Do all subsequent children seem older than their years???

[atiredmum]

I am not intentionally trying to make them grow up but I do find that my mum says to me that "they are only x" a little and now I am starting to wonder if it's a subsequent child thing or what I am doing. I confess I am trying to encourage the little one 2.5 to be a little older become a little more contained and less distructive so that I can spend more time with the older two and also so I have a house left. We have routines in place for year 1 child so that he can do his spellings fairly independently. Year 3 child also is starting to complete her homework more independently. I'm never sure if this is a good thing.

I'd love to hear what others have found with 3 or more. Is this a reality of the situation that they do become more independent earlier or is it parent led, anything I should look out for??? Ages are year 3, year 1 and 2.5 year old

Thanks in advance.

atiredmum

The younger ones definitely grow up quicker, as they often copy/aspire to be their older siblings. I have three; my youngest is the most mature and sensible of them all - she has an old head. This wasn't something I imposed or influenced, it just turned out that way.

Interesting - it's just the opposite for us. The little one is growing up much slower than her sister did. It's true that her special needs are a factor, but also I am perfectly content with her slower rate of maturing and in fact I enjoy it in some ways. I'm conscious of the fact she will probably be my last child and I am in no hurry to see the end of her childhood.

I think I encouraged the development of grown-up interests in my first child because I wanted someone to share them with. It was good to have someone to take to museums who would appreciate it. I liked reading her the more advanced children's books because they were more interesting to me. She quickly noticed that I was more willing to play chess with her than Snakes & Ladders.

But now I already have someone I can take to museums, to whom I can read grown-up books, with whom to play chess. So I don't mind when my younger child takes up those interests, if at all. Besides, I'm not going to be stuck playing boring old Snakes and Ladders with dd2 or reading Spot stories to her: her sister likes to do that.

As for practical things, I don't mind at all that dd2 can't yet do up her coat or peel her own orange and needs help to cross the road - she has a big sister around, so it isn't always me who has to do all that stuff for her. I don't mind that I can't send her to the corner shop on her own yet: there's someone else available to send.

The fact that there is such a difference in their maturity means they aren't competing and so they take on different roles, with dd2 perhaps choosing to be more babyish than she might if she were an only/eldest child. This seems to be true in my friends' families too: I always thought it was common for the younger child to be more indulged and have little motive to grow up quickly, since acting helpless gains them help and attention from parents and older siblings.

Ds became independent earlier but I can't say it's really made him more generally mature, just more independent.

My youngest is growing up faster in terms of toys/TV programmes (eg age when he started thinking Cbeebies is babyish etc.), but that's to be expected when you've got an older brother and so interests are directed by him, rather than your parents.

But I think the older one suddenly seems and starts being treated much older than he is when a new baby comes along. My youngest is now 6 and seems quite babyish to me when I compare his to his older brother, even down to his voice. Butthen DS1 has always seemed very grown up.

I have 4 children and they all seem to have done their own thing.

My third child has had the slowest development, my first the fastest and my fourth probably close to the first. My second child was very slow at some things and very advanced at others. Maybe because they are so close together they don't seem to have influenced each other in that way much at all.

From my obervations this tends to be more obvious when there is a larger age gap?

Was true for #2. In a lot of ways she is older. In some ways it's a surface sophistication, but in other ways she has an older outlook on life.
#3 it's not true at all. He's relatively immature for his age, although I always wonder whether he'd be more mature if he hadn't spent most of the first 20 months of his life with an ear infection and needing to be cuddled quietly.

Academically they have all picked up from the older ones. #1 loved learning and will happily spend an evening doing maths or writing/reading a story. The others then do this because that's what you do, even though I don't think they would have naturally done it.

And they pick up things by reciting. I remember #2 impressing people by singing the alphabet at just over 18 months. She hadn't got a clue what it was, but had picked it up phonetically. #3 can count in 3s and 5s because #2 was learning those last year when he was 3.

I think in our case it's a bit of both. In lots of ways DD (20 months younger than DS) seems older than her years as she's striving to keep up with DS.

On the other hand we're more likely to "baby" her - I realised the other day that we have lower expectations of her than we did of DS at the same age - I definitely wanted him to be self sufficient earlier so I didn't have to do everything for 2 children!

DD2, youngest of three, was definitely keen to get rid of anything she perceived as "babyish" quite early on - high chair, buggy, dolls etc. She has always considered herself to be the same age as her big sister.

Tired, your dcs are exactly same age as mine. In some ways dc3 is growing up more quickly - wanting to play computer games, trying to write like her older bro & sis etc, but in other ways she's more immature. She's more demanding than the other 2 were. Has more tantrums, says no to everything she doesn't want to do & can't be talked around or reasoned with. It must be a combination of being bought on by the older dcs & personality. I must admit I do have to resort to tv sometimes in order to get uninterrupted reading time with yr1 dc. Yr3 dc gets homework at the weekend so between me & dh we manage to juggle homework helping & toddler trouble minimising!

Tired we have 4DC 11,9,7 & 4 and DC4 is definitely more grown up in the way she has started school, learnt to read by herself (picking up from older ones), knowing songs, times tables, no more cbeebies (it's too babyish for her). Think all of this is trying to keep up with the other, but she is also the one that throws the most tantrums (think she knows we are so busy with the 4 of them that it is a quick way to get heard), wants the most cuddles (is jealous of anyone else getting them, even DH) and although she desperately wants to go to bed later just can't handle being up past 7pm as then we get child the next day. Think the more you have the more the younger ones learn how to push buttons when they want attention but also they are sponges and suck up all the attention from the older ones and what they are doing. DC4 is very good at DC1's non verbal reasoning 11+ papers as she sat with her doing them, should be no issues when she gets there in 5 years time

I have 2 with 2 years between, DD2 has always chased her big sis (to the point where DD1 becomes quite annoyed because 'DD2 is always imitating me'. I point out to her that her sister wants to be like her and that this is a big compliment, but if you're nearly 11 you don't want to know that your almost 9yo sister is trying to be a moody pre-teen too .

I did notice that DD2 did everything except potty training earlier than DD1 (potty training at exact same age, freaky!) - walking, talking in sentences, swimming, reading, cursive writing - all about 6 months earlier. I reckon though that this is because the age gap is so small - those leaps were achievable because DD2 saw DD1 doing the things she wanted to be doing and the physiological readiness was there.

I now have two DDs who are both mature beyond their years (pity me). They both get taken for older than they are because they are 1)tall and 2)very well spoken with ridiculous vocabularies (my fault for reading them inappropriate books Terry Pratchett). The nice thing though is that they are still happy to be children, they love to sit on my lap (4'11'' DD1 on lap, nice but heavy) and have cuddles. They pay with cuddly toys, make drawings and dress up. Next thing I know they're doing dishes, sorting their own laundry and putting it away and getting their own school stuff ready. I don't know I'm alive, do I?

DD is taking her time to grow up, she's now yr 1 but really is playing as though she's still at nursery and has no interest in grown up stuff, she likes play dough, pretending to be a puppy and her soft toys which she plays games with as though they are her children.

DS is yr 4 and has mature interests and has for years. He likes sport and has been talking about cricket, rugby and football with adult levels of knowledge for several years. He has never played with toys much. He likes to go to sports clubs and play or watch on telly or discuss with his dad, I'm fairly useless here!

DD and DS rarely play together which is a shame, but they have virtually no interests in common, so I suppose it's not surprising. DD is my last child and I'm delighted that so far she is remaining such a little one, DS and I are friendly, but again have little in common apart from a love of curry and risotto.

My youngest has definitely grown up faster - bigger vocabulary, very sensible, very mature for his age. Probably because he arrived into a house with teenagers (15 years between oldest and youngest). At the same time, I know I baby him - everything's the last time with him and I'm already nostalgic.

Hell yes LOL!!

12 yr old has always, right from the start been verbally and academically and physically running to keep up with her "biggies" (they are all 3 school yrs apart). Right now she's working on trumping all the triumphs her big sis had at the same school 6yrs ago (winning the form prize a year earlier etc etc).

I think she is probably the academically most able but I'm not sure- she could just be getting into her stride earlier.

I worry that maybe she wasn't "babied" enough but TBH he seems fine on it.... trouble is there were always toys that were supposed to be "too old" around-and the big kids pleased to show her how, so she just did stuff.

It has meant though, even with a 6.5yr age gap eldest to youngest, that we never hit phases where the big ones were "too old" for stuff that DD2 wanted to do etc, she just did what they did.

Mind you, it could, of course mean they were held back by her, but I suspect not LOL

dd2 (child 3) has always seemed to do things faster than any of the others BUT ds2 (child 4) is a lot slower in almost everything - I suspect I baby him a lot as he is and always will be the baby...

That said, he has access to toys that the older 2 would never have had - he has an old nintendo ds, he can work my phone better than me and he plays with lego/playmobil that the others leave out.

I'm in the opposite camp, too.

Things like when I let them chop vegies with a sharp knife, scrub toilets, hold a pet without supervision, when they went dry overnight, when they learnt to speak clearly... so many things, a strong general trend is of Eldest being most capable early on and youngest least.

DC3 is extremely competitive with all the others, too.

It's the opposite for us. Although DS2 has done a lot more stuff a lot younger as he's had to tag along with DS1, he's definitely developing a lot slower. He does have SN (severe hearing loss, balance disorder) but is emotionally a lot younger than DS1 was at his age. I find him better adjusted socially though.

I'm really worried about this young for his age and late July born and physically developmentally delayed child starting Reception in September.

lljkk, does have a point about 1st borns too, they develop fast from all the extra parental attention. my 1st was very quick to talk he said 'rollover' after i was singing 10 in the bed & the little 1 said 'rollover' @ 4 months! trouble with having 3 is cant quite remember what age they all did things at, but oldest & youngest do seem to have an advantage in some ways. dc3 has definitely decided she wants to do everything older 2 do, while dc1 was verbally very able from a young age, he learnt to walk older than the other 2 ( probably as i still had time to run around getting things for him, which i never really did for the others)!