2 year age gap - is it 'bad'??

[WindUpBird]

I know this has been posted before, but...: I already have a dd, 15 months old, and before I start thinking of having another am wondering what the best age-gap between siblings is....More specifically, is 2 years or just over a horrifically bad gap??? Of all the grown-ups I know with siblings this age apart, NONE of them have good relationships with eachother, whereas a bigger or a smaller gap (the latter not an option for me, now!) seems to be better? Is this just a silly question anyway, surely it's the personalities which dictate the success or otherwise of the relationship, not just an age gap....

Exactly 2 years between mine.

Very hard work at first.

DS genuinely seems to love his little sis.

She dotes on him.Are only 1.5 and 3.5.Full scale bickering not kicked in yet.

2 Years between me and db 1 and we get on tolerably well.

Almost exactly 2 years between my DS's and at 15mths and 3.25 yrs they get on fabulously. They play well and really seem to love one another.
It is hard work, but I think any gap has it's ups and downs tbh.

There is five years between me an sis 1 2yrs between me and sis 2 me in middle 19months between me and sis3 and 5years between me and sis 4 we all get on ok we have bickered but now most of us left home have our own space we look after each other!
Good luck my dd is 1yo and we ttc (maybe due to fact it took 18months of ttc to get dd

Please don't presume you can plan your children that easily. After almost a year of trying, I've just found out I'm pregnant again and we're thrilled. Are you telling me I'm going to have HUGE problems having a 3 year age gap?
This is stuff and nonsense, and please give a thought to those trying desperately to conceive who don't have a chance to ponder such things.
Personalities count, not age. It's just a number...

I have 2.2yrs between DS and DD1, they get on well and it was actually a really nice gap, Ds was too young to be overly bothered but old enough to help out a bit.
I have 12mths between the girls [ds -dd2 3.2yr gap] and both of those gaps have worked well for us aswell. I think it depends purely on personality as I am 7 and 8 yrs older than my sisters [15mths apart] and I only ever got on with the youngest as middle is a witch..lol You will never get a definitive 'this is the perfect gap' as it depends on soo much!!

13.5 months between my brother and me, and we never really got on. (More to do with other issues though, and issues with my parents).

ds will be 2.4 when dc2 arrives. I have my worried moments, but tbh, after 2 mcs between ds and this pg, age-gap technicalities do pale a bit. And I may be deluding myself but do also see a lot of positive sides.

Its good and bad tbh. I have 22 months between my first two and I have very fond memories of them being very little and it is good now that they are older too (both at school and dd is a year below ds1). It was quite hard to begin with though, I remember getting out of the house being very difficult and also never really got one to one time with dd.

I've got 22 months between mine & from my own, and friends experiences, I think a small age gap is (generally) harder at the start. But it's great when they are a bit older, mine are 4 & 2 and have shared interests & play really well together. I enjoy seeing them play together & think I'd have missed out on that if the age gap was much bigger.

22 months with mine, I planned them close together so they would play and entertain each other

I suspect that every age gap has its pros and cons, tbh, and as others have said - it's not always as easy as decding the gap that you want. There's 2 years 12 days between my 2, and they have their moments, but clearly adore each other. My sister is 2 years older than me and we get on fine. I don't think it's possible to generalise about these things.
Not very helpful, sorry!

olive

There is a two year gap between DS1 and DS2 who are now almost 8 and almost 6 - they play together all the time. It was very hard work in the beginning, though.

I have a 2 years and 4 months gap. It has been great so far. They are now just over 2 and 4.5. It was hard work at first but only for the first few months. They play really well together and obviously love each other very much.

I'd say it's more to do with personality.

I have 26 and 22 months between my three. Younger two in particular are very close.

There's nearly four years between both me and my bro, and DH and his sis, they get on welly usually, whereas me and my brother tolerate each other (we love each other but...)

2 yrs between ds + dd (now 7,5), they play together all the time, sleep in each other's room, etc.

Of course, dd sometimes shouts "I hate you!", but you she doesn't mean "forever".

they can sometimes swap clothes and dd picked up school fast because of observing ds's experience.

obviously you can't guarantee a close sibling relationship but I reckon you up your chances slightly with a small age gap - they will have more incommon, esp. early on.

My dd will be 2,2 when dc2 is born and I think it is more about how we introduce dc2 to the family than the age gap itself - I know she will be very put out so i am trying to do everything I can imagine to lessen the blow that she will feel - and I hope this will encourage a good relationship between them.

Might as well start trying now, as cheechy says - you never how long it might take!

I think how siblings interact as grown ups depends hugely on other things not on how many years are between them.

As you can't predict how easily you will get pg we started trying at the minimum gap I thought I could cope with and we now have a 2 yr gap

If I have another I will probably go for a larger gap as then my eldest will be in school

Only anecdotal evidence but my sis and I are 2.5 yr gap and we fought terribly throughout our childhood, although we have a relationship now. But we are SO different but being that close meant there was competition and I think she felt threatened by me (I'm younger). Similarly my nephews have a just less than 2 year age gap and there is a lot of competition. But as someone else said I think personality is the biggest factor and that's something you can't control.

2 years almost exactly between DDs - they play constantly (no, really)and although they bicker almost as much as me and DP, they've never had a physical fight.

However my friend has 2 DDs and was having to pull them apart when the younger one was under 2!

Ya just can't tell!

ok here's my take on it

you will get the kids you get.

for THOSE KIDS 2 years might be great or it might be bad

or 4 years might be good or it might be bad

you just CANNOT predict how things will go

even if they are easy at first, there WILL be rough patches. Kids who fight constantly as kids are sometimes very close to their siblings as adults and vice versa

you CAN'T predict how it will go. The best thing to do is to think about when YOU want another and go for it then.

Agree with Fillyjonk. The dynamic of the relationship will change as they go through different life stages. My dds are 2 years apart and it was much easier than I expected for the first few months (I got a good sling so I could carry dd2 while doing activities with dd1). Then when dd2 started crawling, things got more complicated as dd1 felt threatened and jealousy kicked in.

Now they are 4.2 and 2.2 and get on very well, play together loads and love each other. But there are probably more difficult patches ahead...

Thanks so much for all your posts, they're interesting to read. Sorry Cheechymonkey, I really didn't mean to offend anyone with my post so I'm sorry if it appears insensitive.
I agree that it is probably mostly up to personalities whether they get on as adults.
Anyway, I'm so exhausted looking after one, how can I even contemplate TWO?!