Thinking about having a second baby

[user1488794856]

I swore I never would, but now that DD is 4 months I am already starting to think about having another.
It obviously needs more time and thought, but I am torn between ripping the plaster off quickly and having another one relatively soon so that they are close in age and the hard(er) years are dealt with together, or whether to wait until school age so that I have a little more time in the day to focus on the newborn.
Totally naive to the complexities and pleasures of having a second child, therefore any and all advice welcome!

[Aquamarine1029]

Here's my experience... When my husband and I first got married we thought we would wait 6 years and have a baby. Well, our son was born 2 weeks before our first anniversary so clearly that plan was out the window! We knew we wanted 2 children, and I thought we would go back to the original plan and have a second child in 5 or 6 years. Then my son turned 15 months old and I KNEW that plan was a horrible idea. Leaving "baby land" for several years and going back to it, in my opinion, would be really difficult. One is well into school and then you've got a newborn to deal with? Not for me! Also, staying home while the kids were little until school started was very important to me and I thought that a big age gap would make working that much more complicated should I choose to get back into the workplace.

I talked to my husband and he wholeheartedly agreed. I got pregnant that month and our son and daughter are 22 months apart. I absolutely loved it. It was the best years of my life! My kids were and still are best friends and they had a lovely time growing up together. They are now 20 and 18 years old. Obviously, this is just my opinion and big age gaps are great for some people, but I wouldn't change a thing.

[OhDearToby]

I had a big age gap with my first two. Honestly it's been great. The older one is at school so me and the younger one get a lot of time together and then in the evenings I can focus on the eldest. I thought it would be hard going back to baby mode but when it actually comes to it you're so besotted with your new baby that it doesn't even occur to you that you've "gone back".

I'm due my third in 2 weeks, this will be a small age gap and the pregnancy has been hard. Dealing with a newly walking toddler and morning sickness was a nightmare and left me feeling guilty that I wasn't giving her my full attention. I'm very apprehensive about how it will be when baby arrives. Hopefully we'll all muddle along and It'll be fine but I'm worried my time will be spread very thinly.

[Wait4nothing]

I'm planning on trying again when dd is 1 year 8 months - she will then be nearly at free childcare hours (3 years) when I had to return from maternity so no 2 x nursery fees to pay for. This way if it takes 6 months to conceive it will only make us in a better financial situation (it only took 1 month with dd but I was quite naive to things like that). I imagine it will be very tough with 2 little ones in the house but would rather do them close together as I'm planning on staying part time while they are little (ideally up to a few years into primary) and would like that time to be overlapping if possible.

[FartnissEverbeans]

I'm planning on trying for a second in January 2018. DS will be 15 months old, so he'll be at least two when I have another. I think that's quite a nice age - young enough for them to play together, but old enough that DS can go to nursery while I have he baby during the day (he's at nursery already anyway).

I'm sure there's advantages and disadvantages whatever you do

[princessachica]

It's totally you choice everyone has different views on gettting em all out all the way nicer playing together and some want there bodies to stay healthy my mum had me and my three brothers all one after the other Boom boom boom boom she's fine x totally your choice if you have the support go for it! :)

[soundsystem]

We started trying for DC2 when DC1 was 4 months. It didn't go particularly smoothly so there's 27 months between them, which is exactly the sort of gap I wanted to avoid! But actually it's fine. DD is a bit impatient for her brother to grow up and start doing things with her but she isn't jealous of him.

Having two is tiring but I think it's tiring no matter what the age gap. I'm definitely in the get-it-done camp, as I just couldn't imagine going back to nappies and all that with a school aged child.

We're hoping to have number 3, and will have a bigger gap this time, for reasons to do with my career. If that's wasn't a consideration I'd just crack on with it now!

[newbian]

We wanted 2.5-3 years between kids but ended up getting pregnant when DD was 16 months so they will be just over 2 years apart. Can't report yet as DC2 is due at the end of the year but it's very hard to be pregnant with a toddler.

At minimum I would recommend waiting until the first child is 12 months old before trying to give your body time to heal and recover.

[Intransige]

There are nearly three years between our two and I think it's a good gap. DD1 is old enough to understand what's going on and to be slightly sensible around the baby. I wanted a bigger gap but this is how it worked out.

I've had my newborn around 18 month old babies before and it's a bit terrifying, they just want to stick their fingers in eyes etc.

I also wanted to be back at work for a decent amount of time before going on maternity leave again because I have the type of career that would suffer from a lot of time off in a short period of time.

[newmumwithquestions]

15 months here. I'd recommend longer.

The NHS advice is give your body a year to recover and I'd say that's good advice. I had to cut down on breastfeeding DC1 as I struggled with breastfeeding and being pregnant at the same time whereas if I'd left it longer I'd have naturally been feeding less and it would have been less of a toll on the body. Also I generally feel that I forced DC1 to grow up as I (for example) needed them to walk and couldn't pick them up and give them a cuddle in the same way I can DC2.

Personally I think 2 years is a nice gap, but it does depend what works for you! Do think about childcare as well - full time nursery fees for 2 are eyewateringly expensive but then if you spread them out more you still pay it, just less for longer.

[beekeeper17]

I'm pregnant again and my dd is only a baby, there will be a 13 month age gap. Ideally we would have had an 18 month age gap but things happened a lot quicker than expected!

I'm sure it's going to be hard but I've come to the conclusion that every age gap will have advantages and disadvantages.

I'm late thirties and really wasn't looking forward to going through the whole ttc thing again and ovulation testing etc and worrying about whether or I'd get pregnant a second time, so I'm glad that i won't have that to worry about.

It's also been good to go through the yucky first trimester exhaustion when I'm still on maternity leave. At least I could nap a bit during the day when dd naps and didn't have to get up really early to get myself and dd organised and get out to work and childcare and then get home in the evening and still have things to do around the house.

I'm lucky that my dd sleeps well, otherwise that would be tough.

Good luck whatever you decide (and whatever nature decides for you!)