spacing births

I don't have children of my own (yet) but I've been working with children for 10 years.

With only ONE exception in the 100+ families I've worked closely with, those who had children too close in age had a more difficult (but not impossible!) time, and those who spaced them 2+ years had it a little easier.

There are a few reasons.

• Having children close-in-age is harder than having twins. At least with twins, they reach the same developmental stages at about the same time. With children born close together, one child is being potty trained, and the other one follows in short order. Every training/development stage you go through with child #1 is prolonged by child #2 being ready so soon after. Your attention is REALLY divided, more so than it needs to be.
• Child #1, because he/she does not yet have the independence that a 3-5 year old would have, does not serve as the example that most older children might. Usually, younger siblings pick up things like walking, talking, and potty-use pretty quickly because they're mimicking big brother/sister. If big brother/sister only recently mastered said skill, then the younger sibling is going to take just as long in the learning process, which also makes life a little more difficult for the parents, who again have to spend a lot of time on each child.

Now, I'm not saying spending time with your children is undesirable! But it's a lot easier to spend three months potty-training Child #1 and one month training Child #2, than dedicating 6-7 months total potty-training each separately. It's difficult enough to evenly divide your attention between your children, but you also want that time to be spent productively...like reading with them, playing with them, and just loving on them. The frustration of continuous, non-stop, one-child-after-another, month-after-month training and development focus can wear you down quickly!

A last example: It's not fun trying to feed two children at once, and many 1-2 year olds still need feeding attention, and you don't want to need to care for a newborn simultaneously.

I am overweight and have a hard time with my joints sometimes, but otherwise my body is doing great.

The first two get along great, though the younger is envious of the older's ability to read and do things for herself. The next 2 are best friends, without a doubt. Baby is loved by everyone and well looked out for.

I know I have been blessed in my health, especially considering the weight factor. I know some people are blessed in other ways and it would be very hard for them to have so many so close.

We said 2 years apart because we want Justin at least semi-potty trained before we start trying for #2 and I want some of this babt weight to go far, far away first!

annaapple said:

I don't lose an ounce until I stop bf...

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That was me. And I ovulated 10 weeks after giving birth. We practice NFP, and one of the things that turned me off from belonging to an NFP group or taking a class was their insistence that if breastfeeding didn't keep my fertility from returning, I was obviously doing something wrong (not breastfeeding enough, not carrying him in a sling, going back to work, etc). Nevermind that I know tons of women whose cycles came back 3 months into full-time stay-at-home, attachment parenting, co-sleeping, breastfeeding.

Having very close together has been great for us. Ours are 4, 6 and 8. My oldest two are 15 months a part and my middle and youngest are 2 1/2 years a part. Cons are that you will be busy, but who isn't with kids. If we did it all over again we would do it the same. =o)

Coming from a mommy that has three back to back babies, I find none of this true at all. I did not find having them close in age to be harder than twins. I have a few friends with twins and I had it much, much easier. I never had issues (and still don't) with spliting attention. As for the potty training, it was never stressful with any of them, we wait until they are ready and it is up to them and that makes life so much easier. Never had an issue with my kids developmentally either. We know lots of families with multiples, as a matter of fact a group of us moms were just talking at church on Sunday about how much easier it is when your kids are really close, rather than years of spacing.

Your paragraph below about spending time with them and not being able to divide it, etc. I have not seen at all. We are a part of a very large homeschool group with many of the families being very large and kids close together and the majority of them are attachment parents and none of them are as you described.

I just really find your findings very interesting and kinda sad actually. If I had read this before having children, it might have scared me into not having them so close and I am so very glad we did. =o)

Chosen7Stone said:

I don't have children of my own (yet) but I've been working with children for 10 years.

With only ONE exception in the 100+ families I've worked closely with, those who had children too close in age had a more difficult (but not impossible!) time, and those who spaced them 2+ years had it a little easier.


There are a few reasons.

• Having children close-in-age is harder than having twins. At least with twins, they reach the same developmental stages at about the same time. With children born close together, one child is being potty trained, and the other one follows in short order. Every training/development stage you go through with child #1 is prolonged by child #2 being ready so soon after. Your attention is REALLY divided, more so than it needs to be.
• Child #1, because he/she does not yet have the independence that a 3-5 year old would have, does not serve as the example that most older children might. Usually, younger siblings pick up things like walking, talking, and potty-use pretty quickly because they're mimicking big brother/sister. If big brother/sister only recently mastered said skill, then the younger sibling is going to take just as long in the learning process, which also makes life a little more difficult for the parents, who again have to spend a lot of time on each child.

Now, I'm not saying spending time with your children is undesirable! But it's a lot easier to spend three months potty-training Child #1 and one month training Child #2, than dedicating 6-7 months total potty-training each separately. It's difficult enough to evenly divide your attention between your children, but you also want that time to be spent productively...like reading with them, playing with them, and just loving on them. The frustration of continuous, non-stop, one-child-after-another, month-after-month training and development focus can wear you down quickly!

A last example: It's not fun trying to feed two children at once, and many 1-2 year olds still need feeding attention, and you don't want to need to care for a newborn simultaneously.

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