Over the years I have read lots of articles about the “perfect” age gap between children. What I have learned from the copious numbers of theories is that there is no one answer. For every expert who says to have kids close together, there are two who say that you should space them out a bit. For every friend who told me to have them in quick succession so I could get over diapers and teething at the same time, there were others who warned me that this was exhausting and not a great idea. As an only child, I was headed into uncharted waters by even considering a second child regardless of how many years were between Thing 1 and Thing 2. What were we going to do?
Ultimately we decided on a 4 to 5 year age gap and hoped that the pregnancy gods would cooperate. To be honest, our decision was fueled by two things. The first was that our daughter was becoming slightly more self-sufficient. She was not in diapers, she was sleeping through the night and was able to get herself a snack or drink. The fact that life was a bit easier with her made it seem as though it would be a good time to throw another kid into the mix. The second factor was financial. If the second child was born when she was 5-years-old, we would only have one year of overlapping preschool/daycare costs before she started public school. While that one year would be incredibly expensive it would only be one year. With these theories in mind, we jumped in and ended up with a 4 year, 7-month difference in age.
Pros
Let’s start with the pros. The first ones became clear from the beginning. We only had one child who wore diapers, required feedings and kept us awake at night. I did not have to worry about what a toddler was getting into while I was feeding a baby. I was not nursing one and potty training another. My daughter was well-established in preschool and so my maternity leave could be spent focusing on my son. She was also fascinated by her little brother and at least initially did not see him as a threat to her turf. After all, she had a good run as an only child and seemed happy to share the spotlight (for the time being). Our decision about it being more financially reasonable to space them apart proved true. Though we paid a lot for childcare, we did not need to buy a second crib, car seat, or highchair since we could reuse the ones we had. We also had plenty of non-gender-specific hand-me-downs so I did not feel as though I was on the Children’s Place and Target websites every day.
Drawbacks
As my children have gotten older, I am seeing more of the challenges associated with a larger age gap. My kids have very few common interests, which means that very often we are running in two different directions when it comes to activities. This does not just apply to clubs or sports – it means two different theaters for two different movies or a teenage daughter who wants to get a pedicure and an 8-year-old son who wants to run around the playground for two hours. It is a lot of divide and conquer. When we do force them to agree on an activity, you would think it was two lawyers fighting it out in court. Our younger one very often wants to do whatever his sister is doing and she equally often wants nothing to do with him. In addition, if I had a nickel for every time my son said, “how come she gets to do that and I don’t?” or for every time my daughter said, “hey, you didn’t let me do that when I was his age!” I would be retiring tomorrow. They are not natural playmates and more often than not they just want to do their own thing. Some of this could be attributed to their personalities or perhaps gender, but the age gap may exacerbate some of these natural differences.
I always tell myself that when they get older they will get along better. Somehow, when they have to band together, the difference in age will just melt away. I think I will just keep saying that and hope it will come true. Until then, I will put on my chauffeur cap and figure out which kid I am taking where.
