4-5 year age gap?

[Wnkapom]

What are the potential negatives of a 4-5 year age gap? Older girl and younger boy? Please share

This is the age gap I want! It gives lot of time to focus on each.

I have a 4 year 3 month gap between my two and it's worked out excellent so far, I would highly recommend. There doesn't seem to be much of the jealousy you see with smaller gaps but they still really love each other and get along well (so far, my youngest is only 1.5 so I'm aware that could change😂) so far it's been great and I like that I get time with the youngest while the eldest is in school

Personally I think it is too large .
One major negative is that you will be doing the dreaded school run for much longer .

I have this age gap and although it’s lovely it means that I am on the go from 615 with my youngest and my elder teen wants my attention mid to late evening so it’s non stop. As soon as the eldest got to high school age it’s very hard to pick activities or days out suitable for both.

Longer in the trenches of parenting v small children. Maybe less likely to play as much together? Maybe harder when they are older to balance interests?

Why do you want negatives though? It sounds like the second child is already here. For what it's worth there are lots of great things about that age gap. It's emotionally best for the children to start with.

All gaps have pros and cons but I would personally take 4 years over 2 under 2.

I have this age gap between my two. They're 6 weeks short of being 5 years apart and I absolutely love it! My DS is older and was well settled into reception when DD came along so he was happy with his routine and it gave me plenty of 1:1 time with DD while she was tiny.

They're 7 and 2 now and are best friends. She finds him hilarious and he absolutely dotes on her ❤️ the only downside I can think of is the older wanting to do something that the younger can't access yet. Being able to sit and have a drink while the kids are happily lost in the soft play isn't a thing currently 😂 but there are plenty of things that they can do together. (DS is currently reading a book to DD while I get on with some jobs, win win imo!)

There’s 5 years almost to the day between mine and it’s great. I’ve seen no negatives. They are 7 & 12 now.

Only ever one in nursery to pay for - also eventually only one in uni at a time
Had the first baby experience with my second, we could go to all the baby classes, no toddler to entertain, she was in school all day
I was on mat leave for eldest’s reception year so meant I was very available for her that first year of school
Dh and I could really build our careers in between so we were in a strong financial position for #2
They have very different friend groups so no jealousy or drama
We properly recovered from the baby years, were well rested, had travelled some in between

They do still fight and they have different interests, so Dh and I do a bit of tag teaming. We each take one to go do something some days instead of having big forced family days out. But I’m not sure that’s a negative or because of the age gap. They’re just different people so we treat them as such.

So it’s all been very good. I would absolutely not have wanted to have them closer together now that they’re older. It worked really well.

This is the gap I have. A lot of the things people have cited as negatives (e.g. longer in the trenches etc) are no longer than for families who have 3 with the default 2 year gap between each.

There are pros and cons to every age gap and only you will know what is right for your family.

I'm 5 years older than my only sister; we were close as children and are even closer now. It worked for my mum because it meant I was safely dispatched off to school before she had to deal with a second baby.

Finding board games that suit them both can be tricky. Younger one can’t follow the complex rules of older kids role play games either.

But there’s lots of advantages. Older one is more independent by the time the second baby arrives.

There was a four and half year age gap between my brother and me. While it was probably great for my parents, my brother and I had no relationship until he was around 14 and I was 18. I was always envious of other children who had siblings close in age. I always swore if I ever had children they would not have a large age gap.