Tell me about your age gaps and what works for you

[CoffeeOne]

All families are different and what works for one might not work for another.

However, DS1 is about to turn one and my thoughts have turned to expanding our family. I'd love to hear about the age gaps between your children and what you've noticed about bigger and smaller ones :)

Had 3 yr old, 2 year old and new baby. Now 17, 19 & 20. They got on fab and still do. (DD, DS, DD). Then gap of 5 yrs to 12 year old and gap of 6 years to 6 yo. (Both DS).

Older ones played together nicely, rarely quarrelled and still have good time. 12 yo was a bit on his own always and still is, although older ones are kind - just not interested in same sorts of games. Little one is babied by all, but in a lot of ways is like an only child - complains the 'big kids' don't want to play with him.

IMO close age gaps are much preferrable!

I love my gaps of about 2yrs - close enough so they are interested in similar things but large enough for them to have a little more independence. However my friend had 4, with about 16mnth gaps between each and she says the closer the better and many of my friends had a gap so their oldest is at school when they have a new baby. I think every gap has its pros and cons and you just get on with it whatever happens.

I have three.
7,4 and 1 next month.
They were born dec 2005, jan 2009 and feb 2012 so all a year and one month after the next.
I don't know how it worked out like that obviously we planned about three years between each child but that's how it worked out.
I find a three year age gap really nice

Thanks guys, really interesting to read about your experiences!

I have a 19, 20 and 22 month age gap between four dds. All out of necessity as time was ticking. They fight and love each other in equal measure. It is very very hard work, and hard to feel like I am giving them all the time and attention that they deserve. However, I like that they are close in age, that I had them later and so got to enjoy a lot of child-free life, if that makes sense. I guess there are pros and cons to everything and what might be the right gap for one, is defiantly not the right gap for another. Also, we don't always choose our gaps, they choose us! I wanted small gaps because I have a 13 year gap with my only sister. We get along well and love each other (though we live on opposite ends of the earth), but I wish we were closer in age and had gne through similar life stages together.

I have 23 months between each of my oldest 3 and they have always got on really well and are very close. I then had an 11 year age gap and because the older DCs are too old to want to play with DC4 for long, have repeated the age gap and am expecting DC5 in a couple of weeks when DC4 will be 23 months. I wanted my DCs as close together as possible in age but with breast feeding I guess it just took 13/14 months for my fertility to return.

This age gap was wonderful the first time around so am hoping it will be this time too.

I've got 4 years between DC 1 and 2, I suggested a second when DD was about 1 but DH wasn't ready and it took ages for my period to return after depo injections.
That said it was nice to have DD in school and for DS1 to my full attention.
However now they are nearly 13 and 8 they have nothing in common and argue lots but that is also down to personality as well as age.
There is six years between DC2 and DC3 due to DH's uncertainty again, it was hard to get back into baby mode and DS2 was a hard baby, but also lovely to drop older DC off at school and crawl back into bed after being up all night feeding.
There is just 16 months between DC3 and DC4 and although it is really hard work, no going back to bed anymore, at 2.1 and 9 months things are a little easier and they are always entertaining each other.
It is hard having one child going through puberty and really growing up and then dealing with teething and terrible two's. DH and I have very little couple time, little ones are up at 6 and DD is up until 10 so we get about half an hour alone!
I think looking back we probably would've had them closer together but then we didn't plan on having four, and financially would have struggled much more, so I think things would've been much more difficult.

I have 3 dc (ds 4.4, dd 3.3 and ds 17 months) - the first gap is 13 months and the second gap is 22 months. We planned small gaps as we both grew up in families with bigger gaps and felt distant from our siblings until we were adults. Mostly I love it - they are very good friends and are interested in the same things, which is what we wanted - but I don't have that much time with them individually and have had to carefully juggle nursery hours to carve some time out with each of them. They are easy to look after as a gang and adore one another - long may it continue!

As an aside, there is a 3 year gap between my eldest and youngest and I have actually found this to be a lovely gap, despite my earlier reservations about bigger gaps. I suppose it may widen a bit as they get older, but at the moment ds1 is amazing with ds2 - 'reads' to him, plays with him very nicely, looks out for him - it's lovely.

I have 4 children eldest is 6 then I have 5 year old, 2 year old and a 6 month old, there's 5 years 10 months between all 4 of them, I love that they are so close in age as I had a 6 year gap between me & my sister and we never really got on.

There is 11 months between the eldest two, which was actually easier than I expected the hardest gap was between 2 & 3 which was 3 years 2 months it was like starting again as number 2 was fully potty trained, sleeping all night and totally independent.

between ds1 and ds2, its21 months, between ds2 and dd (3) its 18 months...
ttc#4 a good 4 year age gap at least.
its hard work having them close together, but my boys are like best friends. the prob i had was the wars between boy and girl lol

when my DS1 was a year old, I was given the advice to get pg with 2nd before DS1 properly sleeps through the night ( he'd just started teething), because once you get a full night sleep and get used to it you will not want to go back to broken nights.

I have not had a proper night's sleep for almost 12 years, but we have 6 of them.
Oldest is 12 in July, youngest will be 1 in April.

age gaps as follow

DS1 - DS2 : 2 years
DS2 - DS3 : 17 months
DS3 - DS4 : 2 years
DS4 - DS5 : 3.5 years
DS5 - DD : 2 years

I think 17 months difference was a bit too close for comfort.

I like 2 year gaps, coz I can have a daytime nap when pg or bf at nights, as the youngest still has naps too.

3.5 years was too much, but I had a MC (gap would have been 2.5 years after DS4)