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Time between babies
Hi All
My son has just turned 1 and a few of my mummy friends with babies of a similar age have recently got pregnant. Me and my OH want a second (his third) child but I have no clue of the best time to leave between them. My OH and his brother are 18mths apart which he thinks is too close. Me and my brother are 3 years apart which I think might be to long.
What time did you leave between pregnancies and what do you think is the ideal gap if there is one
My son has just turned 1 and a few of my mummy friends with babies of a similar age have recently got pregnant. Me and my OH want a second (his third) child but I have no clue of the best time to leave between them. My OH and his brother are 18mths apart which he thinks is too close. Me and my brother are 3 years apart which I think might be to long.
What time did you leave between pregnancies and what do you think is the ideal gap if there is one
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I always thought that my children got very jealous for a few months after they turned 2.
All the age gaps worked well for me the close ones at the start as I was able to nap in the afternoon while pregnant and after the birth, even with my third as the other two still needed naps at that age.
Thanks for your opinion, i suppose most of it is that us mums cope with anything anyway so whatever we feel happy with we should go with. With my one I have no idea how you cope with four LOL
We have an 18 month gap between our girls which seems to of worked perfect for us. We have two girls that are really close. When Ava first came home from the hospital Mia wasn't impressed in the slightest but after the first week she loves her. I think for us it has worked out much easier as Mia is a lot more independent for us to sort Ava out but Ava was young enough to have a million naps for Mia to still get quality time. As Ava's grown, she turned one in March and Mia is 2 1/2, Ava only has one nap in the day now but they both enough similar things even though they are at different stage of ability. Mia likes doing jigsaws and playing snap where as Ava likes to have another jigsaw and enjoys more playing with the pieces. Our only reason for having them both so close together was we wanted them to be close and have a really nice bond. I know kiddies can do that with a bigger age gap but we didn't want them to have too little in common. It depends really, I think it's probably different for every family. My other half has an 18 month age gap between him and his sister and they can't stand each other and according to his mum they've always been like that. The other thing we thought about was money and childcare costs and could we afford for me to work and pay for 2 lots of nursery fees or could I stop working, or should we leave a bigger gap to let Mia be in nursery at school before having another.
Then the middle 2, the boy and girl, are close too.
To be honest, all age gaps have worked well in our family.
The hardest gap was the first two, with Xene only being 13 months when I fell with Lochie the first couple of months were tough, but as others have mentioned you can squeeze in naps, whereas this time Eowyn has given up naps most days so I don't get much chance to rest, plus I now have the school run for four every morning!I also think that the biggest change is going from one to two, the more you have, the less of a shock it seems to be! (or maybe thats just me..)
i don't think there is an ideal age gap as such i just think its whenever you and your OH think its the right time, just like anything and everything in our lives these days everyone is different and its just whatever works for you.
my son charlie is 3 1/2 and i am now pregnant with baby no2 (14 weeks) we just felt that the time was right for us because charlie is now at pre-school so if i ever need a nap etc during the day i can try and fit it in whilst he's at pre-school and we kinda wanted him to understand and be involved which i feel he's at the right age for us to be involved.
you'll know when the time is right and just think u have 9 months to get ur other little one used to the idea of a brother or sister making an arrival
take care
zoe x
I have a 15mth gap then a 2 yr gap between my 3 girls. If your little one is already a year old then you will probably have a gap close to 2yrs. I had a lot of opinions on the age gaps we have, often quite negative and unwanted! I personally did not plan either gap but if we were to plan a 4th baby I would personally aim for a 2-3year gap. My girls have all been more dependant on me and had more challenging behaviour at 18mths - 2yrs as they are learning so much so quickly that coping with a pregnancy or baby in that period is much harder so I would personally want to leave it until after that stage before coping with the extreme tiredness and nausea I have suffered when pregnant.
From my experience the more independant your little one is before the new baby the better, if they are older you can also reuse your baby equipment without having to double up on cots and needing a double buggy. 2 children in nappies is very expensive, time consuming and left us with an over flowing smelly bin every week or I was permanently washing their resuable nappies.
All my girls are very close and play well together at 5, 3 1/2 and 21 mths. My sister and me have a 23 month gap and either loved or hated each other growing up but are great friends now, my husbands sisters are 10 and 8 yrs older than him and he used to fight with the eldest constantly but all get on great now. As my mother in law says, they are only children a short time and most of their lives the age gap is irrelevant to their relationship.
You have to do what is best for your family and whatever happens there is always a way to cope!