2 Babies under 15 months

[maffimagic]

My daughter is 7 months old today and I found out two days ago that we are expecting our second.

We always wanted 2 babies so we're over the moon...it's just happening a little sooner than we intended!!

Reaction to our news from family has been very reserved. Everyone was ecstatic when we told them about our first however this news appears to be raising eyebrows. I'm very surprised at how judgemental people can be!

It would be nice to hear some people's positive experiences of having such a small age gap instead of people reinforcing how hard it will be. I'm fully prepared for it to be very hard but there must be some pros as well!!

[pipkin35]

Many congratulations!

Just under 16 months between my two. Yes, of course it can be hard (as you're already prepared for) but it is absolutely brilliant.

They are SO close (well, have an intense love hate thing going on) - now they are 3 and 2 (+ months) it's a busy, messy house!

Anything specific you're thinking/wondering about?

[BoysRusxxx]

I have two ds's 11 months apart. It is tiring for the first few months but soooo worth it. Thye are just the cutest together and everyone thinks they are twins!

When I first had ds2 i was so exhausted i said i would never have anymore but now dp and i would love to have another two together...in a few years mind you!!

If there is anything you need to know just ask.

[Splinterbottom]

Congratulations!

I have a slightly bigger age gap between my two - 17 months - but I think the same applies.

I won't lie it is very hard work for the first six months or so. I coped by being very organised - had to plan in advance how I was going to do anything, no matter how small.

Now they are both toddlers it is fantastic, they play together and entertain each other, they're both interested in the same things, and my eldest doesn't remember being an only child so there has never been any jealousy - they get on wonderfully.

[Jas]

15 months between my first two.
They are 12 and almost 11 now. They got on really well until about 7/8, and since then fight almost constantly, but were very easy in the early years. I didn't have time to get out of Baby-mode, and dd1 didn't remember being an only child, so there was no jelousy. When lots of other mums were trying to cope with a toddler and a newborn, I already had two toddlers, with similar needs and interests so that was actually easier ion some ways.

It was hard in the early months, as dd2 was a much clingier baby than dd1, but we got through it with no regrets and went on to have ds once they were both at school.

Congratulations.

[EggyAllenPoe]

i had gaps of 17months then 19 months. i loved it.

work - yes - but it pays off in spades if you can get them playing nicely as toddlers - then you just have to wade in occasionally and they entertain each other.

many happy moments of watching them play nicely with a warm gooey feeling (ok, plenty of stopping biting/hitting/scratching, but that goes with the territory)

when the newborn arrived we played 'two babies' where i would cuddle and kiss them together. seemed to satisfy the lttle mind that neither was being ignored.

[feckwit]

15 months between my first 2, my favourite age gap of all of them!

[addictediam]

congratulations, I am in the same boat am 14 weks pregnant with 9mo dd.

i too am surprised at the eyebrow raising, coments and disaproving looks we have gotten. one of the hardest coments to swollow came from a rather close friend who said 'did no-one teach you about contraception'

i was rather hurt by that coment as she knows it took 3 years to get pg with dd, we wanted a close age gap (maybe 2.5-3 years) and were worried that it would take another 3 years so although we werent actively trying for a baby (swi, using ovulation sticks etc) we werent using contraception. and yet she still felt it was approprate to make that comment.

we are over the moon too, not quite what we were expecting but thrilled. and i have now got the mentality that if they cant be happy for us then they arer not worht having in our lives. we allow for initial shock ( i was shocked, especially after dd) but any comments or disaproval and i'm not intrested!

[OneHundredPercentFucked]

14 months between my two. I do not think the first 6 months are the hardest. I think it is now, and nearly 4 and 2 1/2. They fight, all.the.time.

[greycircles]

There are absolutely loads of pros. My neighbours boys have 15m between them, another friend has 13m between her boys. In both cases, the boys are extremely close. OK it will be a bit more difficult at the beginning, but even if your eldest was 24m when the youngest is born, it is still hard. Mine are 24m apart and they are really good friends. Now that they are 5 and 3, they will play nicely for a couple of hours with no input from me. Ignore the negative comments!

[woodpeckers]

15 months between my eldest 2. Somedays were wonderful - others were hell! But I don't regret (yep, we planned to have them that close together) having them so close together :)

[p99gmb]

I have 2 foster children with exactly 9 months between them.

They are 2.4 & 3.1... some days it works really well - other days its really hard work.

The age gap at the moment is closing, and they can and do play really well together - the youngest is coming on far faster due to having a very similar aged sibling... he's almost potty trained already for example, as its all very 'fresh and current' in seeing his sister do it not so long ago...

They do however fight (don't they all tho!!) and at times its easier to have them separate.

A nanny once told me that this type of age gap is harder than having twins.. as at least with twins its roughly the same thing needed at roughly the same time... with this small age gap they have different needs and its not always possible to give them what they need when they 'need' it!!

Many congrats btw

[HowNowKernow]

A little under 16 months between my DDs and I can remember worrying through the second pregnancy about how the hell I was going to cope. I didn't know anyone with that type of age gap between babies, friends all had 22months+ between theirs, so had nothing to compare too.

In the end it was very hard, but no way near as hard as I had imagined it would be. I love it and wouldn't have it any other way now. The youngest is 1 now and they can just start to play together with things. They are very close and DD1 just adores DD2, they now share a room just because they sleep better together than in separate rooms. If DD1 isn't in the room DD2 starts looking for her, its very sweet.

I know what you mean about reactions to the pg announcement. My parents told all and sundry that it was an accident - it wasn't and even if it had been it was none of their business!

[naturalbaby]

15months between my oldest and it's been great, obviously we all have our moment but you would with any age gap. they have been sharing a room since the younger got booted out of our room and it really helped them both settle and sleep better overnight. then they went through a bad patch (up till 9pm messing around) so we split them up and ds2 was heartbroken. they're now sharing again.

they play so well together (most of the time) and i get comments all the time about how good they are together. they are also much more confident because they are always together and at a similar development stage now they are 2 and 3.

[pinkx4]

Had DD5 3 weeks ago and DD4 was only 16 months old (this was an accident though - using contraception, fully BF DD4 and PCOS! Don't know how we managed that!). EVERYONE raised their eyebrows and then rolled their eyes at us, especially with the 'Oh God, it might be another girl! That would be a living hell!' and similar reactions. Yes, people are judgemental...

So far, it's been hard work but we're enjoying it. Still not as bad as having twins - thankgoodness! - which were DD1 and DD2 - VERY hard work. Then we had a 4 year gap before DD3 and then 2y10 month gap between DD3 and DD4.

The hardest bit so far has been being pregnant with DD5 (but my body's knackered after 5 kids anyway!). My main worry was jealousy but DD4 has done nothing but kiss DD5. She only gets a bit pee'd off when I'm BF DD5 and usually wants picking up so she can sit on my knee but otherwise, it's not too bad at all and I'm sure they'll get on quite well when they start sharing a room. So don't panic - it will all be fine. I can definitely think of LOTS of pros rather than cons! Just enjoy it.

[Morph2]

don't know what its like from the parently point of view but there is exactly one year and 3 weeks between me and my bro (now 36 and 37) and growing up i would say it was great as we had alot of the same friends and when we were really little used to play together good.

[YouDoTheMath]

pinkx4 I think it's awesome that you have 5 girls! Everyone has to share their negative opinions though, don't they?!

Anyway, I'm expecting DC2 and there will be 18 months between him/her and DD1. I'm actually really looking forward to the challenge! I'm quite organised anyway, plus my SIL has a similar gap between her to and manages fine.

The only thing I'm worried about is if DC2 is the complete opposite of DD1, who has always slept, eaten and behaved fairly well... You always hear the old "if we'd had the second one first, we wouldn't have had anymore children!"

Agree it's annoying when people roll their eyes etc. When you announce your first, no one could be happier. When you announce your second, if there's a gap of anything less than two years, people seem to assume you're an idiot who just gets "knocked up" at the drop of a hat and doesn't know how to use contraception (despite having managed perfectly well for years before DC1). It can't possibly be because you WANTED it...

[SaffronCake]

You wanted positives... I'm actually a year and a day older than my sister. Her birthday is the day after mine, the year after.

Growing up we were so close it was just an unthinkable concept to us that anyone could be an only child. We felt very sorry for them. Or children who had siblings at such a huge gap (2-3 years was huge to us) that thier brothers and sisters didn't want to play the same games.
The one day a year when I was 2 years older than her (my birthday) was just wrong somehow, we would spend the day lying about one or others ages until her birthday caught us up and everything was normal again. Unlike twins though there was never any question about being in the same school class once we started a normal size school aged 7 and 8 (we went to a tiny village school first, with 2 or 3 year groups to a teacher, so we were together then).
We didn't really diverge much until we were teenage, then we argued a lot but what sisters don't? Days out were really easy because we were at the same developmental stages, so be it farm parks, theme parks, or cinema's we wanted pretty much the same things.
We shared toys because we didn't have a concept of not sharing them and because we realised that if we shared we got a wider variety to play with. Thus we had 1 swing and 1 slide but we also had a see-saw, which of course only works with 2 and we had our own bikes. We thought of our friends as school friends and general friends. School friends were the children we only saw at school, friends who only really knew one of us. They were a lesser kind of friends. All our other friends knew us both, so when we wanted someone to play with our options were quite broad.
We were allowed our freedom quite young because of the bond we had formed. We could go into town together/ to the beach / to the park /to walk the dog etc. on condition we were within line of sight of the other one all the time and we were home by dusk. My mother knew we just wouldn't want to be apart and so we always kept the rules.
Even now we have a level of understanding not too dissimilar from twins. And if you're reading this sis, Shiney!!!!! (Pretty obviously no one's gonna get that but us).

It was a great way to grow up.

I'm doing the same with my babies, there will be 12 months and 7 days between my daughter and the baby I'm pregnant with if he/she comes on thier date. I hear it's hard until they're potty trained and weaned, but I know for sure that after that it's brilliant for the kids and fairly easy on the parents in a lot of ways too.

[babycham42]

Congratulations! Mine 18 months apart. People have always commented "Ooo - that"s hard work". I"ve never been able to work out what they mean! It"s fine and I"m sure it"s easier in some ways to have them closer together.

[sleepybaby]

My son was five months old when I found out I was pregnant. Imagine my shock when I found out it was twins. I loved telling people I was pregnant, get the oooooohs going and then say it's twins. Having said that my own brain was in shock for about a week when I discovered there were 2 in there !! Son is now 19 months old and girls nearly 7 months and I love it - I wouldn't change it for the world. Seeing them interacting together even now would warm your heart. F@@k the begrudgers. Being able to bear children and being able to give your children siblings is one of the greatest gifts in the world so hold your head high and proud when you are sharing your wonderful news.