DH and I can't seem to narrow down our thoughts on children, which we need to do to help the SW share profiles with us.
In general, the following statement is true: we are looking for a child aged 0-3, gender unknown.
In detail, DH points out he sees a male toddler and I see a female baby.
We have a female BC aged around 5/6.
I also go onto the Adoption UK forum and there is a thread running there about some recent stats saying that parents who adopted babies are the ones most seeking post-adoption support. That the babies' needs are, obviously, mostly unknown at the time of matching.
I really do get this and yet I would love to parent a young baby again. My SW says if this is a need then there's nothing wrong with it (short story is I had cancer when DD was a baby so feel I missed a lot of it).
DH fully understands my feelings but thinks we'd know more about a toddler, may get a bit more sleep etc (he thinks we're too old for a baby!). There's also the age-gap to DD, which everyone says should be as big as possible (except our LA, funnily enough, who are fairly ambivalent). But practically, IF it turns out that AC is able to interact with DD (by which I mean that I know I'm not creating a handy playmate), won't a 2/3 yr gap be more compatible than a 4/5 yr gap?
I know this is very long, sorry. As I said, LA (on prep course) and SW really don't have a strong opinion so we feel a bit adrift. Our only advice on age is from boards like this. I worry that we should 'just know' who we are looking for - but to me, being so specific feels like I'm writing a shopping list...maybe that's why we've only got as far as 0-3 yrs.
Anyway. Baby or toddler? Any useful experiences and thoughts very greatly appreciated. Thank you.