Children - Very large age gap

Marcheline

My aunt and uncle are pregnant at the mo, they have 2 children already, one is 20 and one is 18 and they are both at university. She is pregnant again with their 3rd (aunt was 16 when she had my eldest cousin) and everyone (their other kids included) is overjoyed! It might be a bit different for your daughter as she is just a tad younger and still relies on you, but I don't think that another baby would be viewed as a bad thing. If anything, being a bit less spoiled might do her some good?

Glen0000

mountainofdebt wrote: »

To be honest, I'm wondering if the OP's feeling of broodiness is more due to the fact that her daughter is gaining independence and in a few short years will be perhaps leaving home to go to Uni and it is more of a case of empty nest syndrome than being broody.

My husband suggested this also. How do you know the difference?

busiscoming2

Hi I can't really help with the dilemma in respect of the age gap except to say that my elder two are 3 years apart and my ds2 was born 7 years later and I feel with hindsight this gap was too big (circumstances dictated it). I know when I approached 40 I got really very broody, I think it is your bodies way of telling you, you have a last chance!!

How come you are saving £100 pm for your daughter and live in rented council accomodation? Take the money out and use it as a deposit for a house, it is an investment for her future too.

Glen0000

busiscoming2 wrote: »

How come you are saving £100 pm for your daughter and live in rented council accomodation? Take the money out and use it as a deposit for a house, it is an investment for her future too.

We are also saving for a house deposit., but we will use this money for baby things if we decide to go ahead as we cant afford a mortgage on my husbands wage alone or to save. I would not dream of touching her savings to pay for a house. She already knows about this money and that it is for her future, uni fees or to start her own house deposit fund. She would be very miffed if we took it!!

mountainofdebt

Glen0000 wrote: »

My husband suggested this also. How do you know the difference?

Not sure,lol!

My son will be back home shortly after 3 weeks being away and it has been strange without him, especially as I now see him as another adult in the house.

However our son was growing up, I had the same conversations with my OH as I guess you are having with yours now but I realised that I was enjoyed doing things on the spur of the moment and not have to worry about babysitters etc.

A friend of mine had her 3rd baby with a 13 year gap and one of the things she found hardest was holidays in the sense of trying to cater for her eldest and the baby.....not every 13 year old wants to go to Legoland,lol!

smartie12

We're TTC at the moment and I have a DS who is 13... so will be 14 or 15 if baby happens.

It does worry a little about the age difference and what his reaction will be. I'm 99% sure he'll be really happy about it. We haven't told him we're trying because 1 - he'll be disgusted to know we're "at it" all the time;) and 2 - if I'm not able to get pregnant.

I would never of chosen to have a big age gap but due to circumstances it's happened. I had DS when I was 17, he wasn't planned and his biological father turned out to be a ****. I'm now happily married and the time is right to have a baby:j

It's just a bit annoying that I've spent years bringing up a child and I've finally got "my life back" and I'm going to end up going through it all again!!:rolleyes:

3onitsway

I was an only child until I was 16! Mum announced just as I was starting my last year of school that she was pregnant. The thought that my almost o.a.p, 36 year old parent had 'done it' was horrifying! :rotfl: (When I went into school and told my friends - two of them were pregnant too. :eek:)

But, i'd always hated being an only child. Although I got spoilt, I always felt lonely having no siblings at home to play with/grow up with.

My sister was born right in the middle of my GCSE's - which probably could have been planned better.

But, I love her to bits. I was a great help while I still lived at home, and then when I left home at 19, she used to come for sleep overs all the time so we've always been close. Mum had her very own free babysitter.

I had my first baby when she was 9 - and she loves him (and my other two) to bits. She also came in as a handy babysitter for my children. (Until she got to 18 and decided going out was more fun! :mad:).

She's 21 now and we get on great - and has a great wardrobe for me to raid when I get a rare night out!

I've just had my third at 37 - much to the amusement of my Mum - she repeated my 'thats disgusting at your age' comment to me. :rotfl:

angel_delight

Hi

There's a reasonbly biggish age gap between my two eldest (had at age 19 & 20) and my youngest (not too far off my my 31st b.day).

If i'm honest they wern't too thrilled at the prospect of their mum being pregnant again when they were age 10 & 11. I think it was the embarrasement more than anything as they'd grown used to I suppose me being a young mum and there I was at the ancient age of 30 doing it all again. They couldn't quite understand why I wanted to do it all over again anyway, mind you nor could anyone else for that matter,lol.

I must admit (as much as I love them) I had resigned myself to thinking that because i'd given up my younger years so to speak, put plans on hold of career, travel, missed out on such & such I did look forward to reaching my early 40's (when hopefully they would of left home) so I could do the above knowing that I was still young enough/had the energy/health to do so. But I then met my second long term partner and fate has a funny way of changing things.

Don't regret it for a moment although I won't pretend it was easy. There were a number of issues that the eldest two caused because they'd grown too accustomed to it just being them for a good decade or so which I understood and tried to adapt for. Even worse than the kids was my partner who although loved his new daughter acted like a little child himself because suddenly I wasn't able to give him masses of attention/was obviously too worn out for nookie most of the time,lol. I laugh now but it was a really trying time for a good couple of years.

My little girl is nearing the age of four and is very kissy/cuddly and we do heaps of daft funny things together (all the things you begin to miss out on as kids get older, moodier etc.) However being at the age she is and still quite demanding I certainly notice this time around how much less energy I seem to have than when I was in my early 20's coping with two toddlers. Could be an age factor but then again it might be also because before I was a SAHM for several yrs where as with the youngest I had to go back to part time work for finacial reasons when she was six months.
My energy levels may have decreased but in it's place is a better understanding experienced patient mum I think that's able to give more individual quality time to a little one, plus avoiding all the mistakes I made first time around.

I wouldn't say my oldest two dote on her these days, if anything once she got into toddler stage they found her more irritating..and boy don't I know about it. But they still love her in their own way and are good at times helping out if I need a break every so often even if sometimes i'm out of pocket for them doing so. My eldest dd has had to sacrifice her bedroom space to share with the youngest which was hard on her as she'd only had a room of her own in our new house for a short time before I got pregnant again. She has from time to time accused me of favouritism/spoiling the little one but gets treated just as equally in different ways. Part of it is just letting off teenage steam.

I'm sure if you decided to go ahead your dd will be okay with everything in the end/accept it all. But think things through carefully weighing everything up. Sometimes just momentarily I think crikey i'm not going to get any time to myself/a clean tidy house and so on until i'm in my 50's now which is a scary thought but I wouldn't be wish for things to be different now as she's brought a much needed boost of happiness/enjoyment to my life. Ask me again in ten years though and it might be different..lol. Just joking. All the best.

kr15snw

My brothers are 14 and 11 years older than me, and it didnt cause any problems in growing up To be honest it probably made us closer, as they really looked after me.

When I started school they were leaving school and so were able to come pick me up and keep an eye on me if mum was working / out.

I found it did make me mature quicker as when I was slightly older (about 15) all my best friends were in their late 20's (still best friends with these now). Even now they state I dont act like a 22 year old. Then I went on to meet my now future husband who is 14 years older than me. Again, as I was used to the company of older people he also notes I dont act like a typical 22 year old

I think its great, BUT think how it will effect you as a mum.

Spendless

Glen0000 wrote: »

My husband suggested this also. How do you know the difference?

My 'broodiness' for a third wore off after a few weeks, so I know it wasn't genuine. I know what caused it several mums I knew with a boy and a girl (like me) went in for their planned third. Before that I thought people only had a third if they had same sex children, were in a different relationship or had an accident.:o:rotfl: It got me wondering 'what would we have next'. I wasn't in a position to act upon these feelings as we already had a holiday to Florida booked for 9 months time that I didn't want to change or cancel and long before the holiday came up I'd gone off the 3rd child idea.

You said you were over 30 but not which end if you're just over 30 maybe you've got time to wait and see if you still feel strongly about another. If you're more nearing 40 then you probably need to make your mind up quickly.

ETA- I also know 2 women, 1 has a 12year gap, the other a 14year gap between their 2 children. Both said the same thing the worst when they were little was dealing with 2 completely different sets of problems at the same time eg trying to get one off dummies whilst the other was panicking about exams.