This is not sibling relationship based, but if you are birthing these children, the World Health Organizations recommends spacing of not less than 3 and not more than 5 years. Apparently, pregnancy risks increase with closer spacer than 3 years or longer spacing than 5 years.
I thought that was interesting, since 2 years seems to be the default around here. I have also always thought this was interesting since age 2 is pretty universally understood to be one of the most challenging ages. Many of our mom friends have told us to adopt again sooner rather than later so that we can “get it all over with” more quickly. I don’t want to get it over with quickly. I have really enjoyed my son’s whole life. I know some people don’t like the baby stage or don’t like the toddler stage, but I have liked all of the parts so far, and I just want to enjoy all of it.
Not to say that is anyone else’s motivation for closer child spacing, just that this idea seems prevalent among the moms I know in person, that you want to get all of the baby stuff done with at once.
I think that it’s all personal. Siblings that are twins can grow up disliking each other & siblings with huge age gaps can end up best friends.
[name_f]My[/name_f] sister is 7 years younger and growing up it did feel unusual. I knew plenty of people with big age gaps, but it was usually something like 2 sisters close in age & their much older step sister or something like a family of 6 kids that range from baby to adult, but my scenario of only one sibling with a big gap yet sharing both parents was not popular.
Basically, I was excited when she was a baby and as time passed we drifted apart. We reconnected when she was in late high school and struggling with coming out to my family. [name_m]Even[/name_m] if she hadn’t leaned on me during that time I think that when she moved out for college she would’ve been calling me for advice and we would’ve become close during that time. Now we’re best friends!
I think I would say 10 years apart is too much, but my husband is the youngest in his family of 4 and his eldest sister is 10 years apart from him. So I think 10 is too much between the first 2, that is if you expect the children to be best buddies. That most likely won’t happen due to the age gap.
[name_f]My[/name_f] ideal would be 4-5 years apart. That way they both get equal amounts of attention when they need it… but I only plan on having one child since I didn’t enjoy having a sibling at all…
I think it’s because people aren’t necessarily thinking about the two year old their child will become when they decide to start TTC another one. If you have a two year age gap then you’re probably starting to at least think about another one around the time your first is a year old. One year olds are pretty fun. Their personalities are really starting to come out, they’re starting to communicate and they haven’t yet developed that definite two year old streak. We’ve found a two year age gap to have some benefits (they sometimes play wonderfully together and share a lot of the same interest) but they definitely fight a lot and it was rough with a newborn and a two year old.
For us another factor in the two year age gap is that it’s impossible to predict how long you’ll be TTC. It took us eight months to get pregnant with my son so when we started trying when he was a little over a year we assumed it would take a little while to actually conceive. We found out we were expecting my daughter two weeks to the day we started TTC. We were thrilled but were amazed that it had happened so fast. Of course many families have the opposite thing happen getting pregnant immediately or without trying with their and then spending awhile TTC their second landing them a larger then expected age gap.
[name_f]My[/name_f] brother and I are nearly six years apart. We aren’t really close and I feel like at times I’m more of an authority figure to him then a friend. He’s still relatively young (24) and still in college so perhaps after he’s finished his education and out in the “real world” he’ll grow up a bit and we’ll get along better however we have very different personalities so we might not have been close no matter our age difference.
I always thought that less than 2 years is too close but more than 5 years is too far apart. [name_f]My[/name_f] sister and I are best friends and we are 2 years and 8 months apart/3 school years. [name_f]My[/name_f] husband and his brother are 4 years apart and are not nearly as close, but maybe it is just their personalities.
That is a really good point, about the first baby likely being around one when TTC is commenced.
Four years apart is probably my ideal, though we might end up with more like a six year gap. Or we might adopt a two year old when our son is six, who knows? Much like with TTC, there is (usually) no way to tell ahead of time how long adoption is going to take.
I only have 1 bother, and he’s 18 months younger than me. It’s funny, when we were little we got along great and were best friends. Between the ages of 10-15 we fought constantly. Now that I’m almost 18, and he’s 16, we get along ok.
I’d say that no age difference guarantees that your kids will have a good (or bad) relationship with each other. Now that I’m not living at home anymore (university), my sister and I barely talk. I know siblings with the same age gap who are the best of friends. I think it’s partly personality; my sister and I are polar opposites. The twins/siblings born less than a year apart that I’ve known have all been really close because they spend a lot of time together- same classes at school, group of friends, activities- but besides that, I haven’t seen any correlation between age difference and sibling dynamics.
I’d think it also depends on how many children there are between the oldest and youngest. My mum is the oldest of four sisters, with eight years between her and the youngest but no more than four years between any of them. They’re all really close and as far as I can tell, none of them are closer to one than another.
In most groups though- siblings, friends, etc.- some will naturally gravitate towards others. [name_m]Even[/name_m] if the whole group being close, some members will be closer to certain others. Gender may play a role too; siblings of the same gender often relate to each other better.
Many of the adults I know are closest to the sibling(s) who live geographically closest to them and can (theoretically) see them more. I know a sibset where the oldest and youngest (of six) are closest because they’re almost next-door neighbours.
I think once a child is 18+, the age difference because a little much. It’s people prerogative whether they want to still keep having children even though they already have grown up ones…but I think it would be really hard to relate to a sibling that young. Not too mention, most people would probably assume you’re the mom/dad if you stepped out with them.
I have a sister who is not-quite-3 years younger than I am and brothers who are 10 1/2 years younger than I am. I’m actually a lot closer with my brothers–we’ve just never had any reason to compete or fight. I adore them and they worship me in return, so it worked out great. My sister skipped a grade and is mature for her age, so it’s always felt more like a 2 year age difference between us, and we grew up fighting and competing a lot. We’re okay now that I’m at university 3,000 miles away, but I doubt we’ll ever be best friends.
My sister is 7 1/2 years older than our brothers, and she’s also pretty close to them, but in a different, more parental way. I guess because she’s the responsible one while I’m more rebellious, lol.
Oh, and my sister and I have both frequently been mistaken for our brothers’ mother. It just comes with the territory, I guess.
In my extended family, one of my grandmothers is 17 years older than her youngest sister and is friendly but not close with her, the other grandmother is 15 years older than her brother and pretty close with him. So I’d say the ideal maximum number of years between siblings is completely random/dependent on the family.
I agree with some things in here and don’t entirely agree with others.
First, it’s important to recognise there are many reasons for last age gaps, change in situation, fertility problems etc. It may not be that they intended to have a large age gap at all.
[name_f]My[/name_f] Mum lost a baby a few years after having me, so she didn’t feel able to have another one straight away and struggled to conceive for a long time, I suppose due to stress. [name_f]My[/name_f] brother is six years younger than me, just in his second year of high school, and I am at university in my second year. When we were little the gap was more apparent, however, it was never that important. He was always aware that there were things that I was allowed to do because I was older and that’s just the way it was. He didn’t ever complain about it because he knew it was non-negotiable. So in terms of that it was fine. Nowadays there doesn’t even feel like there is much of an age gap at all, we hang out, we talk and I consider him a very close friend. We grew up with two cousins, also close in age to us, who spent a good deal of their time out our house, on vacations with us etc. I am the eldest of the four, then my male cousin is six months younger, my female cousin is three years younger than him and my brother is two years younger than her. That seemed to work out good for the most part. We both had someone close in age, but also someone we could kind of mother a little as well.
Ultimately, it always varies from family to family, circumstance to circumstance, and I think everyone should just do what’s best for them. [name_f]My[/name_f] Mum is one of ten, many of her siblings were already married and out of the house by then (she was an auntie before she was even born!) so she wasn’t close to all of them; but she still loved them. And I think now, as the others have said, it makes much less of a difference then it did when she was five and her sisters were in their 20s or so. Ideally, I’d want a two to three year gap between mine; but I want to adopt so it’s really unpredictable. Anyway, for some it matters and some it doesn’t.
I think the sibling relationship is more affected by the family as a whole and how the parents foster the sibling relationship than the age difference.
I am 4 years older than my brother. We fought brutally as kids (to the point of abuse, far worse than sibling rivalry). Now, we get along, and while we love each other, we’re not really friends or even close.
[name_f]My[/name_f] boyfriend is close to both of his siblings. One is 2 years older, and one is 11 years younger. He and his brother were close playmates as kids, attended high school together, but also delt with sibling rivalry and his parents had to deal with the elder being not such a great influence at times.
With the younger, while they weren’t close playmates, he really enjoyed being a role model and babysitter for her (and still does), and they still play together, watch movies and cook together, play sports, wrestle, etc. At 11 and 22 today they have an extremely close relationship.
Sometimes I feel bad my daughter won’t have any siblings close in age, but I know us fostering a healthy sibling relationship is more important than the age difference, and when she does become a big sister, she’ll experience the same love and good family memories as she would having a sibling earlier on, and some of the sibling rivalry might be missed, which is a nice trade off for a live in playmate.
I know a couple families with siblings with 30+ year age gaps. In one family it worked out well, in several others it didn’t work well. In one the older siblings became abusive to the younger sibling. In both of those cases the two men told me they never felt a sibling relationship with their older siblings. In the two others I know, religious families that did the whole women-are-supposed-to-make-babies-forever thing, the older siblings essentially became parents to the younger siblings (mostly because the moms had too many kids and couldn’t keep up), which led to some very weird complexes for everyone involved.
TL;DR very large age gaps in siblings can sometimes be alright, but in my personal observable experience it hasn’t quite been like that.
I have two sisters and one brother, all younger than me, and our relationships are varied. The difference between me and my sister is 4 1/2 years, I was almost 5 when she was born, and I believe we got along okay when she was very little. We have very different personalities though; she’s much more outgoing and outspoken than me, and we fought like cats and dogs throughout our childhood. Our relationship only really started getting better once I moved out in 2012, and we’re getting closer but we still fight occasionally. Our parents are divorced, so the younger two are half siblings of ours. We lived with our mum and step-dad, and their daughter is 11/12 years younger than me, and we have a great relationship. I loved being able to do stuff for her, and once I learned to drive taking her out for sister days was so fun. I miss being around now that I’ve moved out, but it’s so exciting when I go back and visit her. [name_f]My[/name_f] dad and my step-mum live three hours away from where I live, and my half brother is about 13 years younger than me. We have a good relationship too, but it’s a little weird since we never see each other that often, so he’s like an only child most of the time. I love spending time with him though, but again I do a lot of things for him that I didn’t with my 15 year old sister.
[name_f]My[/name_f] sister who only has a 7-8 year age gap with our half siblings winds them up to no end, she argues with my half sister a lot, although she’s mellowing down a bit now that she’s getting closer to the end of her teen years. She winds my brother up too, but there’s less of that since she only sees him about once a month.
It really depends on the personality of the children, but 2-7 years is the age gap that I want when having my children.
I would say between 2 and 5 years - that’s how it was with me and my sisters.
I’ve got family though who have a variety of years between them, my paternal grandfather (who is Irish) is the youngest of nine and his eldest sibling something is something like 25 years older than him. [name_f]My[/name_f] grandad has nieces and nephews who are older than him which is kind of weird…