Anyone else’s child not play with siblings much?

[PolarBearHugs]

Does anyone have more than one child but despite this one of them still always wants to play with you? I often hear having siblings so they play together or when a parent only has one child it’s harder because they are expected to entertain them. This is the case for dd 6 she is constantly in my face and constantly expecting me to play with her, she never plays with her siblings ever, she expects me to play with her dolls, on her iPad. She currently has a chair in front of me at the moment facing me. Feeling smothered a bit! She follows me around everywhere.

How old is her sibling and are they the same sex? I only ask the later because children play can be quite segregated by sex nowadays.

Do they have any interests in common? Mine are both girls and are best friends since DC2 can crawl. They started role playing from that age together. They are now 12 and 9 and still very close.

I was never close to my brother and we are less than 2 years apart. Never played together. According to my mum not even as toddlers.

How old are the siblings?

They are 12 (dd) and 11 and 9 (ds)

Does it mean you have two DD 12 and 6, and two DS 11 and 9? I can imagine the 12 and 6 year olds don't have a lot in common. Your 6 year old is at a very different stage of life. Does your 11 and 9 year old get on well with common interests? Does your 6 year old play football so can join in her brothers? Maybe you can cultivate some common interests in sports or music? Basically something that is liked by both boys and girls usually?

My younger DSis & I have a 4-year-age gap, & while we’re very close now I admit to more or less ignoring her until I went to university.

No I meant the 9 year old more as if I just had them two the expectation would be that they played together (that’s what everyone says anyway!)

It’s VERY common! I always facepalm when people breezily say on here: ‘oh, have more than one child- it’s easier because they play together’

It categorically is NOT easier to parent two children and the benefits of them being playmates are not guaranteed, even with teeny age gaps.

It might change as they get older and interests change.

Yes I get told I have it easier than those with one child as “at least they can play together” 🤣 I think it will get less easier as they get older and become teens but I don’t know many teen brother and sisters that hang out (don’t think I know any!)

FWIW, my young teens (one boy, one girl) are constantly chatting, playing online together, etc! Obviously this may change but they're very close.

I think it can take years for age gaps to shrink. 3 years - a 9yo boy and 6yo girl - is huge right now. The older they get, the less important that will be, but I've never been one for "have another, they'll play together", probably because I never really played that much with my siblings.

We only have a singleton. I would like another as I love being a sibling where as my partner has never been close to his brother

I am in the middle of 3 there is 4 years between me and my little sister and whilst we didn't play together loads we could play individually in the same room quite happily dipping in and out of one another's play. There is 7 years between me and my other sister so we didn't play but we have been friends since reaching teenaged years
There is a 3 year gap between my partner and his brother and as a child he found it hard that his brother didn't want to play with him and annoyed his mother instead

I didn’t have mine so they could play together but I’m often told how lucky I am that they can and that it must be easy having them as they must all play together. I stopped playing with my siblings once we was teens so maybe that’s why we pretty much didn’t speak again 🫣

I have a 12 year old DD and a 7yo DS and they have never played together in their lives unless I force DD to do something with him, and that only lasts about 10 minutes. To be honest, she’s almost entirely oblivious to his existence unless he gets something she thinks is better than hers…