First of all, I agree that this is such an individual thing that's it great to read how everyone decided!

Second of all, can you believe how lucky some of us are to be able to 'plan' the gap between our children when there are so many ppl out there who would just give anything to be able to conceive?! DP and I often comment on how fortunate we are to be thinking of things like gaps, we know friends who have taken over three years to conceive (#1 & #2 though - they're having twins! Identical, not IVF, God must have smiled at them).

In our case, we decided on more than three years, but less than five. Ideally four, but we'll probably start TTC when Lucy is about 3 - 3 1/2. Our reasons are nothing new, I so love the toddler stage and would love to be able to do some of the fun things with Lucy on our own. Then, by the time she is starting to be more independent and probably goes to preschool I will have another baby. She'll have her own thing going and won't mind the 'intrusion' at the beginning quite so much. I hope. (Can you tell I'm an oldest child and asked my parents to take my first sister back to the hospital when she was a week old?? LOL)

By the same token I want to be able to do the same thing with #2, really enjoy the baby stage (which I have with Lucy) without constantly running around after a toddler. And if we go for #3 (I'm working on convincing DP) I'd like the same gap again. Obviously, I'm only 29 (for another couple of weeks) so I have the luxury of being able to fit in all of the kids I want b4 my clock starts winding down (and my patience!).

DP and his older brother by 3 yrs got along off and on as kids, but his brother used to beat him up really badly and they've had heaps of issues as adults 'cause of the competitiveness between them. I am close in age to my sisters (2 years between each of us) but fought as much as played with them as a kid and 'ditched' them for other friends once I was at school! (I'm not that awful a big sister, I promise!) I love them dearly now, but even though we're close in age it feels like we might as well be a decade apart, we aren't at the same stage in our lives AT ALL. Probably because I met my DP at 22 and settled down a bit more quickly.

Hope everyone gets to build the family they want! It's a beautiful thing to have children, no matter what the gap or the reasoning. And I don't know of many ppl who wouldn't want their siblings when they're all grown up.