How did you decide age gaps between kids?

[Bathsheba]

I chose to have a large age gap between my 1st and 2nd children. My 1st was unexpected and I found myself very isolated (no family support)... it just took a lot of adjusting to. No BellyBelly back then (1994). So when number 1 was 2yo I returned to work and then study (uni) as I felt my daughter was ready to go into care. Once I had completed my degree we decided to try for number 2. I remember being very morning sick at my graduation ceremony so it didn't take very long to conceive. There was a 9 year age difference between 1st and 2nd. This worked really well. As I had worked in childcare i felt sooo much more prepared to be a parent and after studying so hard I really felt ready to be a home-body for a few years and relax the academic part of my brain. After having number 2 (a son) we just cruised along not really thinking about more children until he was at least a year old... I swayed between having more but didn't want them to be too close in age because persoanlly I would have found that to be too chaotic... and we still don't have much family support. it would have been different if I'd had grandparents to help out. I also didn't want to leave it too late as I was in my late 30's and I didn't want to take it for granted that I would remian fertile. Anyhow number 3 (second son) came along when my 2nd child was 2.5yo. This worked fine. My 2yo is by nature a placid child and such a good eater and sleeper that bringing a new baby into the house was smooth. My eldest child was 11.5 yo and very capable... old enough to be trusted to keep an eye on my toddler. This worked really well... it would have been trickier to do thing like breastfeed for long periods and "nap when the newborn naps" if I didn't have an older child to help out.... once again because we don't have extended family i relied on her more.

There are so many factors to determining age gaps. Looking back the biggest factors were the support of extended family and my age. We may have gone for a 4th child (my DH was really supportive of this) but I have ongoing health complications due to pregnancy and there is a strong risk of problems and my desire to have more children isn't strong enough to risk that.

[New Dawn]

we have 3 year gaps with my lot and I love it, as a 3 yr old is normally TT and sleeps well and has own bed, no more waking in the night... But saying that I didnt have a choice as we didnt use anything between babies and this is just the way my body does the gaps...

I can see pro's and con's for all age gaps, when they are big like mine you are over the baby part so while preg you kinda freak out a bit wondering if you can do it all again lol, while with the smaller gaps your still doing all the baby stuff so the newborn just slips right into the rotine...

But with the bigger gap you have the older children who are old enough to entertain themselves while you deal with a newborn and morningsickness while PG and are always very willing to get nappys and so forth, while with smaller gaps you have basicly 2 babies...

Not that any of this will help your decion best of luck with whatever you decide....

[~Trish~]

I have a three year gap between my boys. The only reason for this is because I just wasn't ready any sooner. I had health issues that caused low energy and I feared I wouldn't cope. I also run a small business from home which I love and I knew I couldn't run it the same way with a newborn so I wasn't willing to give that up for a while. The three year gap is great, DS1 is toilet trained and plays happily while I b'feed. He runs off to get me things when I have my hands full with the bub which is so handy!