anyone one of two same sex siblings?

[lovingmumhood]

DH and I are deciding whether to have a third.

We have two boys.. eighteen months and five months.

Want to hear people's experiences being one of two close in age, same sex siblings growing up :)

I have 2 boys 13 months apart so can only give a viewpoint as a parent a bit further down the line than you. Mine are 17 and 16 now. Luckily ours get on and have similar interests and shared friends and we've really not had any issues. I think a third might have made things more difficult in our case whereas if you have two that don't get on a third could be a peacemaker or bridge - the one that doesn't get on with one of the other two could be the third one though so I guess that's a chance you take.

A friend with two girls with a small gap had two that hated each other and as adults barely tolerate each other.

I don't think there is any one size fits all deal with this. It really depends a lot on the personalities. My DS2 struggles a bit because DS1 is naturally academic and he isn't and he judges himself against him and it effects his confidence. We try to deal with that but you feel guilt either way as you really need to celebrate DS1s achievements but you also need to be aware that DS2 might achieve differently.

Good luck whatever you decide.

wow jinx :)

thankyou :)

I keep trying to tell myself this! I know I can't predict how much they will like each other, what they'll be like etc.. if only we had a crystal ball!

It's so not in my nature to go with the flow lol so I question everything but I guess at the end of the day these are one of those things you just have to go with.

Did you get broody for a third and how did you get over that if yes? I'm trying to decide whether wanting a third is just my ovaries or actually what we want for our life.

I totally adored my big sis. I think I bugged her a little
As adults we are really close.

There's 3 years between my DSis and I. We squabbled as children but nothing serious and generally got on very well. We are very close now. DH has one older and one younger brother. They aren't super close but all seem to get on well enough. DH used to 'translate' for BIL as a child when he had speech problems and only DH could understand him.

We'd said when we first got together that we'd like between 2 and 4 children. We are both from large families. However we had fertility issues which meant that DS1 was born when I was 34 and DH was 39 and Ds2 being so close wasn't exactly an accident but we weren't expecting it to all happen so quickly. I think at 35 and 40 with 2 healthy babies and the sheer exhaustion of working etc we really felt that we couldn't cope with another at that point. A few years down the line I did have a brief notion for a 3rd but DH had already had a vasectomy and the notion passed very quickly. I think having no strong desire for a girl probably helped too. The likeliest result of a 3rd pregnancy would have been another boy as they run on both sides of the family. I think DH would have liked a daughter but now that ours are teenagers, I think he is glad for what we have.

So, we may have had a 3rd under different circumstances but I never regret the decision not to, if that helps.

I know very few people with 3 but lots more with 4 and mostly people with 2. One of my sisters has 3 but effectively she had 1 (girl) who got to age 8 and then 2 boys a couple of years apart so it was sort of like a single, then a pair.

I hated my sister.

Didn't get on with my sister as pre teens/teenagers but we are very close now.

When I say didn't get on I mean we just annoyed each other with the clash of personalities, not proper hating each other

18 months btw me and DSis. Grew up like twins and alternated between being thick as thieves and having WW3.

As adults it's much the same.

But tbh we are v v different people. That's contributed to it more than anything. But we see each other every week. We just are careful now to respect each other's differences and avoid difficult topics. Whereas in the past we pushed each other's buttons a lot.

Nobody knows you better than a same sex sibling close in age. There's good and bad in that.

I have a sister 17months older than me and we cannot stand each other. We never got on. I also have a sister 20 years younger than me and we've always been close

I think it depends as much on their individual personalities as it does having them close in age. Just because you have them close together doesn't guarantee they will be close.