Why don’t more people have a bigger gap when it’s got so many positives?

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Not a goady post, I’m just intrigued.

Its very much the norm in my friends and family to have a 2-3 year gap between kids. It’s just the done thing and it’s what I was planning because, well, that’s what people do!

Anyway, it took us 2.5 years to get pregnant and we ended up with a 5 year gap and it’s bloody brilliant!

Only one set of childcare fees at a time, one to one time with both kids, older one much more self sufficient when baby arrives which means they can help and are doing activities/play dates independently.

My kids are very close (5&10 now) so maybe I’m lucky. But I feel like such an outlier in parenting, I’m just interested to know why that 2-3 year gap is considered so golden? Age issues aside, I do get it if you don’t start trying until your 35.

I had 20 months and it worked for me in terms of getting through the most intense baby and toddler years.

I mean, you said "age issues aside" but that's the main reason, isn't it?

I had two close together in my 20s because I wanted them close in age - my experience of larger gaps is that there are many years where the siblings aren't close at all, and it leads to difficulties in family life. You haven't really hit that age range yet. I also knew that my career could take a hit while my children were small, so I wanted to get all of that over and done with quickly so I could rebuild once not twice. Also, I enjoyed having a baby, and wanted to do it again!

Because the nappies and the awful stages would have gone on forever! I'm very glad we were lucky enough to have 2 very close. And get that over with.

If I’d have waited and had a bigger age gap I’d have been less willing to go back to sleepless nights and Constant Vigilance 😆
Having 2 close together meant once the waking many times a night times were over it was over for good!

I’ve noticed it seems to be quite a british thing to do to have such small age gaps. I have friends who have large age gaps (planned) and they are all from overseas - in the case of people I know Spanish/Japanese/Swedish/Polish.

Get it out the way quicker

Kids more likely to have similar interests for days out, etc.

You only need a three-year gap for double childcare not to be an issue (1 year mat leave with youngest - then eldest starts school). Or indeed a two-year gap - 1 year mat leave then eldest starts 30-hrs free childcare.

For me it was definitely getting it out the way quicker.

I have a 2 year gap and my youngest is now 4 and in school. There's no way I feel able to have another one and go back to sleepless nights, weaning etc. life is becoming easier!

So they can play and broken sleep is compressed.

But I agree, it's actually better with a bigger gap.

I have a six year age gap. Not planned. It’s fab in a lot of the ways you described. And mine do get on so, well mostly. It’s lovely. But… definitely the little one held the older one back a bit. It’s hard for me to do things at the level the older ones likes (think bike rides, horse riding, swimming, body boarding, appropriate cinema film, running etc) with the little one in tow. Lockdown with a one year old was awful and the poor big one had no opportunity to be home schooled or to get out and do activities because I was always tagging a 1 year old along.

On the plus side, I enjoyed a whole 6 years of uninterrupted fun with the big one. And the little one had be to themselves a lot of time because the big one was at school. The bigger one still enjoys younger activities and isn’t in such a rush to grow up. Christmas and the elves and Santa are still a big deal here. Where I suspect they’d have been outgrown if she was still an only child or they were only 2 years apart.

As with all things, there are pluses and minuses.

Ours are 20 months apart and that's has so many positives too! I don't have many complaints really!

For me it was fear of secondary infertility.

We started trying when DC1 was 18 months. Even though I wasn't old I was afraid of secondary infertility. I was right to be afraid. Many many miscarriages later i gave birth to my second child with a 5yr9 month age gap.

The age gap works really well for us.

I know what you mean about feeling like an outlier BUT of DC1's friends, 4 of them have younger siblings in DC2's year so we can't be that much of an outlier.

Childcare costs weren't an issue for us. I wanted a 2 year gap but DS1 was such a handful once he turned 1, that I wanted to wait a little longer and decided on a 3 year gap.
Then we went to NYC and got drunk and ended up with a 2 1/2 year gap.

I never felt like I wanted to get it all over and done with though.

Any age gap is either perfect or disastrous depending on which way you look at it. 🤷🏽‍♀️

It has its negatives as well. I have 12 years between my oldest and youngest. Try dealing with GSCEs/A levels and uni applications, them being out all hours, and making a huge mess of the kitchen every day while at the same time you're trying to teach your youngest to read, still being woken up in the night, and dealing with toilet training accidents.

We have a planned one year gap and it’s perfect. They play together constantly and it’s been so easy. (We’re in the privileged position of double nursery fees not being prohibitive though.)
Possibly the ideal gap is different for everyone? Just a thought.

I’d have preferred a slightly bigger gap but my age meant we couldn’t wait - I’ll be 43 when I have no2!

I'm pregnant with #2 and have a planned almost 4-year age gap. I am both baffled by and in awe of the 2 under 2 crowd.

I think it's a personality thing, despite DS being a chilled, contented baby who slept a lot, I didn't like the baby stage, was bored out of my tree on mat leave and had a horrible pregnancy, so it took me 3 years to recover enough to do it again.

If you love having babies, love maternity leave and are a lovely, glowy pregnant woman, then I can see why you'd want another one again quickly. Also DH and I both work full time and two lots of childcare would have been 6k a month, and that is A LOT of money.

I don't have children yet but planning to ttc next year. Me and OH are planning on ttc again about 6-12 months after the first.

We appreciate it may not work out that way, and there are things that may go wrong with that plan.

Our rationale is that we want the young full on years over with in one chunk. I don't want to drag out the difficulties progressing my career and the reduced social life.

I'm looking forward to the baby/toddler years but I have a feeling once I've been there done that I'll not want to go back. It's not as if they'll be short lived even with a small age gap, it will be 4/5 years which I think is enough for me to get my fix!

My kids were very bad sleepers, one until 3yo, the other almost until 5, had I waited longer (2.5y gap) I probably would have not wanted to give up my sleep again, at least this way the sleeplessness phase was concentrated in a shorter space of time.

4 year gap - too far apart for them to have many similar interests and they don’t get on, makes finding things to do as a family more difficult as they’re getting older. I know we won’t feel that way by the time they’re adults, just hope their relationship improves by then! Don’t regret the gap though as meant we didn’t have two lots of nursery fees and eldest was more self-sufficient. But in hindsight eldest probably would have fared better as an only child!

The smaller the gap, the quicker they can start playing together, which is nice to see.

The best gap is the one you end up with. We have an under 1 year age gap between mine and it worked well for us - they are incredibly close, and similar in terms of interests that wax and wane with age. For me the combination of a crawling mouthing toddler plus older child into Lego sized stuff would have been hell - as it was, we got the sleepless nights out of the way in one whack and we were back into the realm of children that slept without having to go back to newborn sleepless hell.

I feel like among my circle of friends, one did it then everyone else did. It’s just the done thing isn’t it, but I agree with you that it would have been nicer to have a bigger gap.

2 in nappies, 2 lots of childcare, 2 babies basically is a lot to deal with

We will have a 25 month gap when DC2 comes along. Planned for 2 years.
Reasons:

• DC1 will get funded nursery hours roughly when my mat leave for DC2 ends (well a couple of months after)
• They will hopefully have similar interests/abilities. I think your kids with 5 years being close is rare - DH wasn't close with his sister 4 years yougner when little, although they are now. I am oldest of 3, each 2 years apart, and was much closer to my brother growing up. My sister was too much younger for me to really want to play with much.
• I did not enjoy the baby stage and sleepless nights etc. I think once it's all over I won't want to go back!

I wonder if that has something to do with lower breastfeeding rates here?

I don’t think you can generalise. Depends on loads of factors, not least things you can’t control like the personalities involved, but also things that vary between people like household income, working patterns and which parenting stages you enjoy most. I didn’t really like the preschool stage that much so made sense to have a smallish gap so that but didn’t last for a decade. Also for me, 2 lots of childcare fees was less relevant as I had a nanny and them being at the same primary school for 7 out of 8 years was very convenient. Finally, depends when you start. If you have your first child at 35 and then risk a 5 year gap, you might well only have one child at the end of it. If you want more than 2 kids, 5 year gaps mean dependent children for a very long time/ needing babysitters etc.