How many kids? Big families, Big age Gap?

I've just copied and pasted a blog post, because it's the most sense I've made of our situation so far :)

I grew up wanting four children. Quadruplets actually, big family, only have to deal with pregnancy once. That was 'the dream'.

As I got older, reality set in.

Our gorgeous girl Butterfly was about 5 years early. She turns 3 on Sunday :O! We love her with all our heart and all our soul, and love the direction she's taken our lives. She was a crash course in parenting - she's been a very intense little girl from the start. First she had severe colic. She takes after her father and we are relatively sure she is acedemically gifted. Yes this can be a great thing, but it means we need to be very very careful as parents too. More about that later. She's hypersensitive to sound, and this means we have to constantly be aware of whats happening around her. Butterfly is a perfectionist, awesome help in the kitchen, and has a wicked sense of humour.

Snoopy has just turned one. He too takes after his father, but is far more relaxed and laid back than Hollie. He chills, thinks, watches, thinks, then reacts. He also has an awesome charater and sense of humour :)

The engineer is tested gifted. He went to manage the family business so that we could purchase our first home, and I could be a stay at home mother for our children. He then returned to uni to complete degree number two in Chemical Engineering. He's got a sharp fine mind, and is easily fustrated when it's not working to it's potential. It's best he does what he needs to do! The benefits for our family will pay off immensly ~ just one more year of full time teaching for me.

The thing is, we decided on 3 children. 3 children feels 'right'. 3 children would leave our family feeling complete.

We've agreed that the best thing for our family, is going to be to relocate them to Taranaki. The lifestyle and opportunities up there will provide us with the most stability. (We're from Canterbury - no pun intended). We'll go, whe nchild three is 1.

The thing is, children are awesome, children are a gift ,but children are also incredibly hard work. I love my children with everything in me, but I really don't know if I can cope with 3 young children, in a new town, witthout family support, when I may still need to work part time.

So then we have two - Butterfly and Snoopy. Time to pack up the baby gear, sell on the extras, and start planning forward. I can't imagine just the two at Christmas time though.

I thought I wanted three close in age. We DID want three close in age.

Now it makes more sense to wait, move, settle, and then have two more, with a further gap apart. More settled, big family.

I'm only 25...that could work, right?

Does anyone have any experience in big families with distinct age gaps between children? How does it work?

My own experience was my five older siblings were all born within 5.5 years (so five children under 6 years old) then I was born 6 years later. I am closer to each of my siblings than they are to each other, so in my experience extended age gaps are no problem. Also my parents had calmed down alot by the time I came along and weren't the reactive type parents that we can all be with our fist children, so I had a lovely upbringing. My Sister has nine years between her two children, (21 year old girl and 12 year old boy) and they are, and always have been, best of friends.

Slightly different scenario to those above.
My mum had me at 16. Her school friends also had a baby at the same time so he and I grew up together and went to the same schools.
My mum went on to have my sister's 3.5 years and 6 years gap from me. My sister's were always close cos they were closer in age.

My mum's school friends had one more child, same age gap as me and my middle sister.
THEN when we were 15 his parents had another child (they were only in their 30's) and a year later another.

It seemed to work really well and even now I can totally see the benefits to spreading their family out like that.
Funny thing was their second child got pregnant when we were teens so their grandkid is similar age to their last kid.


Edited by Danda08

I come from a family that has two kids then a six year gap and another two kids. I am in the later of the two kids and it really felt like two families to me. It wasn't till we were much older that I started mixing with my older brothers.
Would I do it myself. Possibly. I'd have to think hard about the fact i'd be returning back to the baby stage again and the extra length of care at the other end. It would be nice to have the kids grown up and still be relatively young.
i think only you will know the answer. Good luck with deiding.

I come from a family of eight, with – give or take - about two years between siblings. I’m lucky in that I have really good relationships with all of them. They might have been different dynamics growing up depending on the age differences, but none of them were bad, just different. I still do obviously have a different relationship with my adult brothers and sisters than I do say with my 10-y-o brother. I found that once we hit the adult stage the dynamics tend to be more influenced by our personal views on life than the age gaps between us.

In our own little family, after the difficulty we had to conceive Jacob we figured we’d rather not miss any opportunities, so if the kids happened to end up close together so be it. And they did… so that’s how it’s going to be . I can see there will be the odd downside to having them close, but to be honest I’m just so stoked to be expecting another one so unexpectedly easily that they don’t take up much mindspace at the moment. I’m not sure whether we’ll stop at two or go for another, we’ll see I guess!

Hehe, yep Thanks

Im in the same situation, I always wanted 4 kids and close age gaps. But when DS came along he was a bit of a reality check. Reflux, milk allergy, and just in general very challenging baby and our relationship has also been through the wringer this year. So now the idea of another one scares me, and I'm so not ready. I thought I'd want to try for number 2 quickly as number 1 was hard to conceive but that's so not been the case.

I also find myself wanting to go back to work before having another baby, to get more money behind us again.

So at this stage I think DS will be 3 or even 4 before I have another one. I feel bad in some ways that they won't have a close age gap but also I think it would be a bad decision for us to have another one now, knowing we're not ready and wouldn't cope, for the sake of the age gap.

I think it's important to look at your own situation and your own family and figure out what would work best for you and not worry about anything else. I tend to get swayed by seeing people I know who had babies when I did getting pregnant again, thinking I should be doing that to, that I should want to do that too, but then I know that it really isn't right for us now.

I am 25 like you so hey we have some time up our sleeves. I think you're right to wait. I think big age gaps can be great too- I look forward to DS being a big brother and being able to teach his little sibling things. You've had a small ish age gap so now you can try a bigger one and see what you prefer hehe

I have a 4.5 yr gap between my two, I loved being able to give ds so much attention for his preschool years and now that he is at school dd gets the same attention, I love the big gap..but, I do want a third, and definately dont want another 4 yr gap, prob keep it smaller this time, just so i can get the baby thing over and done with...cant imagine having a 10 yr old and a new born..