what’s the best age gap?

We have 19 months, we wanted less but went through fertility treatment. My ideal was about 14-16 months, simply because of needing to return to work.

19 months is great, although was really hard work while I was pregnant and in the first few weeks with toddler tantrums. Now Jack loves his sister and its like she was always here. I think they'll be great together when they're older.

Otherwise, I think I would have waited and had a 2-3 year age gap and gone back to work. I just didn't want to have to go through the newborn/baby thing again with such a long gap.

My girls are 20months at the mo and we are trying for another. For me personally I didn't want to start any sooner because the girls are full on toddlers but I don't want a big age gap. I like the idea of the girls being 3 or 4 when and if the new addition arrives. That way they will hopefully be toilet trained and talking more also they will a perfect age to want to help but to understand when to back away lol. Plus once they are four they will be in Kindy which gives me more free time to devote to a newborn.

Well I have a 7 year gap and while its not always ideal , and certainly not what I imagined growing up , it definetly has its benefits, she is very helpful with her brother , and is at school during the day so I can spend all my time with him without worrying about her feeling jealous, which she doesn't get anyway being that shes at an age where she knows I have to give Ty a lot of attention.

However , our next one , we are going to start trying in December next year, and will hopefully get pregnant relatively quickly so the baby is due august, september , october even , just as long as its not due on my birthday (december 30) because I turn 30 the year after next and dammit ! I want to drink at my 30th !!!
(so in other words, Ty will be 2 and a bit depending on how long it takes us )

i got pregnant when E was 10 months(so would have been 19 months) and to be honest that freaked me out.. although we were terribly sad to lose our baby the two year age gap we are getting this time is better for us..Ethan was still so full on in august I don't know how we would have coped..!

I think it has a lot to do with the temperament of your first child and like EMZ said the first few months are hard (well i am assuming they will be! ) but after that it gets easier..

I've found pregnancy wayyyy more tiring etc this time even though I'm not working !!

Ours is 14 months and its been hard, we had planned a 2 year age gap, but mother nature had other plans for us

There is about 3 and a half years between my two kids and to be quite honest it is perfect. It is exactly what we wanted. She was old enough when I was pregnant to realise when I couldnt pick her up anymore. (late second trimester for me).

I could explain to her why I was puking so much (did that throughout my pregnancy) and I enjoyed seeing how she reacted to the scans, visits and talking to her brother. She loved every moment and would trace my stretchmarks and saying they are getting bigger which must mean her brother is growing nice and big to come out. (I swear I will never look at my stretchmarks as bad again with that memory). she even would bring a pillow to me in the lounge and tell me I look tired and do I want to have a nap.

When Andrew came she was brilliant and still is. Our only biggest problem is telling her not to pick him up and walk with him. She does pick him up on the bed ect and wants to walk with him like we do. But understands why she cant but we have to be careful and the same with food. Now that he is eating and feeding himself she keeps on wanting to share her food. (not that her brother has a problem with this at all. )

We have a 5 year gap and it was good being able to drop Janaya off at school and be able to spend the day with Jackson.

The only thing I struggle with now is trying to find things that the two of them can enjoy together. Every morning there are fights between Disney Channel and Playhouse disney.
He adores Janaya and wants to follow her everywhere and she gets frustrated. Her Polly Pockets are too small for him to play with lol.

I think next time we will do no more than a 3.5 year gap.

I love my 5 year age gap...they're both off playing in one of the bedrooms up to god knows what!

I'm a SAHM so I guess that is why I enjoy it more? Best of both worlds, 2 kids but one on one time with the newbie.

I think there are pros and cons to each, and it partly depends on the child/baby. We have 2 years 5 days - we wanted at least 2 years so Jake would be getting or close to getting the 20 free hours by the time I went back to work - which saves us about $100/wk in daycare costs - and it happened first month! We didn't really want a big gap due to my age, but I worked in between and BF'd til 10.5 months so didn't want to try any earlier than we did. I thought 2yrs was not going to be a good age gap at the time even though people kept saying its perfect. I thought if theres 18months or less then at least the older one forgets the baby was never there quickly and they will be close, but it would be very hard for a the first wee while when you almost have two babies. And over 3 years then the older one will be out of nappies, helpful and understand whats happening -- but then again they are more used to being the only child so could get more jealous and the kids will be at very different stages.

So anyway - 2 years has worked out great for us!! Jake has been very good with Morgan, absolutely adores her - we've had no jealousy issues and he brings her toys etc, in fact I thought he would struggle with me spending so much time feeding her at first, but he actually got more independant as he just seemed to know he had to play by himself. It helps that Morgan has been a very chilled bubba too. I think it would have been harder when he was a bit younger, as I found those early toddler months (around 14-18mths) hard cos he couldn't express himself as well .... but he was an early talker so could have full conversations by the time Morgan arrived and understood everything we said. I'm hoping the gap is close enough that they will still be close as they get older .... they certainly are now anyway - she lights up when she sees him and is always lunging at him - and he cuddles her all the time and says "I think baby likes me"

we wanted at least a 2 year age gap we got 2 years 6 days.

I find 2 years close enough. Megan adores her brother and when he cries she says "it's ok Lucas"

as others have said it all depends on the child you really dont know how the older sibling will react until the baby arrives.

I didn't want to have to look after 2 babies which would mean having 2 in nappies (Megan is just in night time nappies now).

the one con for me is when I am feeding Lucas and Megan plays up I cant just get up off the chair and she does use this to her advantage