Age gap too big??

[rbeau]

I have a 5 year old (6 in January) and have been with my partner for 5 years this Christmas. We are getting married in December and have been talking about having another baby next year.

That means we will have a 6 (possibly more!) year age gap between the children and that makes me really nervous! We would be completely starting again so to speak as we don't have any 'baby' things now and our DS is becoming more independent and grown up each day - about to go into year one at school.

Does anyone else have an age gap like this? Has it worked well / badly? What are the pros / cons that you have found?

My 9 and 3yo get on great! There is a 7yo to add to the mix too though, which complicates matters!

We have 5 years between our kids. The dynamic is fine although we do sometimes divide them up to do something more grown up with the big one (8) and occasionally have issues if he is too old to join his sibling (3) doing some soft plays. And the little one does get to stay up later to go out for dinner or go and explore museums you might not otherwise take a 3 year old to, but it works.

They play nicely together a lot of the time (eldest is the clear leader). And also fight plenty too. Same as if they were a closer age gap!

We've got 5.5 years between DD1 and DD2, and so far it's been fine overall. It was definitely easier when DD2 was tiny and the older one was at school all day so I could just focus on the baby (or catch up on some sleep while she had a nap!).

Now she's a bit older there are times when she wants to join in with what her sister's doing and she can't yet, which can be frustrating for her. And don't expect the older one to "dote on and help out" with the baby - they might well do, but DD1 found the reality of having a screaming baby in the house who needed a lot of attention much harder to deal with than the idea of having a baby sister that she'd been desperately asking for!