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| photo courtesy of pam's perspective |
Personally, I don't think there is a perfect gap. I really, truly believe that everything depends on the personalities of your children.
With my oldest, he was wonderful, he was special, but he was demanding. He was a baby that cried a lot, and needed his mama A LOT (not daddy, not grandma, Mommy only for the most part). It was tiring, and while I enjoyed it - I knew that given his personality, and the fact that my pregnancies are difficult, I couldn't have handled being pregnant when he was 2 yrs old. I always wanted my kids to be 2 school grades apart, but that just was not going to happen.
He was almost 2.5 when I got pregnant with Kyle, and was 3yrs 2 mths when Kyle was born. I figured this would be good - more independent, not quite as stuck on mommy. But, I was wrong. When Kyle was born, Julien had a very rough time adjusting. The first 2 weeks were great, he loved to hold/cuddle/kiss his brother. If he was crying, Julien would grab the soother and shove (yes, I do mean shove) it into Kyle's mouth.
Then reality set in and Julien realized that it wasn't very fun to listen to a baby cry (although K was not a crying baby, it was pretty rare at that point).
Now that Kyle is 17/18 mths, and Julien is 4.5 - things haven't changed all that much. Kyle wants SO SO SO badly to play with his big brother, but Jules gets frustrated because Kyle just pretty much wrecks everything that Julien is doing.
We do have times where they can play together for a few minutes; and my heart just melts when I hear them giggling together. But, I really do long for the day where I can leave them in a room together for a few minutes and come back to no one crying (although, given that I have 2 boys, I am not sure that will ever happen).
So, do you think there is a perfect age gap between siblings? Let me know how far apart your kids are and how well they get along.
