Your children's age gaps...

[Dozeyland]

I am a mother of one (My 5month oldDD)
Happy relationship, and love being a mummy, We have both said we want a big family, and to have our children with nice age-gaps... not so smalland not so big.

What are your age gaps, and how did/do you find them?

And how about those of you who have children CLOSE together?

I think you have to return for minimum of 3 months before you can go on maternity leave again? but should have the same rights if so? not totally sure as i never went back but i think it is something along those lines. im sure someone can clarify

as for taking a toll on your body well tbh it does a bit but i think its manageable. having 2 close together if you have not lost all your previous pregnancy weight does mean you end up even fatter after the 2nd one, which happened to me as the 2nd one hadnt been planned so had i thought about it i would have made bit more effort to quickly lose the rest of it before starting again with another pregnancy, but still you can lose it again after that it just takes effort. so for the 3rd i did try to make an effort to lose more first, although still obviously going to have some more to lose again afterwards. also do your pelvic floor excercises if you are going to pack a few kids in together closely because it does weaken if not.
im now on my 3rd pregnancy, with less than a yr gap between each pregnancies and this time bump is really big really quickly, which apparently happens to everyone but generally finding it not too bad. you will be having to stay active with other younger ones to look after so thats probably a positive really as its beneficial to keep active.

if you feel its becoming too much then just take a longer break before the next one but just 2 together i dont think will have too bad of an impact on your body, probably only if you keep doing it every year without a break

21,18,4

Firawla how old was DC1 when you fell for DC2? and DC3? I'm just tied between having another close to my DD1.. or waiting. i really want them close together. just got to think how it'll work out... she is 5mo at the mo..

Who of you who havehad them closetogether, chose to not go back to work, what did/do you do then??

dc1 i think was something like 9 months, & the age gap is 17 months and dc2 was 11 months i think

i didnt go back to work cos i didnt have a good job in the first place so no point for me at all, and i enjoy looking after them would find it hard to put them into childcare at a young age. if you do have a few young ones together i think also that the childcare costs can become huge so possibly makes sense financially to stay home? but obv depends how much you earn. i was shocked when i've heard the price of day nurseries! but once all are in school i'd try to get some kind of work, like a part time one cos i'd want to be home when they are finished school. we just have to rely on dh's money, which works out okay. i did get some mat pay while off with my first one but not much cos i didnt go back and also cos it was a low paid job in the first place

22 month gap. No jealousy when DD was born - she wasn't really noticed until she moved at about 10 months :)

They have their moments but at 7 and 5 generally get on :)

Think my career a bit screwed tbh although did carry on a bit when DD was small. Also concerned about relationship with DH but not sure that having children close together was the problem.

20 months between DS1 and DS2, then 20 months again between DS2 and DD. So I had 3 under 3.5. They are now 8.5, nearly 7 and just turned 5.

It was hard work in the beginning, but it is great now as they are really close and good friends. Also they have never really been jealous of each other.