Sibling spacing
sundaesprinkles
member
I've been thinking lately about how far apart we should space our kids. We want three....maybe four kids. I've always thought we should space them 2 years apart, but after having our first I'm not as sure. My reasons for 2 years apart are so we pretty much go through the stages all at once instead of waiting say 5 years and then having to "start over". And so hopefully the kids will have a closer bond since they'll be able to relate to each other and do more things together as they grow up. Also so I'll be younger when I have them. I'm 27 now, so I'd be done by 31 if we have 3, 33 if we have 4.
But I find myself dreading the newborn stage again. I find myself enjoying my son more and more the older he gets (and the more sleep I get!). I'm wondering if 2 years is enough of a "break" from the newborn stress. We're leaning more towards having 3 kids anyway, so if I space them 3 years apart I could still be done by 33.
So I'm wondering what everyone else is planning to do, or has already done if you have more than one? Obviously things may not work out the way we plan for various reasons, but ideally what would your spacing be? I'm also asking just out of curiousity because as an only child I find sibling relationships very interesting.
Re: Sibling spacing
On one hand, I want four years between my LO's. This way DD will be in Pre K when the next one comes and I'll have more one on one time with the new LO.I feel like a lot of times second, third, etc children get shafted in that regard. Also, thinking way ahead it would be nice to have big celebrations like graduation parties and sweet 16's,in the case of two girls, spaced out some.
On the other hand, I would like them closer in age so they can relate to each other better as they grow up. Also, the selfish reason of being done with pumping and such would be over sooner. I plan to EP with this LO and the next until their first birthdays and I'm already dreading the next time even though I'm only six weeks into this time!
One thing for damn sure, I don't want two in diapers at the same time!
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My sister and I are two years, two months apart... We were each other's best friends so I have always thought of that as pretty good spacing....
DH and I were originally wanting 3, spaced two or so years apart, but currently I have been contemplating either being 'one and done' or having just one more and spacing them maybe three years apart.
My two oldest are 2 years 4 months apart and I thought that was perfect. However, based upon where their birthdays fall in the year, they are 3 years apart grade-level wise. That is something to consider. Most schools are broken down into really small segments (k-5 or even k-2/3-5) 6-8, and then 9-12. If your kids are more than 3 years apart, they are never really at the same school growing up. This can be a PITA as a parent. Over half the states have a cut-off date of August (I'm a teacher) so with these little ones born in May, anything over 27 months apart would make them 3 years apart in school. Finally, we just had this LO after a 12.5 year gap.....definitely too big a gap between siblings. My oldest will be off to college when this LO is 3!
**DD1 - 7/9/98**
**DS - 11/9/00**
**DD2 - 4/30/13**
I'm glad you brought up the school thing. I hadn't thought about that.
ttc after ds turns 2 or start ttc earlier so they are close to 2 years apart. I def want them to be close in age so they always have someone to play with. I also love the newborn stage. When nannying I found myself getting sad when the kids got older and needed me less. My sister and I are five years apart which I think is too much of a difference. When growing up we weren't as close bc were at diff stages in develop and it didn't have much in common. I also didn't like how since I was older I was suppose to be responsible for her. We weren't close until we were both much older. I would say when I was in college and she was in high school.
The downside is that they may be in competition with each other. I have friends that are like that and the younger one always feels like her older sister does everything before she does. First to graduate, first to give grandkids etc.
I think every option has good and bad things about it so you just have to do what works best for your family.
EDIT: to say we haven't figured out what works best for us yet btw.
You'll forget the infant stuff really quickly.
By the time we started TTC for #2 when DS1 was around 15 mos. old, I had forgotten a lot of the really tough stuff. It was sort of a haze to me at that point. I feel like maybe it's meant to be that way so that mankind continues to procreate...otherwise, I'm not sure I would have had another. 
Haha. DH wants to have at least one more but I'm going to hold off on making that decision until this LO's infant stage is a haze in my mind. 
But yeah. We purposefully tried to space our kids out exactly two years apart and it worked out well (25 mos apart) for all of the reasons mentioned above: so they'd be close playmates, close in school, so that we'd be on the younger side when they were young, and so that we could get all of this infant craziness out of the way at once.
Not gonna lie, it's hard having two young ones right now. DH and I are running on fumes most days, we're all sleep-deprived, and we pay a lot of money to have good help (babysitter & daycare) around because we don't have much family close by. However, in a couple of years I know I'm going to be so glad we did it this way.
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This! I want our next son to be 2 grades apart. Being from NY, there you have till December before the cut off date but we now live in the South, the cut off is August. We are going to try and have the next LO in JulyAug of 2015. If we were back in NY we would be planing for October/November.
We're like this too, somewhat carefree. I'm not on birth control now but I am EBF(and he's pulling out, sorry tmi). I'm sorta hoping for natural spacing, possibly getting pregnant again when dd is a year old. We'll see, I want 3 and right now he only wants 2.
Congrats Mama!!
I've always wanted a big family and wanted about 2 years in between. But since our first ended up being spontaneous twins we are going to wait longer. I got the Implanon in my arm and that last for 3 years.
I'm nervous we will have another set of twins. Once you've had one set your chances of another is 1-12 and if you have 2 sets your chances for another is 1-4. I met a lady with 2 sets of spontaneous boy girl twins that are 3 years apart so it made me nervous!
Our girls are 4 years apart.
The original plan was for them to be 3 years apart, but life threw us a curveball and DH was laid off. So plans changed.
I love the age gap. Our oldest DD is pretty self-sufficient and LOVES her little sister. She's also a huge help.