Calling mums of more than one child. ...!

[bradleybecky]

What's a good age gap between no. 1 and no. 2? After your experience? The closer the better? Or do you like a bit of a gap? What do your think?

[JC23]

My two boys are 10 years apart. It's great as the older one is much more independent and can even help out. And it's wonderful to watch how they love each other and play together. The older one just laughs affectionately when the baby hits him in the face, pinches him and steals his things.

[MrsMillions]

26 months here but with DD1 July born and DD2 September that means 3 school years. DSis and I had the same school gap and it definitely seemed better for GCSE/A-levels in our house than friends 2 school years apart.

On a more immediate practical note, as I took a year off with both, DD1s 15-hour funding kicked in right as DD2 started nursery. This makes a massive difference to our finances, although I'm still only just in profit.

[TataEs]

3 years.
it worked out nicely (after a year ttc) cos ds2 came along just as ds1 qualified for free hours at nursery, ds1 could dress, make a drink, get a nappy, listen to instructions, and understood sometimes he has to wait.
they are very different personalities tho and rarely play together, my oldest more tolerates the youngest, which can be tiring. ds1 is at school now so they're apart more which makes for more harmonious living and ds2 is at the age where he enjoys toddler groups etc so we can do those etc.

[7SunshineSeven7]

I'm close in age with my brother (I think 14 months) so separate school years. However he was extremely badly behaved whereas I was a straight A student. All I used to ever get was ''Oh you're /his/ sister.'' And all he ever got was, ''7 doesn't do /that/, can't you behave more like her?''.

PITA for both of us. I feel like if there were 2/3 school years between us we wouldn't have been so badly compared.

[allegretto]

I planned in 2 years and ended up with over 5! It's good in some ways but I wanted my sins to share s room but my eldest doesn't want to as he still finds his brother annoying. He has a point.

[Pluto30]

DS1 and DS2 are 18mo apart.

DS2 and DD are 4 years apart.

DD and the DC I'm currently pregnant with will be 20mo apart.

I like both. I don't think I could've had three close together, because two were exhausting enough. But the "difficult" stage of close-togethers passes very quickly, and then they're friends. There's no jealousy, because the older sibling doesn't know or remember any differently. My sons are best friends. They do fight, but they're good at sorting it out themselves, and them being 4 and 5.5 when I had DD meant that I had a lot of time to focus on her, because they entertained each other.

They're currently almost 7, almost 5.5 and 18mo. It's great. I have no regrets about the age gaps. As I said, my DD will be close in age to our next (and last) baby. I would've been content enough not having a fourth though.

[TheEagle]

There's 18.5 months between DS1 and DS2 and 1 minute between DS2 and DS3

That certainly wasn't planned!

The last 2 years have been a blur but as PPs have said you don't know what will happen fertility-wise so best laid plans may not materialise.

The hardest part of it all was being heavily pregnant with twins and taking care of an energetic 17/18 month old.

If (and it's a big big if) we thought we'd try for another I would certainly wait until DTs were at least 3 (they're 19 months now)

[Lookinatu]

Ds 4yr just started school
Dd 12 weeks both August babies I didn't plan that. I like the difference as while ds is at school I can bond with dd.

[didireallysaythat]

4years 3months for us. No way we could have afforded £1600-2000/month at the nursery. Also meant my three month's maternity leave was during DS1 first term at school so he didn't have to be taxi-d to after school provision until he had settled in a buy which was good.

[Robinkitty]

18 months between 1 and 2, very hard work and a lot of arguments but nice for them to have each other, they are a bit older now and it's nice to hear them chatting to each other about what's happening at school and when they do get on it's lovely to see.
7/8 years between them and no.3 also lovely to see them caring for her and how much they love her, so much easier with a big age gap.

[ReadyPlayerOne]

DD was 2.9 when DS came along, though I had two mcs before becoming pregnant with him so we'd aimed for a smaller gap. My sibling and I have almost exactly 2 years between us so that was my aim. This gap has worked well and now they're 7 and 4 and both at school.

[BirdsAndBlips]

My two boys are 17 months apart (21 and 4 months old). Took 2 years to conceive DS1 and 2 seconds DS2. DH wasn't as available as planned when DS2 was born so it all fell onto me with no support and it was HELL for the first month. Not as bad as the last month of pg though. I didn't get the newborn experience at all with DS2 but DS1 barely registered his baby brother so that's a plus I guess. My next one won't be until they're both in school.

[Juanbablo]

First two are 2yrs 4mths apart and it was great. Really easy. They are close but they fight too. We number 3 when the others were 6 and a week off turning 4. That was harder because we had to be at school and nursery. When my big two were tiny we could do whatever we wanted and that made it far easier.

[MrsSparkles]

5 year gap here. A little longer than planned but I always wanted a big ish gap as DH works long hours and travels a lot, so it nearly all falls to me. So I wanted dd1 to be more independent before dd2 came along.

Dd1 has been great with her little sister but they're only 5 and 6 months.

[katienana]

3.5 years between my two boys. My eldest was independent enough that I didn't have to lift him at all when I was pregnant. He's been quite good understanding when I need too see to the baby. Plus in nursery so I get some time to focus on baby/catch up on housework. It's actually been easier than I expected.
I've got a 6 year gap between me and my sister and 2 years between me and my brother (he is the youngest) we've always all got on well now were in our 30s and have 5 kids between us all 5 and under the gap is meaningless!

[LaContessaDiPlump]

Mine are 13mo apart. It was hard work initially not exactly planned but I'm loving it now as they are properly good friends and similarly capable of understanding instruction/walking independently etc.

Obv we were very lucky that neither of them has any additional needs; doubtless we'd have coped but the tiny age gap would have made it much harder, I'm sure!

[NapQueen]

Dd was 2y and 10m when ds came along. She would have been 2y 2m but we had a loss. I'm glad we had the larger gap as it's meant no double buggies. Totally toilet trained before second one. And not far off starting preschool.

A friend of mine had her second 3months before her eldest started reception class which I imagine is lovely for her as she has a good 6 hour chunk every day just her and the baby.

[pregnantat50]

DS1 is 3.5 years older than DS2 and DS2 is 2.3 years older that DD. Funnily enough DS1 and DD are really close now they are grown up but when younger it was always the 2 boys as a team and my dd following them around trying to get in on the mischief.

Personally there is 20 months between myself and my older sister, we had a great childhood and a sibbling relationship, sadly when she left home and got married we are not the same and rarely see each other but for the point of view of childhood I would say 2-3 years is a lovely gap

[weeblueberry]

23 months between mine and I've said to my partner a couple of times that if my oldest had been in the terrible twos when we were thinking of another I might have wanted to stick to one. Seriously. They're now 3 and a half and 19mo and it's utterly physically and emotionally exhausting. The three year old is pushing boundaries big time and acting out but the 19mo is starting to talk and so is getting frustrated with that too. She's also recently discovered she can push back against her older sibling both physically and verbally which is also tiring. There are days I feel very broken down by it all. I'm hoping that the bonus will be that they'll be close enough in age that they'll become playmates (despite what I've said above they are very close) but completely appreciate that's not a given.

[Sparrowlegs248]

I will have 18 months when Dc2 is born, not by design, and DH is crap. I'm doomed.

Absolutely agree re planning though, ds too over two years to conceive, this next one managed to be conceived while on the mini pill and dtd once in a blue moon!

[nooka]

16mths between my two, not planned that way! Very very hard the first couple of years after dd (the younger) was born and great pretty much ever since. They were two years apart at school in the UK and a year apart where we live now. The only year we had any issues was when ds moved on to high school and dd was still at elementary as she missed his support when she was bullied. dd tells me that they are unusally close though.

[TheSecondOfHerName]

My children are 16, 14, 12 and 12. Apart from the non-existent gap between DC3 & DC4, it has been fine.

However, I'm not looking forward to the May/June of 2018 and I'm trying not to think about the May/June of 2020. One teenager doing public exams this last summer was bad enough.

[BackforGood]

Now we are at the university stage, it's quite a relief that my dc are all 3 school years apart, so- if they each go from A-levels to university, and if they do a 3 yr degree, then we should only have one at university at a time.

However, it only works like that as our eldest is Summer born and our youngest only just sneaked into September. You could have the same age gaps and have them 5 school years apart, not 6.