasty for a while but things have changed again now they are teenagers .

I wouldn't worry too much at this point - especially as none of them will be going to the same school.

Encourage anything that happens spontaneously - but don't go out of your way at the moment to promote things.

When he starts school, it will be a fresh start so I would work on building his confidence / the speech problems until then and start from scratch at the new place.

My 4yo is in a similar position - he does have 'friends' at kindergarten but he doesn't speak the same language as them so we don't have playdates etc - except for one little boy with SN - they're prob both kind of outcasts IYSWIM.

However, DS will be going to a diff school from all the kindergarten types so I'm not too fussed at this.

My DS was 3 in November and his best friend at pre-school is a girl a year older. He worships her - talks about her all the time. He plays happily with all the kids, and as another poster mentioned he plays rough-and-tumble outside with the other boys, but she is his best friend, no question, and they play lots of imaginative games indoors together. It hadn't even occurred to me to think about it until you posted - little kids that age are a lot less worried about gender divisions, I think. At primary school that hits and hits hard, but I think it's totally normal when they're this age. As long as they're happy, sociable little people then I really don't think it matters a jot. I'm just enjoying the freedom from gender stereotypes - as he is obsessed by anything with wheels and always has been, it's nice that he now plays kitchens and doctors and so on, because this little girl likes to! He's like a walking advert for gendered toys for boys, and I was so PC before he was born.

I'd worry about a child who had no friends and didn't like to play with others, at preschool age. I'd not worry at all about the sex of the best friend - don't, in fact.

DS is in year 1. he has one good "boy buddy" in and out of school, another who he is friends with out of school but they seem to ignore each other in school IYSWIM ,a clutch of girls who he is friends with in school a small number of whom who live locally and he is friends with out of school.. I had to prompt him to get him to invite any boys to his birthday party as this week he's been playing with girls mainly.
DS likes football but his year group don't get to play football in the playground, so his football friends are all older kids he sees down the rec. If he's with us at the pub or down the rec he will knock about with what ever local kids are there, boys or girls, that seems to be the norm in a small community like this one.

my son is 3 almost and is not a 'boys boy' as some would say. Ive had comments and the feeling that people look down on him because he isnt a typical boisterous boy and thats he is somehow weird because he doesnt go around hurting other kids or wrestling..(pulls sarcastic face) but I dont care anymore because he is a mad crazy loud kid full of character just one who doesnt particularly warm to boys, he likes to play with girls, prob because they are more gentle and like to role play which is what he loves to do. dont be worried at all, your ds sounds lovely and just be grateful he is social!!! I work voluntarily for the creche at my local mosque and ds follows me around the whole time and refuses to do any playtime with the other kids unless they are girls who are near him playing with toys. He also suffers from mild separation anxiety but is getting a bit better now. all kids are unique and beautiful, the stereotypes need to be catapulted out of the window in my opinion.

Growing up I had no female friends. All my cousins were boys and all of my mum's friend's children were boys.

Made no difference to me - I did play with girls at school and eventually formed close friendships with both women and men.

I think that exposure to the opposite sex at a younger age is a good thing, if you were to have only same sex friends then I would find that more worrying than 'just' female friends IYSWIM?

As he is playing with boys at nursery, he obviously has no problems with socialising with his peers. I wouldn't be worried if I were you, he'll go to Reception class and it will be a new environment and he will chose who to play with.

He obviously feels more at ease with girls due to the family dynamic, I'm sure he won't suffer as a result of this though (if anything it will make him tougher! You know what girls are like!)