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.

15 months (almost to the day) between mine and I love it - I wanted them close together. I was lucky as DS was a very early walker so very good on his feet by the time DD arrived. They are very close and play together beautifully. DD id just starting to talk and their little conversations are amusing! Although strangely he can always tell me what she wants so theres obviously some kind of communication between them before speech.

I have a 4 year gap, which is roughly what I was aiming for. I didn't cope very well with my oldest DD's baby stage, though it turned out DC2 was an 'easy' baby. I think if I'd had them the other way round I'd have had a closer gap. My DC1 has multiple allergies and had bad eczema as a baby, I think she was in a lot of pain and discomfort a lot of the time, she took a lot of soothing, and still doesn't sleep through the night now at 5 years old. I couldn't have had 2 like that close together! The 4 year gap works well for us, it's true that younger DS doesn't get as much attention, but he seems to benefit from being dragged around to all the things we get up to with DC1, he takes a keen interest in what all the big kids are getting up to, and tries to join in, I'm sure my DD would have loved all that entertainment as a baby. My DD dotes on her little brother, I think they are close, they give each other the cutest hugs and cuddles. DS will often toddle up to DD to give her a big kiss, and DD reads him stories, he copies things she does and learns from her, e.g. this evening she was trying to teach him to use cutlery. At 4 years old DD was old enough to understand I needed time with newborn DS to feed him etc. and old enough to do lots of things for herself, e.g. dressing, toilet. For me it was an easiy gap, and I like an easy life!

Personally Im not a fan of large age gaps between siblings.

I'm 1 of 6 (second youngest) with 10 years between me and the eldest brother 8.5 for the second eldest brother, 4.5 years between me and twin brothers and my sister is 4.1 years younger.
I was terrified of the two eldest, fought constantly with the twins and hated my sister for following me around and spoiling my title as 'only girl'! Im still not close to the two eldest although we mostly get on, have a tetchy relationship with one twin and best friends with the other. As for sister... I feel more like a mother to her than a sister. Its tense at best.

My DD is now 8 months old, I love motherhood and plan to have a large family despite knowing it'll be hell! I was told I would probably never have children because of PCOS so when DD came along after 7 years of trying I was thrilled. We're planning to start ttc in April next year because I dont know how long it might take. Id prefer DD to be about 3, but I dont want to risk losing out on years of trying should things not go to plan.

Personally I didn't want to have any time without nappies to then go back to the nappy years and sleepless nights. But then alot of my friends think 3 years or more is best. I can see their point tbh. The most common gap I see around here is 2 years - by far the most common.

Big gaps mean it can be hard to get out as their interests are so different due to the age gap. If I look at the oldest and youngest of mine, it would be hard to play together. However with the others in between it seems to make it easier.

But as someone said right at the start of the thread - it's not that sensible to build up a picture too much with kids, they have their own little ideas!!

I like the 19 months we have.

DS is now 14 months and DD 2.9 and they play with the same toys, eat at the same time and the same things, nap together after lunch and babble at each other when put to bed at night.

My brother was 4 years younger and we never had much in common growing up and there was a fair amount of tension. I don't expect being close in age to make them good friends (that's personality) but I do expect it to give them more shared experiences that suit both - same films, same playparks, same toys, similar boundaries of bedtime etc. I don't expect DD to be the big responsible one either - that's my job unfortunately!

They share baths and a bedroom and DS has started to play hide and seek now so my grand plan of getting all the nappies out the way and having them amuse each other while I do other things is almost there ....... .

I find it easier emotionally with two of them though harder work physically; just DD and I seemed very intense and a bit too focused on me being her sole entertainment while DH was at work - we had no family nearby then. I prefer to have some other dynamics between her and DS as well as DD and I and DS and I in the mix. If that makes any sense to anyone! Just seems more interesting for her and less pressure on me to be constantly interacting

This has been a really helpful thread..thank you

My only concern is I'm a very emotional person and having 2 young children might send me crackers! Thankfully I've got a brilliant DH and DD is now at nursery for 3 sessions a week. Very high chance I'll have to have another cs and having a toddler with a new baby and cs doesn't fill me with any joy.

Im with you OP, i will have a 4.6yr age gap, DS1 will be starting reception in the september, about 8 weeks after DC2 arrives, 2 young babies close together would of driven me bonkers!
I also like the fact that i get to spend decent time with DC2 like i did with DS1, plus, no paying childcare for a yr, and get to share DS1's first year of school with him.
I am also having a section and no family near by, so the fact that DS1 is pretty much self sufficent can only be good! He can get food and drink out of the fridge, is very cometent, so i don't have many worries about the impact on him.
Am just excited now! bring on July!

there's going to be 7 years between mine; we didn't plan it that way, it's just how it has turned out, and i think it is going to be great!!!! dd is pretty independent, desperate to be a big sister and is already asking me what 'jobs' she will be able to do to help out with the baby. i wanted a neat little 2ish year gap between a number of children, but it wasn't that straight forward and we were just delighted to find out we have a viable pregnancy. i did worry that it was a big gap, and it does mean broken nights and dirty nappies all over again; and i guess it's going to mean doing stuff in different directions with different aged children, but that also means the baby will get a lot of undivided attention the same way dd did i'm really looking forward to it..... can you tell??!

My Bro and I are 19 months apart, got on great as kids and very young teens, but loathed the site of each other from around age 16 (him) and 14.5(me). Didn't actually start getting on until I had my DD (aged 20). I think our clashes were more to do with personalities than age though. He became very moody and withdrawn, and into serious heavy metal, wheareas I was all chirpy and excitable and into cheesy rave music (clearly, it was all his fault )

I knew, and know, several sets of sisters who are 12-18 months and they seem to fight/argue a lot - the younger ones want to be part of everything the older ones are doing, and the older ones get annoyed with them cramping their style . Suspect it wouldn't be quite the same if different sexes though (although I did want to hang out with my bro his friends a lot as I was a bit of a tomboy, so maybe I'm just talking nonsense!)

I am about to have my second child. My DD will be 16 in June! Didn't plan on such a big gap, but thought it would all be ok until a colleague mentioned to me that her big sis was 15 when she was born and, because she moved out of the family home just a few years later, colleague never really got to know her until she was an adult

I really hope that doesn't happen with my 2

i have a just over two year gap between my pregnancys as my first was twins and so is my second and as i had them at such a young age i decided to leave it but the actual gap between kids are the two year old twins and the next one is a gap of 1 year then there is a nine month gap and then there will be about three months if i go full term

There will be 3yrs11months between ours which I'm happy with. I couldn't cope with 2 babies together!

Each to their own...I've got 2.6 gap, 3.6 gap, 10.2 gap. Older dc are in their 20's & new bsby is due in Jan. There are pros & cons to all age gaps!

Zombie thread!

I agree shellywelly there are pros and cons to all age gaps. And so much depends on the personality of the parents and children involved!

We've got small age gaps (2 years and 1 year) and it works brilliantly for us. Presumably we would have made a larger age gap work too