What Age Gap Do Your Kids Have?

There are 7 of us in 11 years. The closest are 11 months apart and the farthest apart, 3.5 years. Yikes!

I just love seeing this conversation in action! So much of parenting is winging it, even on the pregnancy front. My two boys are three years a part. I unfortunately miscarried between them and it took me a good year to mourn the loss. I never thought my kids would be more than two years a part (we all go into some idea of what we want our family to look like!) but the three year gap has been wonderful for our current place in life. I always feared my boys wouldn’t be close being three years a part, but they are BEST FRIENDS at 2.5 and 5.5! And the cool thing, we don’t feel we’re finished having kids, and the next one may just be 4-5 years age difference! I had my first when i was 27, and at 33 I still feel I have a good 6 years in me before I want to be finished with the baby stage. Accepting what works best for our current family, even though it looks much different than i always imagined, has been very freeing.

I really appreciate the comment about twins not having to be best friends. I am a triplet and everyone always asks if I’m close with my brothers. We honestly aren’t that close but of course we love each other! I think after 18 years of being up each other’s butts in every way (same teachers, same homework, same friends, same field trips, EVERYTHING), we are still relishing in the space from each other. Nothing can be as painful and special as understanding everything on the same level as your siblings because you’re the same age.

My brother is almost 2 years older than me and we don’t really get along, even as adults. He loves to push buttons and I react very easily, so it was tough growing up and my parents didn’t know how to deal with it. I moved overseas very young and really appreciated growing into my own person without the stress of my brother around. Now I’m about to move back to my home country and have to remember to keep the maturity I’ve gained while away and not let him get to me anymore! I always seem to have less patience with my bro than with anyone else, I need to keep my cool and maybe he’ll step down too.
My partner’s sister is 3 years older and they have such a great relationship, they are genuinely good friends, but I think he is very passive and she’s a bit bossy and that’s why they get along well.
My parents always said wait until you’re older, so I was always disappointed that our relationship didn’t seem to improve. It’s so lovely to read comments from everyone and different perspectives on the age gap. I hope that I will cultivate a more peaceful household when I have children :)

I had a 15 yr old and 11 yr old when I had my third child. They are now 30, 26 and 15. Worked well for us, no matter how unintentional it was.
My sister had hers 11 months apart. Definitely not planned!!!

Six-and-a-half-year difference between my brother and me! And there’s just the two of us. He was a honeymoon baby but my mom wanted to wait until they were financially settled before having me, and then I was planned out to the month, haha (they were first-generation immigrants; left up to my dad, there would’ve been about five or six of us). Given the age gap and the fact that my brother has a more gregarious/extroverted personality and me an extremely quiet/introverted one, I basically never stood a chance growing up when it came to defending myself from getting picked on—at least not until I was big enough size-wise to stand my ground when he’d come chasing me with the vacuum cleaner (something we still laugh about—the moment his older-brother teasing broke). But, I worshipped my big bro, and it’s fair to say I still do, haha. So it’s been interesting for me to see the dynamic between my nephew and niece; they are, by contrast, three years apart in age. She likewise worships him and loves to play with him, but they also get into way more arguments than I ever did or could with my brother … partly because they’re closer in age, but also perhaps because she’s a big personality too. :)

My niece and nephew, Scout and Nico, are exactly 364 days apart!! Nico arrived a bit earlier than expected making them super close in age. Their parents wanted to have them close to get through the diaper and bottle phases quickly. It can be chaos at times, but it’s a joy to see them interact and play together and grow up side by side! Being their Aunty is the best!

I’ve lived a little of all the potential sibling age gaps—I’m the oldest of five children. My younger brother is two years younger than me and it was just us until my mom became unexpectedly pregnant and gave birth to my oldest little sister when I was ten. My parents, feeling that my sister would be “like an only child” decided they needed to have another and when I was twelve my middle little sister was born. Then my dad got a vasectomy. However, he never went to his post vasectomy follow up appointment and when I was just shy of 15 my littlest sister was born. My dad later had a second vasectomy and made it to the follow up that time haha. I liked being in a big family for the most part but I was definitely more of a second mom to my sisters than a big sister—my parents also relied on me heavily to provide help and childcare which did make me resentful from time to time. (Take note: parents to big sibling sets!) When it came to my own family planning, I always assumed I’d have two, spaced close together. I have always been close with my brother and with the cost of living it seemed the most reasonable from a financial standpoint. When my daughter was ten months old I became unexpectedly pregnant, which I embraced only to miscarry at 12 weeks. I ended up hospitalized with a really gnarly infection after that which was scary, but less than a year later I was pregnant again. Unfortunately, that pregnancy was ectopic so I had to have emergency surgery and had my right Fallopian tube removed. After all that, my doctor told me she thought I had a really good chance to still conceive and have a healthy pregnancy but I wasn’t so sure. I really felt like I needed to examine my reasons for wanting another child. I felt so complete with my daughter, and hated the idea of putting myself and my family through another traumatic experience, it just felt like society at large was telling me my family wouldn’t be complete unless I had (at least) one more child. One morning not too long after my ectopic pregnancy, a mama friend was over to have coffee and visit—she also had one daughter—a year older than mine. I asked her if she was planning to have another and she said no—she and her husband wanted to be able to travel and afford to live comfortably and they have some pretty scary genetic diseases than run in their family and didn’t want to gamble there/felt lucky to have a healthy daughter. I told her I totally got it but wasn’t sure if my daughter would be messed up by the lack of siblings. Aren’t only children selfish? Socially inept? She recommended I read the book “One and Only” by Lauren Sandler and I did and it completely changed my perspective. The book goes through the stereotypes and actual research that’s been done. It felt comforting to know that there was no real reason why I needed to have another child. This is not to say that I don’t think anyone should have multiple children—by all means if you want them and can provide for them, have all the babies! However, I just want to say that if you don’t that’s okay too and the research around only children is mostly really, really positive. <3

would have loved to see some bigger age gaps in the article- those are always the most interesting stories in my opinion! for example my brother-in-law is 15(!) years older than his half-brother and the dynamic has always been really interesting to me.

I have three children, all surprises. The first two are four years apart. and the third came along 10 years later. My doctor called her our dessert baby. I think that is lovely. They are all close to one another, just in different ways. I would say my youngest has the best of both worlds. She has siblings to count on for support, but as they are away at college and no longer live at home she has the day to day advantages of an only child. She has cousins her age nearby and loves that. I wouldn’t change the age gaps.

I’m currently 8 weeks from giving birth to my second child, which will put my kids at 4.5 years apart. I had REALLY hard time getting pregnant the second time around and I became unhealthily obsessed with how far apart my kids would be.

And then a conversation with a friend completely changed my perspective. She said, “For the vast majority of their lives, your kids will be adults together and that gap will shrink significantly. People get so hung up on childhood but you’re only a kid for a small fraction of a lifetime.”

It really put things into perspective for me and she was, of course, totally right. My sister is 4 years older and my brother is 4 years younger and we ADORE each other as adults.

My younger brother and I are five years and two months apart, and so are my son and daughter. Not by design. My son was a surprise at 25, and we really thought we just wanted one. We decided we’d adopt a daughter if we decided we wanted one more, since boys run overwhelmingly in both families. Four years later, we decided that yes, we did want a daughter, and applied through the local social services. It took 18 months and then bam, here was the little girl that changed all our lives! So many people mentioned the age difference, but it was just normal for me. I love my little brother and we are so close. I helped take care of him, then tortured him, then wasn’t that close for a while, and now we just can’t get enough of each other. My two are the same way!

I have a 17 year old step-son (only for them) and 4 year old son (only for us), so a 13 year difference. My step-son was not at all interested in the baby, but has gotten better as my son gets older. But he’ll leave for college the same time the little one starts kindergarten. It will be interesting to see how their relationship develops. My husband’s brothers are 15 and 14 years older than him and they have great relationships as adults, but they all have the same parents. My step-son is much closer to his mother’s family than his father’s so only time will tell if they are able to maintain a relationship in the future.

We have four children-three boys and a girl! They are currently 5, 4, 3, and almost 2!! It is a wild party here all of the time. The age gaps are 14 months, 16 months, and 14 months. It has definitely been challenging to have four so close, but I am having so much fun with them and love watching their personalities develop. Also we all do so much better when we spend as much time outside as possible so I scramble to read any articles on here that advocate outside playtime and how to do it in all weather. :-)

We have boy/girl twins that have been a delight but that first year was incredibly challenging. I didn’t realize just how challenging until I had a singleton son 17 months later. Here I am, pregnant again, and this babe is due 18 months after my son. So, for a short time, we will have four babes under 3 years of age. This terrifies me but I’m hoping for close friendships among the siblings with their built-in playmates.

I’ve got 4 living kids and a baby who died when I was 5 months pregnant. Their ages are 13,11,7 and 5 months.
Sometimes I feel like I’m mothering the shit out of life right now. Terrible teens. A baby, grief for my baby who died and the two in the middle.
It’s tough keeping everyone happy but I also love it and them so much we muddle through.
I always wanted to be a Mum. From a little kid. I honestly never had much ambition beyond being a mother so I guess In one way I’ve pushed myself in the mothering stakes

How timely! My daughter just turned one so my husband and I are starting to have the conversation about when we should have our second. I’m torn between, “just get the baby stage over with” and “enjoy Annabelle for a while before adding another baby to the mix.” If I was certain I only wanted two kids I’d wait a little longer, but my heart tells me I want three (even though my exhausted mom brain says two is more than enough).
I’m 32 so if a third baby is gonna happen, we should probably get the show on the road!

We are in the newborn whirlwind of two kiddos 18 months apart (20 months and 7 weeks). We struggled with infertility with our first, so when we decided to stop preventing, we didn’t expect anything to come of it. Nope! Funny how you can be “trying” to get pregnant and still be surprised.

It is a madhouse right now, but I am so thankful for these two little ones.

I have spent so much time thinking about this topic over the last 3 years, both as it pertains to my own children, myself and my siblings, and even the community I grew up in. My husband and I currently have two kids, ages 5 and 3 (they are 2 years+3 weeks apart). I am one of 3 siblings (both brothers, 3.5 years younger and 10.5 years younger than me…according to my parents, all 3 of us were planned). And then in the church/homeschooling community we grew up in, it was quite common to have very large families with “stairstep” kids. Due to my middle brother’s mental health challenges, I have actually always been closer to my youngest brother – in fact, his freshman year of high school, I would drive him to school because I also taught there :)

I would love to have a third child, but my husband and I are still not on the same page yet – originally, I had wanted all of our kids to be 2 years apart, but now, we would have a minimum 6 and 4 year gap (possibly even more). Now that I am in the stage of life (at 31) where many of my friends are having their 3rd child (or beyond), I am struggling with so.many.feelings…. how many kids do we want? What would life be like to have a larger gap between kids? How do we afford the kids we have right now, living in a very expensive area of the country? Am I being “left behind”? How does anyone make this decision???? Clearly, I have a lot still to process….

P.S. – Big heartfelt hugs to anyone who is struggling with fertility issues…I realize it is an enormous blessing/luxury to even talk about the “option” of having another child, when we already have 2 amazing kiddos.

I was living overseas for both of my pregnancies. We were surprised when we found out our kids would be exactly 24 months apart, meaning the exact same due date. I had always planned for roughly 2 year age gap because it was great for my sister and I growing up. Luckily my daughter was born early and her brother came two years later, a few days late.

I love this, and love everyone’s stories. I’m five years older than my brother, and we only truly became close as adults. He lives across the country but have actually become closer as a result as our time together is so intentional. My husband is 6 years younger than his brother – and they emigrated to Canada from Eastern Europe when my husband was 5. They are estranged now, and I do think there very different childhoods is part of it. And of course – as two people with sibling age gaps, we had twins! They are almost 15 (boy and girl) and their deep love and friendship is the greatest gift.

As the pleasant surprise, I am nine years behind my four older siblings (who were all close in age), but I have such great relationships with each of them. Now, I have four children who are 22 months apart, 3 years, and another 3 years. I echo the sentiment that it’s all about personality–rather than age or gender–and that so many people can connect with children in a profound, sibling-like way (friends, cousins, etc.), especially as they get older.

Great post! Would be interesting to hear from some parents of step/half-siblings too.