Baby spacing

In My Humble Opinion
1

My husband and I are ready for another kid – we think. Our daughter is 21 months right now, so if I get pregnant right away (not out of the question, only took 1 month for her) she’ll be anywhere beyond 2.5 when the new baby comes.

So doper parents, how are your kids spaced? What in your experience works the best, for mom and dad and for the kids? I’d be curious also to hear from anyone who had this kind of spacing from a sibling.

Hope I haven’t left this question too late…we’ve been off of birth control for 2 months actually! :eek:

Twiddle

2

Mine are not quite 13 months apart. The first three years were some sort of Zombie World. No time at all for myself other than work (I’m a work outside the home mom). Didn’t read books. Slept, worked and kids. Lots of diapers.

But now that they are four and five, its great, because they play really really well together. They don’t need to be watched every minute.

3

I don’t have any kids but I can give an answer from the kid’s perspective FWIW. I come from a large family (my mother obviously liked kids! and though we were extremely hard (and full-time) work I’m sure, she doesn’t seem to have regretted her decisions so far :slight_smile: ).

Anyway there are seven of us and the age-gaps are as follows (I’m the middle child):

Child 1
2yr 8 month gap
Child 2
3 yr 1 month gap
Child 3
2 year gap
Child 4 - MEEEEEEEE (the most wonderful child :wink: )
2 yr 9 month gap
Child 5
2 year 3 month gap
Child 6
3yr 6 month gap
Child 7

Me and my older sister (who are exactly 2 years apart get on very well though that could also be because we have similar interests).
My two younger brothers who are 2 years and 3 months apart also get on very well together. I think gender plays a role in how well the kids get on together but in general these age-gaps seem to have worked well for us (as kids - can’t speak for my long-suffering parents).

Other people I know who are 3.5, 4 or 5 years apart from their siblings don’t get on so much as ‘friends’ in the way that we do as they go through the milestones in life further apart. I think 2.5 years is a good gap between kids but as I said, that’s only from the kid’s perspective - don’t know how it would be for you…

4

My parents intentionally spaced me and my older sister almost exactly 4 years apart on the optimistic premise that they would thus be able to avoid having 2 children in college at the same time. Considering that no person in either immediate family had yet attended college, it was truly a measure of hope and trust. Worked fine, except that I skipped a grade in primary school. And then my sister had to leave college in the middle because back in the good old days if a student became pregnant she was required to leave, even if married. And then I chose to marry after my freshman year in college as well. So my folks ended up paying for exactly 3 years of an expected 8 years of college. Oh, and both my sister and I eventually did get college degrees.

I always figured 2 years apart was good, as it gives the mother sufficient chance to physically recover. Unfortunately for me, nature had other ideas and my 2 kids are 4 years apart.

5

my sister is almost exactly 2.5 years older than I am, and I think that’s a good age difference. Not so close that we were likely to have the same friends in school (we were three years apart grade-wise), but now that we are older we get along very well, and are at similar places in our lives. Plus, we always had somebody to play with when we were little (even if we did get in fights, also).

6

Our two are a little more than 2.5 apart, which has worked pretty well. DangerGirl was pottytrained by the birth (just barely!), so we didn’t have two kids in diapers at once. She was old enough to be semi-trusted not to roll over onto the baby or anything, so I could leave them alone for up to 30 seconds at a time. Now that DG is almost 4 and DBaby is 14 months, they play together really well and laugh a lot. It’s fun to see them together. I still have to watch them, of course, but they play nicely by themselves as long as I’m keeping an eye on them; I don’t have to hover all the time any more.

7

Am I the only person here who saw the thread title as "Baby Splicing "–that is, the process of cutting several infants into pieces, & grafting them together into one, longer baby? :confused:

8

I don’t have kids, but I’m the oldest of 3 with spacings of 2 years 5 months and then 2 years 2 months.

It seemed to work well. Each kid was close enough that they could associate readily with the others. but each was at his own stage, so Mom didn’t have to deal with 2 sets of Terrible Twos in quick succession, for example.

We grew fast enough that toys & clothes and such could be handed down with some gap. When I got done with something, it disappeared for a year and then reappeared and so #2 never realized they weren’t new, at least not til he was 6 or more. It helped that we were all boys.

In school, I was 3 grades ahead of #2 who was 2 grades ahead of #3. That was far enough apart that they never flet like they were trailing in my wake; each had his own career in school, they weren’t seen as LSLGuy’s younger brother. That’s important. Kids have enough natural sibling rivalry without the adults in their world making it worse.

Obviously you can’t space these two any closer together. If you were 100% sure you were only going to have 2, then you could wait a year if you wanted. I wouldn’t deliberately plan kids farther than about 4 years apart; more spacing than that precludes them becoming very close pals.

If you wanted 3 or more, I’d get to work on #2 right away to keep the whole group from getting too spread out. You do want to be done parenting before you turn 65.

YMMV

9

Just about two minutes apart. :smiley:

They’re 18 months old now and it’s really easy dealing with their ups and downs as they seem to happen at EXACTLY the SAME TIME!

Or, they’re spaced out just enough so that life’s a continual cryfest.

10

In our house it’s like this

Kid 1
17 months ( it was supposed to be 18, but kid 2 came earlier than planned )
Kid 2
38 months
Kid 3

We got lucky with kid 1. He was very easy going so bringing home another kid wasn’t really a problem.

The nice thing was each previous kid was potty trained before the next one came.

Kids 1 and 2 are very close now ( ages 7 and 8 almost 9 ), even though they are different genders they play well together.

Kid 3 is very close to my oldest step-daughter who is 10 years older than she is.
She does play with kid 2, but they just don’t click like kid 1 and 2.

11

My brother is 1 year, 10 months younger than me. I can’t exactly speak for my mom, but I think the age difference is just about perfect. We were two grades apart in school, but we’ve always gotten along fantastically. We played together all the time as kids and stuck together, even against our parents. We’re now 21 and 19, and still enjoy each others company.

12

Our two (g & b) youngest children are 1 year and 1 day apart in age. Most of the time they are best buds. The younger skipped a grade in school so they are even in the same grade. Because they aren’t the same gender, there is very little direct competition between them, except academically. This year they each rec’d the Literary Medal of Honor, strictly by coincidence, they had different literature teachers!

13

These all seem to be very close. My sister and I are four years apart, and it’s seemed to work out well. We didn’t go to middle- or highschool together, and some of the big financial hits my parents took (helping us with a car and college, mainly) were spaced out enough so it wasn’t like everything hit at once.

14

Our kids are five years apart, specifically so we’d have a free year between them going to college. The free year is next year, and I’m damn glad we did it that way. I think it worked out pretty well, as the older one was a big sister to the younger one.

My brother and I were born less than 18 months apart, which I thought was a bit close, since we fought a lot as kids, though we’ve gotten over it and are good friends now. Having only two makes the spacing easier.

15

Our kids are 2 1/2 years apart. There are days when I’m not so sure I’m up to the task but now that the little one sleeps more and can entertain himself a little things are easier.

My three year old isn’t potty trained. The birth of the boy really hit her hard. She’s gotten clingier and needier than ever. She spends a fair amount of time playing “baby” and this has been rough.

But all in all the kids are great and I’m thankful for them both. I’ve discovered that life happens and plans are for not!

16

My parents spaced us out evenly - there is 15 months between me and my younger sister, and 16 between me and my older sister. Mum reckons that if she could do it all over again, she would have made the space 2 years.

17

Thanks to everyone who’s replied, it sounds like 2.5 years apart is a pretty good spacing!

We are hoping for three kids total and I’m 31, so not dawdling too much is indeed a consideration.

And Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor…I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. :wink:

18

You seem to have decided, but I’ll throw my two cents in anyway. My sister & I are two years & two months apart; it’s workd out reasonably well. We’re close enough in age that we have a good relationship, but we’re not so close that there’s a sort of competition between us. YMMV, though, because my sister was always somewhat behind, maturity-wise, whereas I was always rather adult for my age - it was more like a four year age difference sometimes.

Worked out reasonably well for my parents both discipline & work-wise; my mother had more job options open because, as younger students, Sis & I could go home together & watch out for each other for the hour before my mother arrived home. The whole thing about having two of your offspring in college at the same time can be a bit of a stressor, but we’re able to handle it.

19

Don’t some colleges take that into consideration when awarding financial aid? I’m sure I remember that from my own college days. I have an older step-brother who was only a year ahead of me in school (we didn’t reside in the same household) and though my dad was paying for both of our colleges, because we weren’t full siblings we didn’t count for that extra consideration.

Is it poor manners to hijack my own thread this way?

20

I’m nine months older than my sister. :eek:

My parents have said (at least in retrospect) that they’re glad we were basically the same age. They may have had to deal with two of us, but didn’t have to go through the most tiring years more than once, or for an doubly long period. And, later, could usually deal with our specific growing pains at the same time.

As for how my sister and I got along, we have very different personalities. She’s outgoing and sociable, and was comfortable playing with others. I’m reserved and shy, and was more comfortable playing in my own little world. We fought quite a bit when we were younger due to these differences.

I would be busy building a complex Lego city, and my sister - just wanting to play - would end up trampling through the city like Godzilla. :stuck_out_tongue: Nowadays, however, we both understand each other quite well, and are quite close.

Despite a nine month difference in age, due to the months we were born, we ended up going through school in the same grade. However, after grade one - when we were in different homerooms - I chose to go into French immersion, and we never shared a class together until our first course in the tenth grade. However, that would be the only class we ever shared.

In elementary school (grades one to six), considering our personalities, and the fact that I was a runt, my sister was my protector. I was also considered a “gifted” :rolleyes: student, and got very high grades despite never actually applying myself. My sister, however, had to work very hard for her average grades.

I’ve done practically nothing with my life yet. My sister’s gone through nursing school, works full-time as a nurse (in the psychiatric department - which comes in handy when dealing with the rest of the family :wink: ), and now owns her own house. I look up to her, and actually consider her my “big sister”.

And it was very nice, for the whole family, that we were in the same graduating class. Unfortunately, we weren’t looking ahead when we bought our high-school yearbooks. To save money, we decided to share. When she moved away, she took the books with her. :smack:

Anyhoo…