I waited more than 6 years to have another child. My son will be 8 this month, while Avery will be hitting 17 months. There are many reasons why there is such a large age gap between my children but the main one is the I ended up divorced and a single mom right before Hayden turned 5. I used to always think that I would have children close in age so that they grew up together like my sister and I did. However, the idea of having another child with my ex-husband never crossed my mind for a multitude of reasons.
When I found out the I was pregnant with Avery, I was concerned. I tend to overthink things and I was genuinely concerned that Hayden wouldn’t fare well with the addition of a new child into our crazy, little blended family. I soon found out that Hayden would do way better with this than I ever imagined and that a large age gap between my children wasn’t the end of the world.
7 Truths about a Large Age Gap
You will forget
You will forget what it is like to have a newborn. The sleepless night, the feeling of pure exhaustion, the sore body and boobs, the amount of poop that can come out of a tiny human. You will forget all of these things and once again be surprised when they happen again,
The older ones will help
The older kids help out a lot. They will play with Avery, hold her, feed her. They stop short of changing her diapers but I can’t blame them there.
Schedules will be hard
Managing a baby and older children with school schedules, activities, sports games and bed times gets a little bit tricky with a large age gaps. Being there for Hayden’s activities may mean bedtime gets pushed back for Avery. Routines and nap times become none existent when managing older children and you tend to just wing it.
Baby Items will have changed
And they will become more expensive and fancier. I was appalled at some of the items on the market for babies now. Gone are the days of bathing your child in the sink but instead a fancy temperature sensing tub has replaced it while simply listening for your child to cry has been replaced by continuous video monitoring.
The shows and songs will still be annoying
Have you heard “Baby shark doo, doo, doo.” Yeah, me too. It’s everywhere and currently Avery’s go to theme song. The songs and shows were just as annoying back when Hayden was a baby as they are now.
You’ll be more laid back
I have been way more laid back with Avery then I ever was with Hayden. I think that partially is due to being older but also knowing that I don’t have to worry about what a toddler is doing while I struggle to put the baby down for a nap.
More of your friends will have kids
I was mid-20’s when I had Hayden so the majority of my friends didn’t have kids yet. The ones that did had started early and so their kids were a little bit older then a newborn. This made my motherhood journey incredibly lonely. This time around, more of my friends had younger kids or are just starting to have kids making the mom-friend pool larger.
Hopefully this has helped some of you mamas out there wondering what it will be like to have such a large gap between your children and can take a little peace of mind away from these truths.
OMG thank you!! I have a 14 year old step-son, an 11 year old son, a 9 year old daughter, and I’m currently 19 weeks pregnant! My kids are so excited for a baby but I’m obviously nervous!
The best thing there is the laid back part. So nice to see older siblings taking care of the younger ones.
Thanks for sharing info. I didn’t know having kids with large age gap can be challenging. Keep up the good work and great info
My brother and I have less than 2 years between us and up until very recently it was kind of terrible. We fought like cats and dogs growing up! But now we’re friends and it’s awesome.
I always respect mothers who have children with large age gaps! I know it can’t be easy.
I feel you, I have daughter who is turning 8 years old this year and a son who is 3 years old. Sometimes having that 5 years age gap between my two kids are so difficult because they have different likes and choices but one thing I like about that gap is the older one becomes more responsible in helping you in taking care of the younger one.
I love this truth! I have a 21-year-old, a 13-year-old, and a 10-year-old. My oldest was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She helped me so very much.
As an “age gap sibling” myself, I know what you mean! My brother is 4.5 years younger than me and although we often bickered growing up, we’re inseparable now, in our 20s. I also have two step-sisters, who are much younger than me (I’m 10 years older than one and almost 12 years older than the other).
I have a 6 year gap with my sister… and a 10 year gap with our youngest. As the “child” yes, I’ll agree my mom had a lot of help with me. But here’s a very good plus for when your kids grow older… I think my sisters keep me young. We’re very close so even though I’m a lot older we hangout a lot. And I think cus of this I stay hip and updated cus of my younger sisters.
I can completely relate to this a bit. My sister and I have a 6 year age gap. It was difficult on my parents for a while as it was a change of life again.
I miss having a baby and my daughters are teens. However, despite of my wish, we decided not to have one due to economic and age reasons.
Looks like I am going through this too in the nearest future! However, these are all lovely turns on what to expect, I love how you opened our eyes! And your family is gorgeous!
Ir the kids can help that will be great. Of course, you are right that you will have wildly different schedules with the aging kids. And I had to laugh that you would forget the sleep deprivation but it’s so true.
These are some useful tips for couples planning their family. Being the eldest amongst siblings, I can attest to the fact that we help out with the younger ones 🙂
True, having a big gap between kids has its own pros and cons. Either way, its hard work for mothers 🙂
My brothers and I are each 2 years apart, so I guess these things weren’t really “things” for my mum. However one of my friends has a daughter who’s 15 and the next daughter is 9, which I think is quite a big age gap x
Nice blog..! Even though I haven’t experienced that yet I can really understand what you are going through by the way you write things.. 😊
Nice post! I’m in the stage of whether my son is too old anyway for a sibling or if we should just go ahead and have a second child. He’s only 4 now but when a new baby comes he’ll be well around 5 or more. It’s a big decision…great blog. I’m at oh boy, it’s a baby blog if you’d like to hop over there for a read.x