Struggling with age gap between babies

[Nurse15]

Have a wee one who is 14 months old, struggled with PND after her as she was a really unsettled baby who screamed for 6 months solidly. It took us 18 months to fall pregnant with her, now she's a good bit older I am considering baby number 2. However, I can't face the thought of another baby yet, anyone who left it till their first was in nursery or school? How did you find the age gap? Im 29 so age isn't really an issue!

3 year age gap is very common. Got friends whose age gap is 4 or 5 year and worked really well for them. They actually have free time with the baby, my second got dragged around after sibling because he was only 2!

Surely by posting in "one child families" you are asking the wrong audience?

It doesn't matter what the age gap is, I know families who have deliberately had 7 and 11 year ages gaps!

There is NO perfect age gap. All age gaps have pros and cons. I had PND with DS and he was a NIGHTMARE baby. I wasn't willing to even consider another for quite a while. As it took nearly 2 years to get pregnant with DS (with fertility treatment) we assumed it would be the same the second time. By the time I was ready to "risk" it (ie start "trying" knowing nothing would happen and we'd have to go through fertility treatment again in due course), DS was nearly 3 so we expected the gap to be close to 5 years.

The thing is that in the ideal world, I wouldn't have had a 5 year gap, but that was the way it needed to be for us. It landed up being 4, not 5, and I can honestly say there are lots of great things about it like the fact that we never had to deal with multiple sets of nappies etc, DS was at school when DD was a baby so we had that extra time with the baby etc. And now they're bigger they get on brilliantly. It's fine.

My point is that don't start trying until you're ready. And if you have a bigger gap, you will find real benefits (not least of which will be your own mental health).

DD was nearly 4 when DS2 was born, it was good when she was at school full time, I got more time with DS2.