Wherein I Change My Mind About the Ideal Spacing Between Babies
Violet and Henry are almost exactly two years apart.
My oldest brother is two-and-a-half years older than I am. My younger brother is two years younger than me and my youngest brother is two-and-a-half years younger than him.
It’s no wonder that, growing up, I always imagined that two years was the ideal spacing between siblings. We were all close but not too close. We had our respective sets of friends but I was able to have crushes on my older brother’s friends, usually to no avail (Casey Child I’m looking at you) and I hope just a few of my younger brother’s friends thought I was the cute older sister.
What I mean to say is, it was fun growing up with siblings fairly close in age. Sure, we fought a lot and yeah, my older brother tortured me a fair amount but he also threatened to kill anyone who messed with me, as every good big brother should.
I remember having dinner with a friend who has two daughters nearly five years apart. I asked her how she felt about the spacing and whether she thought it was too far apart. She indicated that, as far as she was concerned, it was ideal. Her oldest daughter can help out with the younger daughter but the girls are still close enough that they can be friends with each other as they age, and not necessarily as competitive as two siblings closer in age. would be. Rebecca Eckler over at Mommyish agrees. She’s knocked up right now. Her kids will be nearly a decade apart and she says she couldn’t be happier.
“While I didn’t plan or not plan on having another child so far apart from my first, I believe that this is age gap is positively perfect and is going to make my life a lot easier than most who have children 18 months or two or three years apart.”
Eckler goes on to list all the reasons why she believes a ten-year age gap is awesome. You can click the link for specifics, but the gist is that her oldest daughter is independent, more or less, and she won’t ever have to listen to two children endlessly bicker over toys (like I’m being forced to do this very second I type). Her daughter is old enough to understand what having a baby means and is very excited to go through the experience with her mom. Plus, built-in babysitter, DUH! Finally, and maybe most importantly, Eckler says she already had a decade to bond with her daughter. The only downside Eckler comes up with is that it’s been so long that she was pregnant she feels like this is the first time.
For a while there, I was super anxious to plan a third child. I wanted the kid to be close in age to Henry and Violet. But, the more I think about it, the more I realize there are pros and cons to every age gap. And I like this time with my two babies. Another baby might be too much of a strain and then nobody is happy. I guess what I’m saying is I’ve mellowed out about spacing between kids. It no longer matters to me. Whatevs, yo. If the next time I get knocked up Violet is in junior high and Henry is in elementary school, I’d be cool with that. Maybe. I mean, hell, that would make me, what? 45? Probably not gonna happen. But still, I’m cool with whatever happens.
Click on over to Madeline Holler’s article on the pros and cons of various sibling spacings to read more about this topic. Madeline has a pretty interesting opinion – she has three kids who are each four years apart.
You can also find Monica Bielanko on her personal blog, The Girl Who.
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It’s a tough one. I am six years younger than my brother and I felt like we grew up in completely seperate families. I guess everyone’s experience is different.
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I think ultimately it depends on the personalities of the individuals, which is hard to plan for. I know adult siblings close in age who are good friends, and adult siblings close in age who can’t stand each other (even one set of identical twins who don’t get along at all)! My husband has six siblings, and the one he’s closest to emotionally is over a decade older than he is. Some sibs just get along and some don’t.
There are definitely pros and cons. I have four – my first two, the boys, are 21mo apart. Then there is a 2yr, 7mo gap to my 3rd (a girl) and the 4th came 18mo later (another girl). We planned it this way. There hardest adjustment was when the 2nd came along. With the 3rd it was a little hard in the very beginning. With the 4th we were pros and it really doesn’t feel any different than 3. They are now 7, 5, 3, and 1. My older two are great helpers with the younger two. It takes a lot of endurance, but having the baby/toddler phases overlap works for us.
Mine are going to be 19 months apart. We didn’t plan it that way, as I really wanted a 4 or 5 year age gap….but, c’est la vie! Hopefully, they’ll be friends and the third can be 4 our 5 years down the road.
I have two older sisters that are 4 and 5 years older than me. As the baby, I got a lot of attention from them and was looked after. They fought between themselves a lot more (borrowing each others clothes, toys, shoes). I never felt as if there was a rift between us and my oldest sister who is 5 years older than me was like my mini mommy. She helped me read and taught me how to do things and new words. It also has to do with personality differences.
I’m the oldest of four girls — my next two youngest siblings are 3 and 4 years younger than me, but the last is 10 years younger. Although the situation was ideal for my mother in all the aforementioned reasons about a decade gap, I have never felt as close to my youngest sister as I do with the other two. We didn’t “grow up” together, we don’t have shared interests, and I’m out in my career, married, while she’s a freshman in high school. I think it’ll improve as we get older, but it sucks to not feel like we have much in common, esp. compared to my relationships with my other sisters.
My brother is older than me by 7 years, and now that we are adults we can kind of respect each other. But growing up it was especially hard, and I believe it was harder for me. My mom was a single mother and we had to share a room until he was 16. But I truly believe the family dynamic is more dependent upon personality and the parent(s) way of ruling the roost than anything else. I still hold a lot of resentment towards my brother which is sad, but worse we never really developed a friendship due to competition for my mothers attention. As I am now 34 with my first child, I will definitely play a more active role in squashing any heated arguments between my future children. Recently, I learned a therapists said for my mom to let us be, let us argue all day and night, as long as there was no blood….ughhhh!!!
We are thinking of having a third. My two sons are 2 1/2 years apart. I’m glad we’re over the toddler phase with my younger son. I would prefer the gap to be closer, but at least I will have two helpers. I agree personality is also a part. I have three sisters. My older sister and l have a 4 year gap and we fought a lot. My two younger sisters and l have 3 and 8 years between us, and l get along with them best. At the end of the day, as long as they are healthy it really doesn’t matter x
I think Stacey has a point about parents setting the tone. Each of my siblings are 6 years apart with me being the oldest and my youngest sibling 12 years younger. We get along ok now but conflicts and jealousies in our childhood were primarily my mothers fault. She still stirs stuff up on occasion. She always felt the need to knock me down because I was so much better in school than my other two siblings. She would belittle me for lacking common sense to make them feel better about themselves. Sadly it persists to this day despite it being very clear that my younger siblings lack any kind of sense at all. As far as my situation is concerned, my children are 8 1/2 years apart due to secondary infertility. My oldest is a wonderful older brother and the baby adores him. Keeping in mind my Mother’s mistakes, I hope to foster a good relationship between two kids spaced so far apart. The jury is still out on having a third, but if we do it will be within the next year and a half as I am turning 34 this year.
I agree that it’s different for everyone. My older sister is 6 years older than me and we didnt feel close until our twenties. Growing up I was a nuisance to her. My younger brother is 2 years younger and we are very close. We bickered here and there but always were very close. Although our mother passing at a young age may have something to so with that.
I hate when parents have kids far apart and expectt the older kids to be babysitters. My best friend was constantly trapped at home on weekends babysitting her much younger siblings. I know that’s not everyones experience but I do think older kids are expected to be responsible for the younger and that’s not fair.
Diera, exactly. I know that part of me wants siblings for our son.. and he’s 5 months now and ive thought so much about it … So much that I’m so confused! Lol.
I have a younger sister and were 10 years apart and she might as well be from another family. Even the way she was raised is different!
Than I have a brother who’s 3 years younger and we haven’t talked in 10 years.
Could it be more about how you’re raised and what kind of family values your parents teach you? Hmmm.
My husbands brother is 2 years older and they’re so happy to have each other and are business partners.
My siblings are 5 and 8 years older than me, and as we aged we were able to socialize more; obviously the older 2 have the similar friends. I use to think that 3 years was the perfect age separation so my son could have communicated more easily, but honestly there is exactly 2 years apart and he and his sister at 5 and 7 are really close and share a room by choice. Siblings are wonderful a wonderful thing to give to your children.
We starting trying for our 2nd child just before my daughter turned 2. However, I had three pregnancy losses over two years. It was devastating. Now I’m the very happy mother of a 5 year old and a 9 month old. It’s not what I planned but my daughter is a great older sister and my son is enthralled with his big sister.
I’m the eldest of 4 – we’re 29 (me), 27 (sister), 25 (brother) and 20 (brother). the 9 year gap between me and my youngest brother isn’t so marked because of the 2 in between and meant when he was 14 I was the cooler older sister who could take him to gigs but now he’s in uni, I’m married with kids and we’ve got very different lives. I’m most close to my sister – we live streets away, we enjoy each others company and have lots of shared interests. When we were children we (me and my sister) were very different characters but we tended to play as a 3 or a 4. The older 3 of us have married in the past 3 years, we’ve got similar focuses in our lives. My youngest brother is from another decade – I look at his life with thoughts of nostalgia about my own time at uni, travelling, all that. He’s at a fairly selfish age too where I seem too adult and boring (I’m not!!!) I also always thought 2 years was an ideal age gap as it’s what I experienced and what most of my school friends had so we had my son when my step daughter was 2. I think a huge positive with the first 2 children that way is that the first doesn’t get too used to be being the only child. We had to leave longer before our next (as we couldn’t sell our flat and needed more space) – there’ll be nearly 4 years between my son and this one but it’s been lovely seeing him and his older sister understand what’s going on, get involved and I’m not worried about the gap at all.
My husband and i decided early on to not use any contraception and our seven children are all almost exactly two years apart. Now i am pg with #8 and will be 39 when she is born – and this time my two youngest will be four years apart. It’s interesting to compare with my great grandmother and great great grandmother’s offspring and see that this seems to be the pattern they had (also with no birth control besides abstinence available to them!). I’m not saying it’s something to shoot for, just that it’s interesting to see what my body’s natural pattern is