Are these age gaps too big?

[Op1n1onsPlease]

I’ve got DS(7) and DD(4). Always wanted 3DC but life got in the way. If we conceived soon DCs would be 8 and 5 when baby born - is that gap too big for the siblings to be friends/ would it be problematic for family life?

We can afford it and have the space at home etc. I’m 38 if relevant, still younger than most of my peers having DC1 though this is skewed a bit as we live in London!

And my eldest was 8 when I had a newborn, he still did swimming and cubs and other things. Baby just came with me to drop him/pick him up, help out etc. same now for the scenario of 6 year old and 18m old. He comes with me to take her places. It’s fine.
the eldest now takes himself to things so that’s also fine.

You already have a DS(7) and DD(4) and your 38. I personally would not have another child as it could take you a while to convince. You have a higher chance of having a baby with special needs. How would you mange as as family if this happened?
By then your kids are now 9 and 7. Kids at that age are normally do sports or other extra circular activities. They also want to go to friends house, birthday parties ect. You find that you can't always bring a baby or toddler with you. Then an 11 and 8 year old won't want to do the same things 3-4 year old.

I have friends and relatives with kid's from 5 up to just finishing university stage. They told me as the kids got older the expenses went higher for food, clothes, school uniforms, footwear and sports gear. Then the cost of education especially at university level are very high.

You also have to consider that your going to be supporting your current 2 kids until 18 and if they go to university it 4 years for a degree and 5 years for a master's. So they could be 22/23 before your finished supporting them. I know people who get part time jobs in college but some course have nearly as many hours as a full time job along with 2-3 hours study each evening. I know several university students with this type of work load and they were lucky to get a Saturday job. They also tried to get work during the summers also.
A Saturday job with minimum wage or a bit above this won't pay all there costs.

So say your 4 years old does a masters degree up untill they are 23 by then you 58/59 and your husband is older than you. Do you really want to be working past retirement age because you still have a child in university?

As a friend of mine said it one thing having kids but you have to consider the costs and you want to give them a good education and chances to do things. You may also want to help them with buying a home later on if possible. Her parents helped her out this way and she wants to do the same for her kids.

My husband is the same age as me and we are financially comfortable, as I explained. I hope I wouldn’t struggle to conceive as I was very fortunate to conceive first time with both kids, and all the women in my family have had large families up to older ages (eg my mum had twins at 39, my dad’s mum was 45 when he was born).

I think my real concerns are: (a) the risk of special needs and impact of that on my existing children (a gamble), (b) the impact on my kids of having to share me with an extra person (might be outweighed by pros of sibling now and in future) and (c) the new baby feeling left out/growing up like an only child.

7 years between my sister and I. We are close as adults and are kids are 1 year apart so we spend lots of time together.

Growing up though, different stages of life so no we weren’t ‘close’ as in friends.

my friend has 3, oldest 8 and youngest under 1 (middle is 5). Think it’s getting harder as the youngest becomes mobile as what the 8 year old wants to do, is not suitable for the youngest and the oldest gets bored going to baby things. They divide and conquote so spend time separately almost to manage the kids routines at the moment.

2 boys here, 8 & 15, youngest born a few days after eldests 7th birthday.
Pros;
Eldest could make toast, dress himself for school etc whilst I looked after baby, I didn’t feel pulled from one to the other.
They aren’t treated as a pair - they are two very unique individuals and their age gap means they don’t get lumped together all the time
They do adore each other, often discover youngest in oldests bed as they have stayed up to watch champions league together on a weeknight.
Cons
Starting all over again with a baby was a killer! Like being a first time parent again
Youngest naturally liked “older” things by osmosis, watched his brother playing Fortnite, Minecraft & wanted to play with Minecraft figures rather than Thomas the tank engine trains.
It can be very divide and conquer but when we get days we all spend together it’s magic.

Caveat to this is; 15 year old is small for age, 8 year old is big for age so you don’t notice the gap as much. Most people assume it’s 4/5 yrs not 7 between them. Not sure I’d feel about them playfighting if eldest had a full beard going on!

My 2 boys are only 2.5 and 6 months but this made me chuckle, my baby plays with iron man, mega blocks and toy guns 😅 so true what you said @Spottyblobby haha x

I'm the youngest of 3 sisters. Eldest - 41, Middle - 37, Me - 34. There are roughly 3.5 years between each. We are best friends.

The age difference between myself and the eldest is almost 8 years. I think the dynamic may have been different without the middle sister to bridge the gap when we were growing up.

I was 38 when had my third child - the other two were 10 and 7. The two eldest squabbled when they reached adolescence but both adored the youngest one. They are all adults now and are close. The dynamic changed when I had the youngest but it all worked out fine for us.

There's no such thing as "too big / too small" an age gap. There are pros and cons to every permutation you could think of!
Within my family and circle of friends, I know people with as small an age gap as 10 months, and as big as 22 years, with everything in between.
From a personal point of view, my brothers were 11, 13 and 15 when I was born - as a pp has said, I was like an only child when I was young but now as adults we're all very close.
I've 3 kids and the older ones were 3 and 7 when the youngest was born. Obviously they had different interests/were at different stages of childhood, but they still played and did things together.

My sister is 6 years younger than me, we’ve always been close, even as kids. The age gap just didn’t matter.

Oldest was 8 and middle one 6 when our 3rd was born. She basically had 3 mothers! The older 2 loved her to bits and now as adults all 3 are thick as thieves.
One unexpected spin off was that the 2 older ones kept a wise eye on her during the teenage phase. They were more streetwise and she listened to them rather more than her boring mother!

I would have a 4th in that situation...

My siblings are twins so there’s a chance we’d have them and honestly I would take that as it would remove my worry about DC3 being left out. DH wouldn’t agree to 4 in any other circumstances mind you!

There’s 11 years between me and my sister and 7 years between me and my brother. Always worked ok and mum was glad of the in house babysitter in later years.

Yes too big a gap IMO as a mum of 3. I have 3 close in age and often it’s useful them all being into the same thing or being at the same stage for certain things. However it can get tricky between the first and the 3rd sometimes with activities and there is only a 3 year gap. Logistics with 3 are completely different with 3 than 2. I think 3 for you at this stage would completely change the dynamic, unless this is something you don’t mind shuffling up. But it would change everything.

@Bumblebeehee my kids do totally different activities atm as they’re different people with different interests. I think/hope that with this gap, by the time DC3 would be old enough to do activities (say 4/5), DC1 would be 12/13 and presumably able to do more independently (and not eg still doing the flipping swimming lessons etc!), so even if I’m still carting DC2 back and forth at that point, I’d be in no different a position than I am now as it would still be 2 DCs with 2 sets of activities…or have I missed something?

Mine with gaps of 6/7 plus years all did the same things together,we went riding when ds was 3, swimming together. Lots of walking in the woods, forests dogs. Later when oldest DD was having dancing lessons,shared the journey for exams with other mums.

I literally don't understand sometimes - do you put your small age gap kids in the same activities? Do you treat them as one homogenous unit because they're close in age? Otherwise what's the difference between an age gap of 12 months and 12 years? Surely they both want to do different things regardless?

My DD and her bestie (coincidentally my besties daughter) are the same age (3 months between them) and we take them to soft play - they both want to do something different. We take them into town and one wants to shop, the other wants to go to a museum - how is that different when you have siblings close in age? Either way you have to divide and conquer.

We have a 5 year age gap between our DD's (5 years and 3 months) and its lovely. DD loves her little sister (almost 1) but finds her loud and annoying (TBF so do I sometimes), I didn't have kids to play with each other - that's what friends are for - I aim to foster love and family-ness so that they like and look out for each other as adults.

My friend had twin girls and thought it would make life easier. It did not. They could not be more different! They wanted to wear different clothes, eat different foods, do different activities, watch different shows. If anything it just made everything harder 😅