Ideal Gap Between Children

[rosalux]

A friend of mine has just announced her second pregnancy and is due in early Feb. She currently has a DD who is 13 months. Similarly my cousin has two DD who are almost exactly 2 years apart. I am expecting my first this month and was just idly wondering what people thought was a good gap to have between children. Is it best to get all the sleepless nights out of the way in one go or do kids of slightly bigger gaps get along better? All being well I'd hope to have another reasonably soon, just not sure how soon.

I think four/five years is best, based on all the people around me! Two babies at once? Nah!

I think 3 years is a nice gap.

There is 22 months between my first two and that was not too bad, and now I have a 9 year gap between my 2nd child and this baby - am 17 weeks pregnant at the moment. So we will see how that turns out !

Well I have twins and yes, having two babies together is absurdly difficult.

However, once past the toddler stage it has distinct advantages. They both are at the same stages so chosing how to spend our precious time and resources is infinitely easier.

I think it's really nice to have your previous child in all day school (ie Reception in the UK) before the next baby shows up. That way each baby gets proper full time maternal attention when it is little, and the elder child already has friends and its own social life so isn't as likely to be jealous.

I fell pregnant with my 2nd when my 1st turned 1yr old.... so DS1 was 20months when DD1 arrived. It was HARD work I have to admit, but they are incredibly close now. DS1 still took daytime naps when DD1 arrived, which was fab, but I remember still having to carry DS1 down the stairs when heavily preg as he couldnt quite navigate them on his own. Then I potty trained DS1 when DD1 was only a few months old.

I then found out I was expecting again as DD1 turned 2, so by the time this 3rd baby arrives, i'll have a 4.5yr old (starting school in sept) & a 2.5yr old. Already this pregnancy has felt massively easier compared to my 2nd - both kids are out of nappies, both can pretty much dress themselves, both can communicate well etc. The only downside is the 2 girls will be 3 school years apart. Might sound wierd, but I wanted to try and have all my kids with only a 2yr school gap between each (I was 2 school years apart from my sister & we are very close, my husband is 4 school years apart from his brother & they are not close at all).

TBH, it all depends how quickly you conceive each time - we were very lucky, 1st time with each baby, but obviously it could take much longer so any planned age gaps might just go out the window!

Just remember to enjoy your first preg & baby - 'cause once you're onto no.2 or more, there is no peace to be had!! Good luck!

Liking your post Bonsoir

OP I clicked on thread with much interest, as I always wanted a two year gap, for reasons you said I and I was fixated on it and when it didnt happen I constantly fretted about not having it as that is what I HAD PLANNED So for various reasons I am only just pg now with 2nd and my DS is about to go into year 1 and have now accepted this is how things have turned out for us and there are advantages.

So OP my point is try to not to get to hung up on a set plan or you may be disappointed IME

I do love the idea that DS can understand more be involved more in a new sibling, and I can give this baby the same attention DS had.

Years ago I heard that the worst possible gap is 4 or 5 years as the children are too far apart to enjoy playing together but the gap isn't big enough for the older sibling to take on a 'supervisory' role IYSWIM. In spite of the source of this insight (Kilroy! An expert on his programme rather than the man himself though) I did think there might be something in it if my own experience with my younger sister (4-year gap) is anything to go by. Our relationship was so tricky growing up (now much better) that I have been keen to aim for a smaller gap between DD and any younger sibling.

But as icravecheese says, you can only do so much planning and I found that these sorts of considerations only added to my stress when I had a mmc earlier this year (sorry to bring that up here - happily I'm now 15wks pg and looking good for a 2.9 year gap). And you can have siblings who are close in age but chalk and cheese personality-wise - I drew some comfort from that when I saw it in practice!

sorry xp with namechange . I hope I wasn't too down on 4/5 year gaps...

yes, I meant to say that I think my DH & bro wouldnt have gotten on even if they were 18months apart - they are just chalk & cheese. I have a close friend who is very close to her siblings & there is a total of 8 years between all 3 of them. The one thing I've learnt with babies / kids is, never try to plan anything!!!

I think it depends on the personality of the parents partly. I found it much easier to have 2 small DC to look after than I did with one and I have lots of friends the same. However I have an equal number of friends who much prefer one at a time. I have 19 months between the first 2 and I am about to have a 3rd with an 8 year gap, so I will let you know.

The definite upside of 2 close together is that in general it is much easier to find activities which everyone can enjoy together, although sometimes I do think the younger one misses out a bit as I have a constant state of deja vu when she does new things.

I am 21 months apart from my sister, and we were so close as children. my mum was 6 years older than her sister and they were never close and still aren't- when she left home to go to uni at 18 her sis was barely 12 so they just totally lost touch and didn't know each other.

I am ttc #2 and my dd is 10 months old. I absolutely LOVE being a mum and my time with DD, am dreading having to go back to work (admittedly only 2 days a week and she will be with family). I am therefore also keen to have DC2 to be off again,and poss even become a SAHM to both. I knwo it will be hard- I have multiple friends with 2 little ones and it is HARD I am under no illusions. ALl depends on your DC 1 though too. I think short term pain for long term gain. My sister has a 18 month age gap between all her 3 children (now 6, 4 and 3) and she managed fine living 6-7 hours drive from family with a husband often away for a month at a time with work!

howabout, totally agree, if you have a fairly laid-back low stress attitude you will be fine. I need to work on stressing less myself!!!!

Not at all Ktay i should add that I am very lucky that I have a healthy family and stable marriage after giong through ups and downs for various reasons, taking a year to conceive af MC. Everyone circumstances are different and you have to try and do what is best for you and your family.

Now with hindsight I am pleased we have a largers gap as I dont think we would have coped given other stuff at the time, and we can afford for me not to work now and generally better placed to have a 2nd.

Having said all of that after taking a year to conceive after having to delay for other reasons, depending on the OP's age they may want to get cracking, you can affect circumstances to a degreed buyt cant defy nature!

DC2 is due the week before DD's fourth birthday. This is much bigger than the gap I envisaged but I've actually got a lot of positive comments from people so maybe it'll work out ok.

I think it depends a lot on the temperment of your child. For example, if your older child is quite quiet, likes to help mummy, quite 'maternal' then a baby at whatever age is going to be easier than if you have a boisterous child who just has to be on the go and has no interest in babies, so I'm not sure how relevant age is iyswim?

Dd was 2.9yrs when ds was born. It has been ok, better since ds can cruise around and plays with toys, laughs at dd etc. Dd has never had an interest in babies unlike a lot of her friends and does tend to be a bit rough with ds. I think in another year they will get on very well, as they will be able to run around together.

I have a friend with 16m between her two boys. They get on really well, and although quite boisterous, they are always on the same side iyswim?

Another friend has a boy and a girl 16m apart who fight constantly and see each other as competition.

I had 15 months between my first and a set of twins so not your average gap as then had to deal with 2 babies, I think it would have been an ok age gap. I actually aimed for 18 months but they were early. The next gap was 2 year and 9 months between the girl twins but I went on to have boy twins this time so no age gap gas been easy lol. I would say the first age gap was easier as no school run to do with the eldest like I have now as he's at nursey and the girl twins start in September.

for me personally, the age gap between my two is perfect. 3.4years apart, and they get on well DD is old enough to accept losing some attention and wants to be involved, understands more about what she can and cannot do and that mummy and daddy need to share our time and is happy with that, but not too old that she has grown used to our attention alone and resents it being split. Little things like not having to be carried across the road, or be old enough to expect her to hold on to the pushchair and not run off.

The jealousy is minimal and she absolutely loves teaching her brother how to do things -talking, walking, playing with toys, eating (or not), encouraging, it is also helping her development, in terms of compassion and empathy, but also her reading (she loves to read to him) and practising her own skills so she can help him better.

And I think the age gap is stll small enough that they can grow to be friends as adults too.

I know several people with two and a closer age gap, and they struggle with doing lots of things that require two people if only one adult is present, but then, their children are still under 3, and I also know people with much closer age gaps as older children who look after each other and are very close so it works for those families now.

And at the end of the day,you can't always chose the age gap can you?

I think it totally depends on your family circumstances and your own feelings about gaps. I was an only child so have no experience of my own to base things on from that point of view. DH had a sister only a year younger and was fairly sure he wanted our children to have a small age gap.
When DC2 is born later this month, there will be a 20 month age gap. So far, this is a good age gap for our family. At the moment, I am a SAHM and we can afford to do that for another 5-6 years before I really do need to think about getting back to work. I wanted to be at home with my children, so a smaller gap is better from that point of view, as a 5 year age gap would have meant 10 years off work which wouldn't really have been possible. There will only be 1 school year between our DCs :)
Also, now that I have had a child and am in the thick of nappies and sleepless nights, I'm not sure I could go back again once that stage is all over. I think if I had reached 5 years, DS would be an only child as I would have mentally moved on from the baby stage, and it was a stage I didn't really enjoy very much.
However, for someone else it could be totally different, if they returned to work after maternity leave, it wouldn't make much difference when they had another baby and they might also really enjoy the baby stage, so wouldn't be bothered going back to that stage after a number of years.

I was aiming for an 18-month age gap, and will have a 3.6 year age gap instead.
One advantage is that most of ds's friends have a baby at their house so he seems to think that this is the way things go. He's also old enough for a certain amount of understanding and for bribery to work.
On the other hand, it's going to be a huge change for him. At least he's used to going to nursery and can still do that.

Getting on in later life seems to have much more to do with the characters of the kids than the ages.

meant to say - disadvantage is most mums I met when I had ds now have toddlers and are back working or have moved away, so I'll have to make efforts to meet new mothers with babies to hang out with on maternity leave.

I would say the ideal gap is the gap you actually end up with (helpful, I know)...!!

I just know so many people who had in mind the "ideal" gap and then it didn't work out - either they conceived earlier second time round than first time (like me), or they conceived much, much later than they expected (like my DB and his wife). There are advantages to a small gap, and advantages to a bigger one - at the end of the day you will have what you have, and most people will always think that what happened with them worked out for the best.

I reckon 3-4 years is best. Close enough to play together and have similar interests, but not so close that you become jaded when the second one starts doing things the first one has just outgrown, because there hasn't been enough time for it to become new and exciting again.

I think of it this way......if you entered some competitions and were lucky enough to win two holidays to an amazing destination at times of your choosing, would you go on the first holiday one week and the second two weeks later, or would you space them out by several months so you could really look forward to the second holiday and savour the experiences of both?

Friends who have gaps of five years or more always say the school runs are tricky with babies/toddlers. Ditto after school activities. I think the babies get dragged around a lot.

Similarly finding days out/holidays/movies/activities that suit both a ten year old and a fifteen year old are tricksy to say the least.

That said, nothing is insurmoutable.

I think it depends on a lot of things. Not just what suits siblings, but what suits the mother as well. I find the baby stage really difficult, so it's important to me to avoid two littlies at once. I definitely don't want two in nappies or to have a phil n teds, I just don't think I would be able to cope (all credit to those who can). I was also worried about two sets of childcare fees. DC2 is due when DD is 4.3, and I am pleased with that gap. Indeed I might have left it longer, but I'm getting a bit aged...