How did you decide when to TTC your second child?

[legallyblond]

I guess this kind of fits in conception?!

DD is 7 months and wonderful! At the moment I feel nowhere near ready to TTC for number 2 as DD is just so amazing and I can't think about another!

I had always planned on big gaps between babies - I like the idea of 3 or 4 years - but a combination of maternity policies at my current job, future plans about moving etc etc mean that a 2 year gap might make the most sense.

I know this seems a bit silly, but just wondered how others decided when the right time was? We want 3 or 4 kids but I am still quite young (just turned 29), so we should have time... DD was conceived on the first month of TTC so I anticipate (rightly or wrongly) being able to plan fairly exactly....

How did your "choose" the gap between kids? When were you ready?

Do you have a 2-year age gap? Are your DCs close? My experience of friends my own age (and my own family - 4 kids, all big gaps) suggests that, bizzare as it sounds, the bigger the gap, the closer the siblings....

i didn't exactly choose the gap between ds1 and ds2, as ds1 was with 1st husband, then on my own for couple of years, then started TTC ds2 as soon as moved in with new dh. so there's a 6 year gap between them which i have to say was wonderful, very easy, got to spend lots of time with ds2 while ds1 at school so he had all the benefits of being an only child but also the benefits of a much loved sibling.

started ttc dd when ds2 was 14 months thinking it would take a year because I was still breastfeeding etc. and got pregnant immediately, so there are exactly 23 months between them. has been much much harder, and if i had my time again, i would definitely have left a bigger gap between the younger ones. having said that i am 38 so i had a slight feeling that i needed to get on with it...

Hmmm - mrsravelstein, your response mirrors my thinking exactly. In an ideal world, I would plan to have dc2 when dd starts at school/nursery. Just thinking about it now because of boring life-y reasons like getting another whole year off on great maternity pay if I were to have dc2 sooner.... Boring and not emotional or intuitive I know, but sometimes you do have to consider the boring stuff.....

My son is 5, and I would never have started TTC before he was 4 as he was such hard work as a baby, and I had very bad PND and we couldn't afford it anyway. I would like to start TTC this year, but probably can't as in a new job and money is still very tight.

Bit of a shame as it took a year to concieve last time, and I have PCOS now. So the gap will probably be 7 years or so.

I had a pretty traumatic birth with dd and had no intention of anymore after she was born. 3 years before dh and said we wanted 3 children so it was a bit change for us!

When she was 2, dh and I started saying maybe when she's three. In the summer dd was 2.5 and we decided that 2011 was the time to ttc and at Christmas I said to dh shall we try and he agreed (it just felt right). I'm now pg with ID twins so the gap of 3.5 years will probably be good as dd1 can understand things, goes to nursery and entertains herself beautifully!

We wanted a two year gap and started trying accordingly. You just can't really plan these things and we have a nearly exactly 3 year gap which is absolutely lovely.

By default really. In that I couldn't stand the thought of sex until DS was around 9mo, and by then any time after that woudl have been fine to have another. Sadly it hasn't worked out too well yet - DS is now 3.5 and still no joy :(

For me I waited until my eldest was quite independent (nearly 2) before even trying because my first PG was quite tough going and I am SAHM, so if I was going to have my head in the loo all day, she (and I) needed to be able to cope with that. My head and heart were fairly in tune about it I think though, I didn't feel very broody until then either.

The gap will be almost 3 years between them.