Opinions on age gap
I keep going round in circles - my little one has just turned 2 and I'd love another, just can't decide whether to go for it now or wait another year. I'm a sahm and sometimes the overstimulation is so much, I don't know how I'd handle having a newborn too. Do I wait another year as a 4 year old is a little more independent and life may be a little less stressful, or are two kids always going to be a struggle, especially for the first couple of years, in which case why wait and they may be closer if not such a large age gap? I also know it's hard to even plan as who knows how long it could take to get pregnant, so should we just go with the flow if we know we definitely want another. Any advice welcome please!
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Two of my kids are 3 3/4 years apart. It is PERFECT. They've never had a fight. Zero sibling rivalry. Their cousin is 4 years after my youngest. Perfection again. They are more like siblings without any sibling rivalry. 4 years spacing is ideal for me.
i’m in a similar position, my daughter is 2.5 and part of me wants to get pregnant and the other part of me says hell no lol. I’m a sahm, no family around so i stress about being able to handle 2 mostly on my own. sometimes i think let’s just get it out of the way now but sometimes i think things would be easier if we wait until my daughter is in school. idk its so hard!
My older kids are 3yr 10mo apart. It was very manageable gap but I wished it were smaller.
It also took me over 10 months to conceive my second child, so I’d keep that in mind too when trying to plan for the gap.
We have just under a three year age gap and it works well. However, I work outside the home too so we kept our eldest in childcare for his usual slots 4 days a week while I was on my year of maternity leave. Also my husband compressed his hours to be off on Fridays so I wouldn't be alone with both - this was amazing especially in the early days! If I'd been a SAHP I'd likely have waited a bit longer between them. My eldest started school at 4 so probably would've aimed for then.
My kids are 23 months apart i nursed til third trimester pregnant so for me the hardest part is that I’ve been pregnant or nursing for 3.5 years straight and would like some chance to have bodily autonomy before getting pregnant again so if I did I would want to space them out more for that reason. I would like to be able to get into better shape again between pregnancies and have some time where I’m not breastfeeding and could have a bit more freedom before having another. Age gap is fine and they are really cute playing together. It is a lot of work to manage the toddler and her emotions while caring for the baby as I would like to so my husband took over a lot of the toddler care. If you don’t have help I think spacing them out more is easier.
They say the best age gap is four years. Obviously I went for a much smaller one myself but that’s what some research suggests. My mom and her sister are three years apart and they have never gotten along so that’s my anecdotal take 😅
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