Least stressful age to have second child 😁

[BabyLlamaZen]

The every day drudgery, the fact nothing ever gets done and I've literally just got my 7mo to sleep after nearly 2 hours back and forth. Can't wait for a shower Yet I'm so damn broody? I really want to give him a sibling and despite all I've just said, I do (mostly) still love it.

Wait until he's 2 or 3 so things get a bit 'easier', or get the baby stuff done all earlier as it's hard anyway?

My job is pretty screwed anyway. I want to move onto something else so will probably need to wait until they're older for that!

We’ve got a 4.5 year age gap with ours. DD2 is just over 6 months now. And honestly (lockdown aside) it’s been good. I would not have coped with a smaller age gap. It is hard going back to the baby stage, but the advantage is that I know we will come out the side. The bond between them is amazing too - DD1 loves “helping” me and gives her toys to DD2 to play with and is thrilled when she smiles at her; DD2 adores her big sister and just lights up when she sees or hears her. It makes my heart melt. I hope it continues as they grow older.

On the work front, I loved being back for a few years as I felt I was able to get properly involved again and build my responsibilities and develop my career. I suppose it depends on what your work goals are.

We have a five year gap. It's right for us and I couldn't have had any smaller a gap due to birth injuries (physical and psychological) anyway. It was hard to go back to the baby days after a taste of the freedom of having a school-age child but I would not have coped with a toddler and a newborn.

We've had a few negative comments about the bigger age gap and whether they will have anything in common but I tend to point out that it is the usual gap between DC1 and DC3 in a three-child family and no-one seems to fuss about that. There's five years between my sister and me and we are very close; there's 20 months between DH and his sibling and they are not. You can't guarantee anything.

2y4m between my two. Youngest is 8mo and I want a third! I don't think it's that hard.

I should add that we are two and done. If you want more than two children that might affect your decision.

Five year gap here too, and it's worked great for us. It's such a personal decision and is so different for each family.
For me I love working and the cost of having two in childcare would have been prohibitive. Now I have one in childcare and one at school and it's working great

With the 23 month gap, we only had one term where both were in full cost childcare, the oldest got their 15 hour funding after that (this was years ago so it might be different now). That was an expensive term. We also had some overlap of needing two cots etc but we bought secondhand and sold for a similar price again afterwards. We only has one set of cloth nappies so we did disposable for the oldest for the last few months. I think most people feel the gap they ended up with was right for their family (as this thread shows). Virtually all my friends who have two children have a two year gap (about half of their classes in primary were sibling pairs the same ages), my brother and I are a two year gap, so it seems totally normal to me but I totally get why some want a much bigger gap.

We did 4.5 years. Wasn't intentional - aimed for 3.5 but had mc. It's been brilliant. Older DS was just starting school so we made a fuss about him being a big boy and he was mature enough to not feel jealous. It also meant I had that precious new born time at home while he was at school. They get on brilliantly most of the time. Different bedtimes and a few other rules are accepted because they know they're at different stages. I couldn't get excited about having a baby and a toddler at the same time.