Children - Very large age gap

Lunar_Eclipse

Glen0000 wrote: »

This is my hubbies account. I am a lady :-)

Our daughter is coming up for 14 and we always said we would only have one. However, the past few weeks I have been feeling broody. I do not know if it is because I am over 30, but I do know I have never felt this way before.

I did have my daughter very young, so there is still time, but I am worried about the impact on family dynamics and of course there is always money as providing for two is always more expensive than one.

My husband has his reservations, mainly about money as it will impact on my career long term (I would probably give up work) and on how much we can provide for our daughter. Currently she does get "spoiled" quite a bit and we do save £100 a month for her, but this would have to be cut down a lot. I also doubt we would be able to buy a house as planned any time soon. We currently rent from the council. Also we would not get much extra in the way of tax credits as hubby earns too much.

Any words of wisdom? Is this idea crazy?

Were you both happy to only have one child (until now)? Or was it a compromise on your part? I ask these questions for you to ponder (not nec answer) since it may help you figure out if you are broody as opposed to feeling like a partially defunct Mum now your DD is fairly independent. For what it's worth, I feel broody every now and again, for a third child. But we're not having one for many reasons and it's a dream like feeling as opposed to a real desire to be pregnant, look after a baby then toddler then child again etc. How do you feel about the reality of another child in your family?

There was a 5 year age gap between me & my sister, which I always hated growing up (nothing in common) thus my decision to have less than 2 years between my children. However a good friend of mine has a sister about 12 years younger than her which has always worked extremely well, although it is quite a maternal/guiding relationship as opposed to a more normal sibling based one.

So I suppose anything goes and anything could work out well. It's for you and your DH to decide. But at 38, I feel well well past baby production age I can tell you.

ladylumps45

hi,
well i had my first daughter at 22 and and my second daughter at 34 so a 12 year age gap.my eldest was absolutely horrified when i told her i would like another baby and even more distraught when i confirmed i was pregnant!
it boiled down to the fact that she had been the only child for so long that she thought she would get left out but i reassured her and she changed to wishing my pregnancy would hurry up and enjoyed feeling the little one kick and move in my tummy.
she is extremely protective of her and we darent put her to bed at night without my eldest being called to give her a kiss!! bless!!:o
so it all turned out brilliantly and she cant wait to do her hair and makeup lol.she isnt jealous at all and never has been in these 14 months of little ones life.
i would say if you are sure you would like another child then go for it because us ladies havent got forever unfortunately and you can never wish the time back.

msb5262

"Why rock the boat if this may not even happen? I was never consulted at all when my parents were TTC. It would have not occurred at all to them to discuss it with me as it has not occurred to me to discuss this with DD. We do plan on telling her before everyone else, but at 12 weeks when we know for sure we have a healthy pregnancy. I would not want her to know for example if I miscarried or need a termination due to health problems."
quote from Glen0000 in message #8

I can fully understand the OP feeling that a new baby is not a decision for her DD to be making - or even to be considering. However, if she became pregnant then surely it would be the only option to tell DD as soon as possible...even if the pregnancy ended, DD should not be kept in the dark. Most teenage girls would be horribly offended if their parents kept a pregnancy secret for the first 12 weeks, and if mother is in hospital for a termination or after a miscarriage, that could hardly be kept totally secret.
Please consider letting her in on the pregnancy early on if you do decide to go ahead. Great big secrets within families are very dangerous and can damage relationships forever.
Best wishes,
MsB

mountainofdebt

Glen0000 wrote: »

to discuss it with me as it has not occurred to me to discuss this with DD. We do plan on telling her before everyone else, but at 12 weeks when we know for sure we have a healthy pregnancy. I would not want her to know for example if I miscarried or need a termination due to health problems.

The thing is if you had to decide to terminate or not then you wouldn't know until alot further than 12 weeks.

Personally I would tell your daughter as soon as I knew I was pregnant but stres to her that things could go wrong - I can't imagine anything worse that miscarrying or deciding to terminate a pregnancy and having to keep all those emotions to myself.

becs

I have to agree with the last couple of posters. Whilst I totally agree with you in not telling her that you are even condsidering this, you are absoloutely right. It is a private matter and something that may or may not happen but I do think you need to tell her early on if you do get pregnant. If she's 14-15 she should be mature enough to be able to keep it secret, it shoudl definately be a family secret between the 3 of you. I think if you didn't tell her until 12 weeks just slightly before everyone else else she would feel very hurt and left out. This is something that will be happening to the 3 of you and as such she should be involved early on so she feels part of it. I'm 36 now and I have a younger brother who has worked in my parents family business and I constantly get left out of discussions and conversations and it hurts, I sometimes feel that I'm not part of the family at all and I would absolutely hate your daughter to feel like that. particually at her age, her hormones will make her much more susceptable to feeling cast out.

nottslass_2

Theres a 15 1/2 year age gap between DS1 & DS2 !!

Absolutely no problems whats so ever-well perhaps it took a few weeks to get used to the idea,but DS quickly turned the situation to his advantage when he realised that pushing a pram with a cute baby was a great teenage girl magnet !!!

DS1 is now 22,DS2 is 7 and I'm now 12 weeks pregnant with no 3 !!!!

DS1 has now left home & long got used to the fact that even people my age still "do it".

In my experience having big age gaps can definitely have its advantages and TBH (in my experience) friends who have a more "traditional" age gap seem to spend more time breaking up fights and coping with sibling rivalry, than watching them play "happily as friends"

Also career wise,only having 1 little child at a time has meant that I haven't had to give up work and be a SAHM ( personally not for me ) IF I'd had 2 or 3 under fives this would have been impossible.

skintchick

My friend has three children aged 13, 12 and 4, and is currently 5 weeks' pregnant with the fourth!

She didn;t consult her children about getting Pg again and I don;t think they know yet (she is about to tell them).

She has no issues with the existing age gap between the teens and the younger one, and it all seems to work well.

shazrobo

i have 14 year old twins, and always thought i would like another, but my ex husand was such a bad father, i lost all trust in men for a long time, any way last year i met a fantastic guy, who is brilliant with both my kids as well as his own son, when allowed to see him.
and we also was wandering what people would think about such an age gap. so i shall be reading with interest.

iamanalias

Glen0000 wrote: »

This is my hubbies account. I am a lady :-)

Our daughter is coming up for 14 and we always said we would only have one. However, the past few weeks I have been feeling broody. I do not know if it is because I am over 30, but I do know I have never felt this way before.

I did have my daughter very young, so there is still time, but I am worried about the impact on family dynamics and of course there is always money as providing for two is always more expensive than one.

My husband has his reservations, mainly about money as it will impact on my career long term (I would probably give up work) and on how much we can provide for our daughter. Currently she does get "spoiled" quite a bit and we do save £100 a month for her, but this would have to be cut down a lot. I also doubt we would be able to buy a house as planned any time soon. We currently rent from the council. Also we would not get much extra in the way of tax credits as hubby earns too much.

Any words of wisdom? Is this idea crazy?

It is pretty crazy when your OH has regularly questioned whether you should even have had the child you have now.

Out of interest, why are you saving for your daughter when you have outstanding debts?

Money_maker

DS1 13, DS2 12, DD1 15 months. Was a bit of a shock to the boys but now love her to bits. She isn't allowed up to their bedroom (they share) so no problems with her invading their personal space.

Having a little un is a good excuse for the boys to go to 'kiddi stuff' again - they dont think its uncool, they're glad of the excuse to do all that stuff again.

Mums tend to be more relaxed although tire quicker. Not as worrying as when you have your first, you can enjoy more as you know how quickly the cute bubs will be an awful teen!

There are problems, but nothing that can't be sorted easily although the lack of sleep at first was still as difficult as first time around.

BTW, children dont need spoiling and lots of money. They need love, warmth and security. They need a close and loving family with lots of attention.

I would respectfully suggest you think about it for the rest of the year then make a decision after Christmas. By then you should know if its empty nest syndrome or not. Your OH should be in complete agreement with you though, it wont work if its just your need.