I’m the oldest of 4 kids. There are 4 years between my first brother and I, 3 years between the two boys, and 4 years between my youngest brother and my sister. We all have a bestfriends/worst enamy relationship with the one (or ones for the boys) closest in age to us. One minute we get along great then the next all hell breaks loose! With my sister there are 11 years between us so I’m almost more of a scond mother to her than a sister but we still have a great relationship and do alot of stuff togeather. I waited so long to have a sister that I wasn’t gonna let the age difference get in the way of a relationship with her! I loved growing up in a largish family and can’t imagine when I have kids that I’ll have less than 4! Money is often tight but there are things in life way more valuable than money. I wouldn’t trade any of my sibs for having more or better stuff growing up!
Personally I’d like to have atleast 6 kids spaced about 2-3 years apart. The 4 years between me and my bro wasn’t too much space so we still were able to do most things togeather but it was enough that he had to wait a while to do alot of stuff I did and he resented me for it. There were even somethings I was involed in that he got involved in at bit to young of an age so they wern’t as benificial for him as they would have been had he waited another year or two. I think with a 2 year age gap you’d have less of that type of thing. I defianantly want to have an even number of kids that way one is less likely to get left out. As far as gender order goes I don’t really have a preferance as I can see pros and cons of pretty much any order. I do however want atleast 2 of each gender rather than having like 5 boys and only 1 girl, so that they have someone to share their more gender-related intrests with (my brothers never really appreciated me making them to play dolls and dress up)
I don’t have any children myself and am from a family of 2 but my mom grew up as the youngest of 7. The oldest is 26 months older than number 2. Kid 2 is 20 months older than number 3. Kid 3 is 24 months older than kid 4. Kid 4 is 17 months older than kid 5. Kid 5 is almost 5 years older than kid 6 and kid 6 is almost 4 years older than kid 7. And there is almost 16 years between the oldest and the youngest.
I don’t have time to answer all the questions, but we have 10 precious children (two adopted boys) and I just found out I am expecting #11. Our older children have between 3 and 5 years age gaps. Our youngest ones are a year apart… I really loved the spacing of three years… the one year spacing is fun, but a lot more physical work!
About vehicles for large families… we just purchases a [name]Nissan[/name] NV 3500 passenger van. It seats 12 (our oldest dd is almost 20 and will be getting married this winter)… we [name]LOVE[/name] this van!!!
I have 5 (11, 9, 7, 5, and 1) my closest are 20 months apart and the longest between babies is 40 months.
Since my youngest is over 3 years younger than his closest sibling I had hoped the next sibling would be closer so he’d have a playmate. But I just had my 2nd miscarriage in a row and am reminded that planning is nice but much of life is out of our hands.
Sibling 1 is 2 years older than
Sibling 2 is 4 years older than
Me. I am 1.5 years older than
Sibling 4 is 3 years older than
Sibling 5
Hubby is the oldest of 4. They are all 3 years apart.
All four kids are born with 3 years and 1 month of the one older then them. Talk about clockwork. My mother in law has always been super organized.
Together we have 5 kids
[name]Matilda[/name] is 3 years older than
[name]Eloise[/name] who is almost 2 years older than
[name]Walter[/name] who is almost 2 years older than
The twins who if we get pregnant soon ( which I hope we do ) will be almost 2.5 years older
I’m the eldest of four. My twin brother and I get alone brilliantly. When we were four my sister was born and we were a really close family. When I was thirteen my mom had a surprise pregnancy and My little baby brother was born. He lit up my world and I loved having another brother.
My husband also has a big family. When I met him I gained four more sisters.
Big families are brilliant. I grew up always having someone to play with and I’m glad my children have that too.
I’m planning on a large family. I’m currently pregnant and my son will be 18 months old when this baby arrives. I’m one of four and we are all close in age (there’s less than two years between each of us) and I found it great. It was fun to always have someone to play with and because we were all so close as soon as one of us grew out of the baby stuff, my parents could pass it on to the next. They rarely had to buy anything new for a new baby. My mum also said that she wanted the kids to be grown up and independent when she was still young enough to go and have a life of her own, which she did - she went travelling through Europe with my dad once my youngest sibling left.
It seemed to work well for them and so I’m hoping it’ll be the same with my family.
I’m the oldest of four. There’s 17 months between me and my brother. He’s around four years older than my sister. My sister is six years older than our youngest. I can definitely say that I’m close with my brother. Or closer than with my sister and baby brother.
My sister is 5 1/2 years younger than me - but well, we are so different. So I prefer to avoid her, and maybe spend a few moments together in a good day.
I’m almost twelve years older than baby brother. He’s the most adorable thing, even at age seven and wants to be a cop. I ignored him mainly when I was younger. I regret it kinda, because I missed a lot of his baby-hood, and then he was just this little annoying thing. He’s still annoying - like all of my siblings are. I think my good relationship with my other brother is because we have matured at the same time - although I admit I often feel like he’s the perfect boy, in comparison to me.
When I’m going to have children - I want three or four. But I’m going to convince my husband to have them in a close age, all of them. My aunt had three children on six years, one born in [name_u]March[/name_u], [name_f]April[/name_f] and [name_f]May[/name_f]. So there had been almost exact two years between each baby - I would love to have that age-gap.
I am very close to my siblings. Growing up, I was very jealous of my middle brother at first, since I had been around for 5 years being the center of attention. Since I’m a girl and he’s a boy and there was such a gap, we didn’t hang out a lot during some ages (when I was a teenager mostly) but I think everything worked out, those are the years you want to hang out with your friends all the time anyway (he was the same way with us). With my youngest brother, he was born when I was 13, and he’s always felt like a son to me, in the best way possible, we are very close and I adore him and love playing with him and teaching him things. My boyfriend is extremely close in age to his siblings and he is not really close to them at all, he only has sisters though, so that could be a reason. There is no animosity, they just aren’t as close. So, how close siblings are just really depends, and age gaps aren’t the end all and be all.
Anyway, I want to have a large family myself, and have been struggling with the same thing. I think in general it is good to have them closer because they go through the same phases not too far apart, and you don’t feel too much like you are “starting over” my mother had [name_m]LONG[/name_m] put away the diaper bags and bottles by the time my youngest brother was born. However, I, personally, want to experience the different stages with babies individually, if that makes sense. I want to spend extra time with them in those years and don’t want it to feel like a blur. I must add I am easily flustered and stressed out, too. So for me, I want to make sure I have everything down and can handle one, then add another, then two, then add another, etc.
I’m the oldest of four girls, there was 18 months between me and my younger sister (she died at age 3), a three year gap, then my second sister was born and another 18 month gap between her and my youngest sister. The close spacing meant that each ‘pair’ were best friends, though I did have trouble getting along with my youngest sister due to the almost 7 year age difference. As for having my own children I would like to keep the number even and the spacing between fairly small, two or four. Because I grew up with only sisters I feel a lot more comfortable with the idea of having daughters than sons, thought I’ll be happy with either, boys just bring a whole new level of omg-what-the-heck-am-I-supposed-to-do-with-you
Personally, I don’t have that much to say as I only have one sister (2 years older) and only one daughter (for now), but my DH is one of 9. We hope to someday have a larger family, and hope to have baby #2 before our daughter turns 3. My ideal family would be 4-5 children at the most, but we will see how things go. I know that I want at least 3 though.
My DH has one older half-brother (26) who never lived with the family or visited them ever and now lives in a different state and isn’t involved in any family things. My DH didn’t even know that he existed until he was older. He also has one older half sister (25) who is part of the family but is already married with children of her own. Then theres my DH (21), then two more boys (19 and 17). Then there is a large gap and then his younger siblings (11, 9, 7, 6). In his family, the age gap has led to what often feels like two separate families of the “older” kids and the “younger” kids. Often times, I forget that the younger kids are my brother and sisters in law because they seem more like my nieces and nephews - especially since I have a 5 and 3 year old nephew and niece!!
I am one of three children (not a terribly large family), but there are 6 years between my older sister [name_f]Ruth[/name_f] and my older brother [name_m]Wyatt[/name_m] and 3 years between [name_m]Wyatt[/name_m] and me.
My husband, [name_m]Jonathan[/name_m], is one of six children. There are 6 years between his oldest sister [name_u]Hilary[/name_u] and older sister [name_f]Marissa[/name_f], 4 years between [name_f]Marissa[/name_f] and my husband, 3 years between my husband and his younger brother [name_u]Stanley[/name_u], 21 months between [name_u]Stanley[/name_u] and his youngest brother [name_m]Warren[/name_m], and 3 years between [name_m]Warren[/name_m] and his younger sister [name_f]Candice[/name_f]. His parents struggled with fertility issues for many years. There are 17 years between his oldest sister and youngest sister.
When our little one arrives there will be 14 years between my step-son [name_m]Josiah[/name_m] and the baby, almost 9 years between my step-daughter [name_f]Stella[/name_f] and the baby, and 4 years between my step-daughter [name_f]Emma[/name_f] and the baby. When (or if) we have another I hope to have them and this baby 18 months apart. I would love a third shortly after that, but I’m pretty sure that my husband won’t go for that.
I didn’t really grow up in a large family but my father has five children. The first four of us were each born three years after the last and the youngest is nine years younger than the second youngest.
