Six year age gap between my daughters - what will their sibling relationship be like?

[gingercat2]

I have a newborn DD2, age ten weeks, and a six year old DD1. They are half-sisters. I so hope they will be close and mutually supportive, but developmentally it's such a huge gap. Does anyone else have siblings or children with a similar gap? Is there anything in particular I can do as a parent to facilitate a great relationship between them?

My sisters are 9 and 10 years my senior, when I was younger they were much like a second set of parents, a younger, cooler, more fun set. During the preteen and teen years I had two people I felt I could really talk to and whose id I could steal.....and now that we're all grown you wouldn't know there is a gap at all, we are all very close. HTH!

I have a six year age gap between my girls, at first my dd1 was great and loved her little sister, but now they are 10 and 4 I do have some problems with them. There is a lot of jealousy from dd1 to dd2, for example if dd2 gets an invite to a pre-school friends party, dd1 will be begging to come and it's not fair that she doesn't get invited. Of course she did all the parties etc when she was 4 but can't comprehend that. This might just be normal tween behaviour though?

There are some lovely sides to their relationship too. Dd2 has helped dd1 stay a child longer, she'll happily play with the ponies and barbies that dd2 has. I hope that as they grow their relationship will grow, especially when dd2 is past the pre school age.

The other thing is that I have a Ds that is 2 years younger than dd2 and they can sometimes become a bit of a team which probably doesn't help with the jealousy :-/

I hope my post hasn't come across as all doom and gloom, they laugh and play together and share a room, and most of all they love each other.

My half sister (6 years younger) and I have a relationship more like cousins who see each other every few years, quite distant. This is in part because my parents were always wildy protective of her and my every move with her was watched very carefully, what I could speak to her about was censored... just generally I had to be walking on egg shells with her so stopped bothering. I was forced to play baby-ish games with her which I resented.

My older sister (6 years older) I was always a bit scared of as she was like another parent, telling me off.. watching me.. it's better now we are older though - doesn't seem to be as much of a difference now we have babies and husbands and stuff (still a bit scared though!)

I think a lot of the doom about it was how my parents acted towards me in particular though - so I think there's a lot you can do to nurture the relationship, and actually let the elder teach the younger how to join into games they like etc.

Good luck!

There are 7 years between my sister and me and we are very, very close.

6.5 years between my sister and I (I am the elder).

It IS a different relationship to having a sibling very close in age. As a child I had more of a caretaker role - I would help my mother look after her and supervise in the garden etc. I really loved her and was proud of her.

I still love her dearly and would do anything to help her out. But she doesn't have a partner or children so we are a very different stages of life. We love each other but are not close in the sense that we would not phone each other to discuss problems.

But that may well be more to do with the fact that my sis hasn't settled down as yet than anything else.

I have 6 years (well almost) between my 2 boys. I actually did it through choice although we were aiming for about 5 years rather than 6.

It was fantastic when DS2 was a baby but he is 3 now and I won't lie we are having a difficult few months. He thinks he is the same age as his big brother and wants to do the same thing as him and his friends which is proving slightly difficult...however they absolutely adore each other and all DS1's friends love him as well. He is currently playing indoor football in our lounge with 4 9 year olds!

There's 5 years between me and my sister. We aren't close. Growing up I was forced to play with her and she was too young to play what I wanted to. My friends also resented her coming in and being a pest so stopped coming round to play. Obv we've never recovered a relationship since.
My advice from that would be give the elder her own time and space.

There is seven years between my DM and her older sister and they were always really close as children. I'm sure it's more about personalities than age - I know of siblings that are both close or distant and it really has little to do with age.

Well ours is more positive. I have 6 yrs between mine and they get on so well. I think it's about fostering a relationship where dd1 is understanding that sometimes dd2 will want to touch her stuff and she has to play with it up high. We have also been very clear with dd2 that she is not allowed to touch dd1 s stuff and she has some boxes of toys that are not to be touched. This has been enforced and gives dd 1 some privacy.

We also put a table in the living room so that dd 1 can play with her toys out of reach but still allow her to be part of the room, so she didn't feel like she had to go upstairs to play.

Dd1 is very understanding that dd2 will get jealous but handles it well.

They get on so much better than I hoped and have such a giggle together. It has worked out well for us but we really focussed on dd1 s needs and worked around those. If she is happy, dd2 should be.