Has anyone had all their children close together?

[Guntie]

My DH and I are expecting our first child soon...

We have talked about family planning post pregnancy and for a number of reasons we both kind of ended up thinking it could be an idea to try and have our children relatively close together.

I fully appreciate I have no idea what I am getting myself into, and that I might not even be able to cope with one child. I also appreciate there could be many factors which come up which prevent this from happening.

However, I was hoping to hear of anyones experiences in having all their children close together?

We are keeping an open mind about how many children and when we would like to have them and are just planning to play it by ear once baby number 1 arrives, so nothing is set in stone so to speak. I am just curious to hear if others have bunched their children close together and how they found it.

Thank you!

Give yourself some time! You need time to adjust to being a mum and you will need time to physically recover from childbirth (ideally a year).

You have no idea yet what faces you. You could have a colicky, non-sleeper who struggles to feed. Trust me, if you're waking every 45 mins overnight and up for an hour and a half each time feeding/changing/settling, with a baby who screams every time you put them down in the day too, you'll be surviving on 4 hours sleep or less per 24 hrs. Sometimes for months. You will not want to be pregnant.

You may get a settled baby who wakes every 3-4 hours and you barely notice the change to sleep. And then get a tricky one as your second. Or not.

You may be unlucky and get pnd.

You may sail through and wonder what he fuss is all about.

Just wait until you're genuinely ready to run the gauntlet again. There is no perfect age gap, but an exhausted mummy who then becomes pregnant is a recipe for disaster.

Good luck with your expected arrival. Enjoy being a mummy, and my advice fwiw is to use contraception until you're very sure you want to be pregnant.