Age gaps between kids? Is there a gap too big?

@Sheepsheepie the biggest age gaps in my family ar2 39 years and 25 years .The age gap between myself and my father is smaller than the age gap between myself and my sister. We aren't close, we have nothing in common (obviously) completely different generations, shes sweet but my father is parenting a child younger than his grandchildren. Everyone in the family gets confused and calls me her aunty etc etc

My sister is 5 years older than me. I always felt like an only child. That gap was too big for us to ever have anything in common.
Not necessarily a bad thing, I am one and done and happy, but when you’re 10 and your sibling is 15 you may as well live on different planets.

My DD is 28 and my 2 DS are 13&9. She loves her brothers but from a distance and is still jealous I had more children at all. She moved out just before by 3rd was born. Both DS have ASD so that is a factor because I have to consider their additional needs and DD struggles with that.

My cousins are 9 years apart and my sister and I are 10 years. These are too big, both of our older sisters basically hate us and we have terrible relationships with them (no fault of our own, but I assume we were the spoilt babies and remained so)

There are 5 of us siblings. Oldest 54 this year, youngest 36, so nearly 20 years between youngest and oldest and we are all close.

Oldest sister moved out at 21 whilst youngest brother was very young when she was married etc.

But our mum is ace and we all wanted to spend time together as a family and the age gap has never been an issue.

But what I will say is that apart from the eldest sibling, we all only have 1 child.

What I'm saying is if you are having a kid because you think it's selfish not to, that's a crap reason for having another child.

Hope I'm making sense.

3 years between my 2

They get on really well

I am 8 and 10 years younger than my siblings . I hated it.

I've read psychologists say the 'ideal' is 3-5 year gap because they are in different developmental stages, less jealousy, oldest more ready to be a sibling etc and also not need their parents in the same way as younger sibling and sibling relationships still good.

Of course once you have more than 2 dc you have all sorts of age gaps. My dc with bigger gaps are closer than my dc with smaller gaps.

Personally I think there's so many factors - gender, personalities, interests, type of parenting, how close family is anyway etc. I really wouldn't worry about it at all.

I'm sure a lot of it depends on family composition, individual personalities and more. I'm the eldest of a fairly large family; my youngest sibling is 7 years younger than me. We don't really know each other well, and he's said he always thought of me more like an aunt. He was only 11 when I left home, and we never went to the same school.

There were intermediate kids, though, so we mostly formed similar-age or same-sex pairs. I don't know whether two with 7 years between them would feel closer or, perhaps, more like only children.

If you've got two parents then you can take a child each to a different activity sometimes to make sure they both get to do what they want. How siblings get on doesn't seem to be massively connected to age gaps from what I've seen. And remember, a sibling relationship is not just for childhood, it's for life. Whatever the age gap, the older you get the less it matters. My sister and I are close in age, but in our forties that's neither here nor there. I have friends who are older and younger than me by over ten years. My sister is my best friend though.

It just goes to show you don’t know how it’ll go. I’m so surprised by some of the negative experiences some people have had. One of the reasons I’m not so concerned about my son having a big age gap with a possible future sibling is because of my experience.

My only sibling is 9 years older than me and she’s absolutely wonderful. I adored her as a child. We have different dads, and she always wanted a little sister. When I was little she told me that she wished upon a star for me to be born- no one had ever made me feel as special as she does. Of course we argued from time to time, and I often got kicked out of her room when she was a teen. However, when I had nightmares in the night, her bed was the place I’d go to be safe and she’d always spend time comforting and reassuring me. She was a mini-mum, as in she was protective and offered a lot of guidance, but we also had lots of fun being silly together as siblings- especially from the ages of 8 (me)/ 17 (her). She is a best-friend, sister, and mother figure rolled into one. I remember actually feeling jealous at the idea of my mum having another child because I’d have to share my sister.

The only downside is that I would absolutely devastated when she left for uni when I was 9 (her 18). I was so lonely in the house with just my mum. I would go as far as to say that was the first time I felt depressed. Because of this, if I had another child with a big gap I would also have to have another close in age.

i'm closer to my brother who is 13 years older than my sister who is 2 years younger. i think it comes down to personalities, me and my sis rub each other the wrong way and always have whereas me and my bro just get each other.

Between my eldest sister and youngest brother I think there's about 25 years. My mum and her brother 11 years. My daughter and my son 8 years.

I'm 16 years older than my little brother and 11/13 years older than my little sisters.

It is a different dynamic, but it's definitely improved as everyone got older.

I’ve been wondering about that as my 2 have a 2.5 year gap/3 school years (which is ideal imo), but we’re thinking of trying for another which would mean the kids would be 6 and 3.5 assuming I conceived quickly. The 3.5 gap is fine obviously but wondering if the 6 year gap oldest to youngest might make things hard. I’m one of 3 but my sisters are twins so didn’t have this issue!

I have a 13 and 11 year age gap between my two DDs and my DS. I actually have found this better than having my eldest two close together.
They liked most of the same things and even now will swap clothes, do each other's hair and make up but the constant fighting and bickering, the jealousy and wanting my attention drove me insane.
They adore DS and do spoil him and tbh finding things to do isn't too bad. They all love swimming and animals so we do a lot of zoo and animal park visits.
Alternatively either me or DH will take the toddler to one place and the other will take our older ones somewhere else and then we meet for food later.
10, 8 and 5 years between me and older siblings. Don't remember it causing massive issues but I think they did a lot of split parenting until I was about 7

Me and my sibling have nearly a 10 year gap and it was fine, there were things that we did catering more towards each of our ages but it generally balanced out. I would be concerned about having 1 kid with a big age gap from multiple other kids though, as it feels like the family dynamic would end up being focused on the needs/preferences of the majority e.g two little kids so the older one always ends up having to go along with babyish stuff because they are 'outvoted' or two kids can are old enough to do independant activities together but the youngest is excluded.

And there are 5 years between my two and they are very good friends.

I have relatives with a 32 year gap between DC1 and DC4.

It's impossible to generalise- but there are 14 years between me and my favourite sibling.

I would say it's the middle gaps that are more difficult. 7 years can cause a lot of resentment from the older one, but once the gap is 17 or 18that passes away.

This is quite the hot topic, I've seen this thread at least 3 times this week

Is there a reason?

When you get to very big age gaps though, the eldest is too old to be involved in days out anyway so no need to try to please them all. There's a 22 year gap between my eldest and youngest. But the eldest does his own thing, though he hangs out with the younger dc at home and sometimes comes on holiday with us. So there is probably a gap where it gets harder because the eldest is too old for kid's activities but then a bigger gap ends up being easier because they are old enough not to be dragged around with the younger ones (doesn't have to be as big as 23 years, maybe 15?).

You could absolutely ski/snowboard with a toddler though assuming you were proficient yourself, have you seen chasing sage on reels/tiktok, she's amazing!

We have a 7 year age gap, currently 10 & 3

It is hard doing fun stuff as a family, we've found the youngest can't do trampolining, rock walls, Lazer quest, go karts, or we'd have to book a special toddler only session/he would be limited to specific toddler areas. Eldest is now too tall for many soft play centres

There are lots of things we can do as a family though, beach days, hiking/mountain days, paddleboarding we can all do (we bought the toddler a wetsuit and life jacket, most hire places don't go that small), theme parks my eldest is a wuss so they're pretty much on the same rides 😂 also inflata-nation has a tick box to say you've read the recommendations but would like your whole family together in the main area and you take responsibility for this (more places should have this option, my toddler can hold his own better than the 10yo 😂)