to wonder why people struggling with one under 2 get pregnant again so quickly?

[inconceivableme]

Sorry if this sounds harsh!

Disclaimer: I'm in my late 30s and I have a two year old and know all too well the challenges that some days - and nights! - bring....and who would like a second soon-ish (fertility issues allowing!)

BUT I am constantly genuinely surprised by how many female friends and acquaintances who are clearly finding their only toddler a real challenge (sleep, behaviour, allergies, general chaos in daily life etc) and/or have PND and/or are clearly frustrated (judging by their real life and FB comments) with either being a SAHM or combining work with motherhood still get pregnant when their current, only child is still around a year old. Two under 2 is notoriously hard. Would it not be better to leave it a bit longer for your own mental health?

I have a 6, 4 and 2 yo and I did the small age gaps because I wanted them to be close siblings (they are) and be a little gang.

I also wanted to get all the baby stage out the way quickly, I thought if I came out the other side and started to get my life back (so to speak) I might not want to go back and I knew long term I wanted three children.

Personally I find it more strange having a huge age gap so you end up with in effect two only children, seems way more of a faff to me.

Totally different strokes for different folks.

I think it is to get hard bits over with! I had a 5 year gap due to circumstances and felt daunted by going back tto the start. Actually it has been ok but feel for dd having no playmate. I am so much better at parenting this time though!

My gm had her dc3 when she had teenagers and got them to do all the hcard bits like mmornings! My mil had similar but her teens were a nightmare. So all depends.

I have a Ds who is only 11 months. I am 35 weeks pregnant. I hate when people offer condolences for the fact I am pregnant. Ds was quite poorly for the first few months and I found it so so hard. He has numerous allergies which can be difficult, but he is my life. I love him so much and didn't want just 1 child.
Dh was very poorly a few years ago and was told he would never have children. If he got ill again then having children would definitely be out of the question. When your life is in question, you question what you want from life. Things may get tough at times but having children is a true blessing and we feel so lucky to have Ds. We didn't know if we would ever be able to have more so didn't want to wait to find out it would take a long time or would not be possible. Also you never know what's around the corner.
I also am very career driven and wanted to have this time with my children, to then get back to work and continue progressing without wondering when I would be off again.
I understand your question. In my line of work I see people really struggling with the children they have, but different people want different things. Also you just don't know what your children will be like and whether they will have any additional challenges. Like others have said everyone has their own reasons.

Some want the baby stage out the way quickly, others might be older so in a rush, some just like shagging and others want several children so need to get on with it. Lots of reasons really. Whatever suits the particular family.

Almost all my friends and family who have had such small age gaps had contraceptive failures (including forgetting to use any altogether!) I found my DD a challenge as a toddler so I stopped at one - often my friends are really quite envious about it and say they wish there was less social pressure to have another.

My SIL had 2 children with a 13 month gap and it almost broke her!!
Luckily mil stepped in, moved them closer to her and now they are fine.
It took 3 years of trying for them to conceive DN and were about to start fertility treatment when SIL got pg. they assumed that the situation would be similar 2 nd time around but they conceived very quickly.
I suppose with hindsight it was a bit silly, especially since she wasn't really coping with one anyway and I was a bit miffed when mil was expecting me to help more as we lived closer at the time ( 40 mins away) but I had 2 children of my own and helped when I could. I also had no help from mil with my DS as any space time she had had to be taken up helping SIL.
Anyway, it's all worked out ok now

I think a lot of people will consider two very closely spaced children to be a contraception oversight or failure. I guess it is very easily done, particularly if you are breast feeding and overlook the point at which fertility returns.

I had two within 13 months of each other - I must admit that we didn't want them quite that close but it was great to get all the shitty nappies and irritating baby stuff out of the way in one big swoop.

My second was recently born 2wks before my ds's 2nd birthday. Honestly, at the moment i massively regret it. It's a living nightmare.

Our reasons were: DS wasn't anywhere near as difficult when we conceived. He hit his peak of horror at 18mo. We had taken a year to conceive ds, so thought this may take a while - but of course fell pregnant first shag. I am old. I want to go back to work so need to get the baby years out of the way.

Hormones
1- make you do strange things
2- if yiu haver fertility issues, you might want to take advantage of the residual hormones from previous pg to try for another

Dec2013mummy congratulations on your impending baby

Do you mind if I offer you some unsolicited advice?!

1. Get a moses basket and put it in a travel cot or playpen. When the new baby wants to sleep, put him/her in the basket. This way they will be protected from your DS's loving attentions. My DS1 tried to feed DS2 popcorn when he was 2 weeks old

2. Accept any and all help from your parent friends - if they offer to hold baby then let them! It'll make them broody and get them breeding their next round of babies too

Here are some things for you to look forward to:

When your babies are big enough to interact with each other and giggle, it is the best feeling in the world. They'll be so close in age that they will be amused by all the same things, and baby-led weaning will occur more or less automatically with DC2 as you'll just give them whatever DS is having.

And finally - I've watched a lot of people, and being pregnant whilst chasing a toddler seems SO much harder than being pregnant whilst waddling after a crawling/barely walking baby. Just sayin'. Glad I missed that!

I'm the other way, DD will be nearly 6yo by the time I have DC2. Mainly because our house wasn't big enough before, but now I'm wondering why, when we've been out of nappies for nearly 3 years, am I'm going back to it? DD sleeps through (unless a nightmare), is bribable and can occupy herself a fair bit too.

Can totally see the benefit of blitzing nappies in one go!

Well YANBU but then people wonder why I had mine almost seven years apart. I do wonder at the assumption that close in age equals close in other ways as in my experience personality is usually what determines how well siblings get on.

I have a couple of friends who have three kids all two years apart who say that the past year was a blur and they are exhausted and I am as supportive as possible but I do wonder if slightly bigger gaps (3 years) would have been much easier for them.

Two years almost seems to be the expectation now though.

Because they want to get the difficulty of the baby years over with.
Because they want to get the financial constraints of the baby years over with.
Because they're not getting any younger.
Because they want children not too far apart in age so they can play together (mine are 2.5y apart and hate each other, so that doesn't always work!)
Contraceptive failure.

And so on.

Are you really that lacking in imagination, OP?

Mine are 3.3 years apart, I could not have fathomed having them closer. I was absolutely gobsmacked by how much work motherhood was, I had to force myself into number 2.

don't the men have anything to do with it then?

Just you say "female friends" and I'm assuming, if they're heterosexual, that their partners have a say in the timing too?

I've done it both ways (small age gap and bigger one). I found each presented plus and negative points. No right or wrong way really, just whatever best suits.

26 months here. I tell you now... if ds2 came first I think we would have stopped at 1!

I had mine with a 20-month gap because my first was fairly easy once he was through the first months of babyhood and I wanted to be able to do things with them that both would enjoy. It worked really well and the second was not 100% the work of the first, more like 60%.

We had fertility issues with the first one, number 2 happened very quickly in comparison and we ended up with an 18 month age gap. It's actually great now they're 3 & 5, they're great friends and at very similar stages.

Yes, you were actually, as several posters have pointed out

No just 3 posters including you. I think given aspects of your own posting style the bar for what is rude as detected by you is a bit strange and does not appear to apply to yourself.

You are on a forum used by lots of different people with different communication styles its a little surprising to see you being so adamant on this matter after repeatedly refusing to accept that its possible you were rude earlier.

Just goes to show people view things differently and comunicate differently.

I had 3 under 3 - they are 6, 5 and 3 now and very close. They will be in consecutive school years, they all get on with each others' friends and share interests, they play together and generally have a brilliant time together - if we want to go out for the day it is easy to find something that will appeal to all 3 dc. We are moving on together as a unit and will have years and years where all of us will be able to do stuff together without being held back by a baby/toddler, or having a moody teenager who doesn't want to hang out with the rest of us. The older 2 look out for one another at school and hopefully this will continue as they get older.

Yes, I had to have 3 pregnancies very close together - I had 3 sections and bf them all beyond 12 months - it was pretty full on for my body! We have to think and plan to make sure they all get to their activities and have regular time alone with one of us. But overall it was a good decision to have them close.

Because sometimes the problems don't matter diddly squat when it comes to your children. Fustration, pnd, sleep and feeding difficulties didn't even register for me when I had my second. And I was fustrated, I suffered from pnd, my dd was a nightmare with her sleep and feeding by that point but none of it compared to how over the moon I was when I found out I was pregnant with ds.

Yes it's so friggen hard, yes you feel like you're constantly hitting your head off a brick wall, yes sometimes you want to run away and never come back.

But then your little ones smile at you, do something daft, tell you they love you and everything else is forgotten.

And I say this as a person who's been a single parent since my ds was 3 weeks old, is a stay at home mum now and frequently wonders when the hell it'll get easier because my two can be a lot of hard work. I'd still do it all over again in a heartbeat if the circumstances were right and I was in a better financial/work situation

Small age gaps are great (I don't really see 2 years as that small a gap though tbh. 2 years is pretty typical among my friends.)

No school runs to worry about with a newborn
If you're lucky the 2yo will still nap and when they do you can lie down with the newborn
No carting baby around to a million and one after school activities at their most fractious time of day
As they get older they will be able to do more or less the same things and will mainly enjoy the same kinds of day trips/activities/films etc
No trying to guard older kids' delicate toys with a million pieces from a crawling baby
You're just in that zone (my youngest is now 7 and the thought of going back to the beginning again is scary! Just mho, of course)

I don't really remember it being harder as such with 2 (or 3 - I had 3 under 3) It was more time consuming for sure but I felt much more confident in myself than I did with one child. (eg we took them all abroad on holiday when dc3 was about 10wo) Also, being frank, you can't possibly worry about every little thing like you do with your pfb, so you do learn to let things go, ime.

Because their fertile years are running out? Because broodiness is a very strong thing for somwewomen.