Age gap to avoid being jealous of new baby??

[nappyaddict]

My friend wants a small age gap so even though her baby is only a month old wants to start trying pretty soon. I have told her maybe to wait until her baby is 7 or 8 months which will give a 16/17 month gap and is quite likely first child will be walking which will make things easier. she thinks that will be too late to avoid jealousy but my ds is 17 months and i'm pretty sure he doesn't know how to be jealous!

I'm not sure it matters too much tbh and I think much depends on the personality of the child.

my son is 8 in Feb and goingt o have a little brother end of December. Tbh i dont think the age gap matters hugely.

Personally my sis had 3 very close together and they arent jealous but are very competitive with eachother.

Absolutely - it all depends on the child, not the age gap.

agree - depends on the child, not the gap

Depends on the child and how you handle any glimmerings of jealousy, imo. Siblings Without Rivalry is a great book (same authors as How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk) and comes up with some great strategies although more for when they're older.

My dses have 3 years apart and have their moments, but are mostly very loving, sharing and enjoy each others' company. I put it down to the fact that they've both inherited their father's laid backness and general willingness to just get on with everyone!

there is 22 months gap between my two. ds didn't even realize I was pg, even if I kept telling him that he'd have a little sister. His behaviour didn't change that much when she was born, and because we soon went to Italy for the summer he had plenty of attention not only from us but from a crowd of grandparents, friends, etc. He started to show signs of jealousy when she started to move around.
Now that he is 5 and she is 3, he will tell me at times that he's jealous of dd. She never does though. They have a good relationship I think. Days when they get along nicely and play together, and days when they get on each others nerves.

i think your advise to wait till 7/8 months was good-it takes a long time to recover from childbirth and getting pg again that soon is not good for your body(believe me-i concieved dd1 when ds1 was about 10 weeks old).

i agree with everyone else re the age gaps-it depends on the child,not the age.even with just 11 months between them,ds and dd1 have always had jealousy issues.there is 15 months between my youngest 2 (dd2 is almost 2 and dd3 is 8.5 months)and they have a lovely relationship-dd2 has always been very loving towards dd3.

my dds are 24mths apart and there has never been any jealousy

i think the key is not to be precious about the new baby, its ok if your toddler wants to trot her my little pony all over the cot while she is sleeping, as long as she does it quietly.

deathbysnoosnoo did you have any jealousy issues when dd1 was newborn or were the issues as they got older though?

I think actually there is research that shows, either less than one year, or more than four, gives the best chance - obviously some personalities are less jealous, and some parents manage it better, but across the population those are your least-jealous gaps, if that makes sense.

wish I could remember where I read that, it was quite recent...

Surely there are other issues to consider when having two so close together apart from possible jealousy - how your body copes; the emotional stress; pressure on relationships etc

Even if there is no initial jealousy, there will always be sibling rivalry in one form or another. A small age gap does not eliminate that.

I wouldn't dream of doing a very small age gap unless there was a very specific reason (other than non-jealousy). Surely spacing out is kinder on (older) child and the parents otherwise. Friends who have done this went through hell in the early days.

3 years worked great for me.

I read somewhere that under 2 years and over 5 years was the best gap. Under 2's are too small to remember being an only child after a week or two and over 5 years have a life outside the home and so not so dependent on their mothers.

There maybe some truth in that but as most people have children between 2 and 5 years apart I don't think it makes that much difference. It probably depends more on the right preparation of the older child and the personalities of the two children and their relationship. As long as you don't exclude the older child once the younger one appears and treat them fairly sibling rivalry can be minimised imo.

My 2 are 3 year apart and get on pretty well most of the time. If they don't want to play together they ignore each other (fine by me) but they do have their moments when they fight as most siblings do.

she wants them to be close in age so they will be like best friends and grow up together which i suppose is a good point. there is 3 years between me and my sister and we don't get on at all. my sister was very jealous of me from the off and even at 24 has her moments.

DS is 5 years older than DD. He is caring and kind with her. he rarely shows jealousy and joins in with us when we praise her. She loves him too and if he cries she goes to comfort him. Long may it last. Coming from a family of 5 with 2 or 3 years between us there was a lot of jealousy and rivalry.

Ditto blueshoes's post.

Jealousy doens't need to be avoided, IMO, it needs to be acknowledged and worked through - its a normal feeling, and not being afraid of it could be v helpful to a child in later life!

I wonder why your friend wants to avoid it so much?

15 mths between mine and absolutely no jealousy. However once DD reached two she started to push ds over and boss him around.

18 months between mine DD2 who is 22 months now thinks she is the same age as her sister, she wants everything she has or is doing. They are getting better at playing together though.

almost 19 months between my first 2 and DD was the green eyed monster from the start. Almost her first words were "baby bed" (a command to put him back in his pram) and "bad baby"

With exactly 2 years between DS1 and DS2 it was a similar story, with DD even more jealous of the new baby. Best gap was the 5.5 years between her and DS3.

It's down to personality rather than age gap. Also with 2 under 2 it is very hard work physically as you are still having to do a lot for the eldest.

I've had a 5 year gap and a 19 month gap with no jealousy either times

AGree peronality, family dynamics and preparation more important than gap, mine are 2 years and get on great but also squabble, I think that's because there both strong personalities with definate ideas and bloody stubborn!

op post said didn't think 17m old was jealous, possibly not, but my 15m old def shows jealousy and has for months, if he's the mood he'll do the shouting and trying to climb trouser leg while I'm cuddling dd and then if I pass dd on to dp he'll switch and try climbing dp's leg! Doesn't do this often before I scare you off just when he's in that kind of mood

Interestingly my dd never showed any jealousy of ds until he started crawling...