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

[Sheepsheepie]

I think I’m overthinking but would like to see what others opinions are.

Age gap between the oldest and youngest (regardless of number of children) is there a gap too big? When you have 6-10 years that’s children in completely different stages of life, making days out more difficult.

I was an older child in a big family and felt
left out / ignored as the younger children took priority.

I would love another child but I keep thinking about the impact on my eldest. It almost puts their childhood on pause for example theme parks, skiing or adventures holidays can’t really be done with a young child. They then have to wait to the youngest to be a certain age.

Is this crazy? I wonder how much I’m clouded by my own childhood rather than reality

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.

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.

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

3 years between my 2

They get on really well

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.

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)

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 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.

@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