My daughter is 8 months old and I have been thinking about the right time to have a second baby. I only want 2 children, and I don’t know if it’s better for them to be close in age or 3-4 years apart? I have had the [name]Mirena[/name] IUD for 7 months now, so there’s no chance of accidentally getting pregnant. I have to plan it. What are your thoughts on this matter? [name]How[/name] many children do you have and how far apart were they?
Oh, also… I am 25 years old and my husband is 34. I worry that we should have our second sooner rather than later because we still want to be young parents. My mom had me at 37 and I always felt kind of…cheated? I don’t know, she is 10+ years older than all my friend’s mothers and it makes me sad sometimes.
I think if you’re planning on having two children a 2-3 year age gap works best. They won’t be so close as they grow up if the age gap is bigger,I think.
I don’t have children but I’ve heard people who’ve had children with a less than 2 year gap, describe it as being a nightmare.
I don’t have children yet, but my husband and I plan (to the best of our ability) to space our children 1-2 years apart. The reason for this is b/c I am 1yr and 9 months older than my brother and we have always been very close. My husband, on the other hand, is 6 years older than his sister and, while he loves her, they just aren’t that close due to the large age gap. I think having children close in age makes it more likely that they’ll form a friendship. Since my brother and I were close in age, we played together a lot and had a lot of the same friends. I treasure that relationship with him and I know my husband wishes he had something like it. That being said, I know it was hard for my mom to have 2 young kids in diapers, but I think (long term) it was worth it.
I don’t think the number of years between siblings necessarily guarantees that they’re going to have a close relationship or not. I’ve heard of siblings that were 12 years apart with a very close relationship. Meanwhile, my sister and I are two years an three days apart, and while we love each other, we don’t see eye-to-eye on anything. It’s personality differences, not the age range that makes the difference.
Whoops, footnote: DH and I are 12 weeks pregnant and I want our next child to come at least 3 years from now. But this one was a surprise, so… maybe that 3 year plan will get tossed out the window too, haha.
I’ve always read and been told that at least 2 years is the best to prevent health issues and whatnot. I can also attest to the fact that close spaced sibs aren’t always close relationed. There are several closely spaced sibling at the daycare I work at who generally act like they hate each other. My sister and I are 10 years apart and we do all kind of things together. I love taking her places and helping her find herself. I also worked with a boy whose sister was 20 years older than him and he loved it. You never know. The closest sibling sat my daycare are 3+ years apart. The ones spaced closer together fight all the time over things because they’re so similar they want everything the other wants all the time and end up in time out for punching each other constantly but they are the sweetest to their one year old sister (who is 5 years different from them).
Spacing means nothing for how close your siblings are to each other. That being said, i’ll stick with 2 years to prevent those health issues.
I’d wait around another year or so if I were you. Your DD is 8 months old, which means in the next 4-8 months she’s going to become quite a handful, she’ll be learning to walk, and when she starts walking, things get a little trickier because you’ll need to be running after her to make sure she doesn’t fall over her or reach something she isn’t allowed. Does that make sense?
I feel like I’m not putting my point across well but she’s coming up to a tricky age and I imagine being pregnant would be difficult and more tiresome than if she were a little older.
Another thing to consider is that if you were to get pregnant now, you’d have two kids in diapers which would also be hard. Its perfectly doable, but to make things easier on you, I’d wait at least a year.
Personally, when I have children, I’ll be waiting until my eldest child is potty trained, walking and able to structure sentences before I have another baby. I also only want two kids, its just my own personal take on it.
I’d wait around another year or so if I were you. Your DD is 8 months old, which means in the next 4-8 months she’s going to become quite a handful, she’ll be learning to walk, and when she starts walking, things get a little trickier because you’ll need to be running after her to make sure she doesn’t fall over her or reach something she isn’t allowed. Does that make sense?
I feel like I’m not putting my point across well but she’s coming up to a tricky age and I imagine being pregnant would be difficult and more tiresome than if she were a little older.
Another thing to consider is that if you were to get pregnant now, you’d have two kids in diapers which would also be hard. Its perfectly doable, but to make things easier on you, I’d wait at least a year.
Personally, when I have children, I’ll be waiting until my eldest child is potty trained, walking and able to structure sentences before I have another baby. I also only want two kids, its just my own personal take on it.
I want my children, personally, to be 4+ years apart (if i have more than 1, which I doubt) unless i have twins/triplets/etc…
My sister and are 18 months apart, we NEVER got along and to this day she doesn’t talk to me. We don’t care for one another as sisters probably should. I know families that a have really close knit relationships, so my case isn’t necessarily yours. I remember wishing my mom would have a baby in middle school so I could have a new little sister/brother because mine sucked.
The reason I choose 4 is more for financial reasons, you don’t have to pay for college at the same time for 2 kids, you do 1 at a time. i plan to help pay for my kids to go to college, so if you don’t, then this doesn’t really apply, but that’s my reasoning. I’m also only planning on having one child though, so this situation may never happen. Also the close knit families I see tend to have children who are spaced farther apart. The ones that are closer together constantly fight. This is just my experience, it doesn’t apply to everyone.
I don’t have any kids, but my brother and I are only a year apart. I don’t think you have to be close in age either to be close to your siblings, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. As we grew into adulthood it was nice to be on the same mental level (relatively!) and to talk about things going on in our lives. My mom said later that it was hard at times, but she didn’t seem to paint it as this horrible nightmare. She was in her mid-twenties as well.
I am not making a case for having kids close together, just sharing my experience.
Honestly, I think gender of siblings has a lot more to do with closeness than the age gap. In every single family that I know where it’s only two boys or two girls, the siblings tend to not be close, whether it’s a two year gap or a four year one. If you’re only planning on having two children, then personally, I would go for a four year gap, since as catloverd mentioned, that helps with only having to pay one college tuition at a time, plus you won’t have to deal with two kids in diapers or two teenagers at the same time. Everyone’s different though so you just have to do what feels right for your family.
Any number of years in between is doable, you’ll make it work because you have to. Closeness in siblings has nothing to do with age everything to do with personality and interests (and how important the relationship is to them). We could all give a million examples of people we know and their relationships vs. age.
Having 2 really close together will make it very stressful at first, but it will eventually mellow out. Keep in mind they’ll probably be “leaving the nest” around the same time too. If you wait the older one might be able to help more, or will at least be more independent, but it might be harder to get back into the swing of having a baby around again if you’re accustom to a child. Also you’ll get more time alone with the first child before the second is born, and more time with the second child after the first one moves out. Neither of these scenarios are meant to be specific pros or cons. It just depends on your feelings.
I’d base the decision on how my husband and I both felt financially, emotionally, and physically, when we’re ready to have another one…not just a certain number of months or years.
My son and daughter are 2 years 10 months apart and I think it is the perfect gap. I am current pregnant with #3 and they will be 2 years 8 months apart so that will be similar. We originally wanted out first 2 about 2 years apart which obviously didnt work out but I think it happened for a reason. When DD was born my DS was pretty independant and a huge help rather than having 2 babies at home… the difference between a 2 year old and a 2 3/4 years old is huge ! Plus 2 months after DD was born DS started camp and then preschool so 3-4 mornings a week DD got all that time with one on one attention. They love each other so much and still are close enough to play together. Also everyone is different but I think the 12-24 months age is the hardest since they are into EVERYTHING and get frustrated as they want to communicate so much and its a struggle so getting pregnant again towards the end of that ride was best for me…after 2 my kids both would actually sit for 20 mins and watch [name]Sesame[/name] [name]Street[/name] and/or play by themselves and give me a bit of a break when exhausted from the pregnancy… Good [name]Luck[/name]!
My brother and I are 12 months, six days, and 20 hours apart to the minute, and I love it!
Growing up, we fought a lot and i think my mom was ready to pull her hair out when we were between he ages of 8-14, but then we kind of mellowed out a little. My older sister is 4 years older than me, and my younger sister is seven years younger, though. So we have several gaps, there, too.
My oldest is four and the younger one twenty months. I am four and a half months pregnant with twins (we are pretty sure they are identical girls, doctor wasn’t sure.) BY the time the twins are born, [name]Avalon[/name] nn Avvy will be five and [name]Keziah[/name] nn [name]Ziah[/name] will be almost two. I hope I’ll manage.
I had Avvy and [name]Ziah[/name] so far apart because Avvy was a bit of a handful, and she was my first, so I was just getting used to the whole motherhood thing. [name]Ziah[/name] is a little calmer and easy going, but i still figured that I wanted about two years between [name]Ziah[/name] and the new baby. I got lucky and was pregnant with twins (I’d always wanted twins when I was growing up) the first time we TTC.
Anyways, I think it depends on the family. I needed about three years with Avvy, but I think I’ll be fine with the two year gap between [name]Ziah[/name] and the new twins.
In terms of the biology of your body, my doctor says women should wait 18 months after a baby is born to try again, because even though you’re fully capable of getting pregnant before that, your body hasn’t fully recovered in the capacity to give a new baby 100% of the right nutrients. I also read this number in the book [name]Brain[/name] Rules for [name]Baby[/name] that if you wait at least 27 months between births (18 months between pregnancies), their IQ has been shown to be a bit higher, likely because of the nutrients.
That said, I’m a “baby buncher” at heart, so when my first, [name]Scarlett[/name], was born, I started the adoption process for #2 right away, and when [name]Scarlett[/name] was 20 months, little sister [name]Harriett[/name] was delivered to my arms, at which time I had just found out I was pregnant with #3 (a boy, and we’re thinking about [name]Felix[/name]) and that leads us up to date. This blended-biological “baby bunching” has worked out splendidly. Now my children will all be close together in age and hopefully have similar interests and be able to scaffold and help one another during the school age years into lifelong friendship, and I will be over with the diaper years early on.
DH and I are still hoping for a #4 in the future, but we won’t be TTC until at least 18 months after future [name]Felix[/name] joins his sisters. Congratulations on your growing family, and I hope this input helps, regardless of what is right for YOUR family, since that’s all that matters.
I would wait at least until you get home from the hospital to start trying for another one.
LOL…you might laugh…but I have heard from a couple of people I know who work at the hospital of couples being caught in the postpartum room doing things they should not be doing, while still in the hospital!
I think you have waited plenty long. My favorite spacing is closer together.
My brother and I are 4.5 years apart, and we’ve always been pretty close. We played a lot together growing up, and the only time we weren’t particularly close is when I was 16-17 and he was 12. We reconnected when I was in college and we still hang out 'til this day. We have similar interests and personalities, and I think that’s the most important factor.
My son is 22 months now and we’re just starting to think about having another. I wanted them to be at least 2 years apart, because those first few years require so much focus and attention, and I don’t want either of my kids to miss out on any of that.
Thanks so much for all the feedback. I had always planned on waiting 3-4 years, but lately I’ve been thinking that if I wait I won’t want another one. I’m an only child so it’s perfectly logical to me to only have 1, but I always wanted a sibling when I was growing up so I wanted to have 2. I think I’m going to wait at least another year from now to start thinking about it again. Another reason I’m reevaluating all this is because my best friend is marrying her longtime boyfriend in the next couple months and she recently went off BC and is letting things “happen when they happen” I guess. I really wanted to be pregnant at the same time so our children would be really close in age (like we were, we’ve been friends since birth pretty much) I don’t know, I want [name]Rowan[/name] to be old enough that she doesn’t feel left out all the time with a new baby and she can actually help me with things.
When My oldest was 9 months old, I found out that I was pregnant with another. They are both girls. I’ll try to give you the negatives and the positives since your daughter is 8 months now. Because they were close in age, they were both in diapers at the same time and that got expensive quick. They are now 6 and 5, and some days all they do is argue, over everything. But most days they are best friends. [name]Even[/name] when we have play dates with other kids, they normally play with each other, and in large groups of kids, they always prefer each other. They constantly defend obe another, and are always wispering and sharing secrets. There is also quite alot of giggling in my house. I like the spacing that they have. It is challenging at times, but I love watching the interact with each other, and how they can comfort each other.
My husband and I are trying to conceive our third child now. This will be our last. I did wait a while to ttc the third child, because those first few years with a baby and a toddler, and then two toddlers was a little stressful. Now my girls are at an age where they can help me with a new baby. Overall I wouldn’t change having them so close together, but having two close together is not for everyone, thats just what worked for my family.
I personally want 2 and half - 3 years between my children. There is 17 years between me and my older sister, 15 years between me and my older brother and 17months between me and my youngest sister so i can uderstand from both points of view and we are all reasonably close.
