7 years between children? and visions of a child yet unborn...

my kiddo's 4 now, and i want to wait a couple of years before conceiving (that is, if i actually have another). i have a bunch of mercury amalgram fillings, and the removal and detox process takes a couple of years, so i pretty much have to wait at least 2 years until all the mercury is gone from my body. i cant in good conscience even think about conceiving again until i feel that my body is a safe place for a baby to gestate.

BUt, with an age difference of 7 years... i just dont know. i can think of all kinds of disadvantages of having two children spaced so far apart from each other. i have a brother who is 8 yrs younger than me, and we've never had anything in common with each other.

my bil and sil just visited~she's 5-6 mos pregnant right now, and now i've got baby fever! i've only ever really planned on having one child, but had a strange vision a while ago of a little girl who wanted to be born to me, and ever since then, i've felt like the universe has more in store for me.

my mom often had dreams about her children before they came to her, and i always thought that she was just a looney breeder. *sigh*

yeah, so ...7 years? is it too long of an age gap?

and visions of unborn children? what do you think?

 

yeah i am going through pretty much the same thing right now i have a son who just turned 7 and i have been contemplating on having another child i definatly want to but the age difference always gets me. The more i think about it the more i think that they can have things in common and can learn from each others differences just like any other brother/sister no matter what the age margin is.

 

My little sister and I are 9 years apart. It wasn't by choice, it was because my parents had an extremely difficult time conceiving. However, my mother said that there were great pros to it, but also cons.

The pro was that she had me for a helper, a second little mommy. I loved taking care of my baby sister. It gave my mom breaks, and made things easier on her.

The con was that she felt like she was starting all over again, from square one. She said that it had felt like so long ago that she had cared for an infant, and had forgotten how exhausting and how difficult it could be. She said it almost made her feel like a first-time parent again.

My kids are close in age. My oldest will be 6 years old in less than a month and my twins are 2.5 years old.

 

me and my baby sis are 11 years apart and there are so many pros compared to cons. you have a helper, a playmate, someone to watch the baby for a minute or two when you need to go potty. The list just goes on and on .

 

i have a brother 8 years younger than me, its not easy when they are small but its great when they are older as they have a sibling who has been there, done that and can give them advice and help that they may not want from mum, lol, my brother talks to me about all sorts of things and im glad i have him, all the initial differences are worth looking past, as the results are great!

 

hm, well, as a mommy #2 myself, i'm vehemently opposed to foisting off my responsibility as parent onto a child. my mom really exploited me as an older child, and i didnt actually get to have much of a childhood because of my duties as mama#2, so, to me, that's another drawback.

ps, yeah, i have issues. i suppose if the older child enjoyed taking care of baby, that would be entirely different. i can see a whole set of rivalry issues between children who are widely spaced that just doesnt occur between closely spaced children.

 

I think there can be drawbacks if you're overly dependant on your child to take care of his younger sibling...HOWEVER, some children LIKE taking care of their siblings and as well, watching them for 5 minutes while you take an important call, or throwing away a dirty diaper are not too much to ask of a child, at any age...

Also, as a person with older siblings, I can say that there is something to say in support of them. The younger child just naturally looks up to the older, the older feeling protective of the younger. I trust my older brothers and sisters to give me advice based off their own experience. And they are protective over me without being overly so, because they remember (sometimes better than a mother) what it's like to be "that age"...

No, they're not going to be good play-mates. No, they won't have the same interests. However, some kids that are twins are like that. They get to be 3 or 4 years old and veer off into different directions. It's more a personality issue than anything else. I'm sure your children will interact just fine.

 

I don't know, when my sister was an infant, I didn't feel like I had any sibling rivalry issues with her even though we were 9 year apart. I loved being a part of her infancy, helping take care of her. I felt like it was just so wonderful, and I really did feel like I was a second mama.

As she grew older however, my mother put a lot of responsibilty on my young shoulders. She was a single mother after divorcing our father, and had to work full-time. So guess who had to take care of everything? Me. It was hard because all of my friends were out being normal kids and I was home taking care of my little sister, doing the things that normally the actual mother would be doing. I couldn't go hang out with other kids because I had to be home watching her as my mother worked in the evenings. I started to really hate it, and at times, even felt like I hated my sister. Not that I actually did, but I was just frustrated.

 

Well, my children are 36, 33, 31, 27, 25, and 3. My first three were almost like triplets. They were so close together in age. I was a stay at home mom with them for the most part. Then the next two came along and I was working fulltime and a fulltime student. Rarely saw them. Then Dakota. He has nothing in common with his brothers and sister. He has little in common with his neices and nephews who are all older than him. But everyone loves him to pieces. The age difference can be a problem but it can also be a blessing. The most important thing is how much love the child has.

Kathi

 

We were in a similar situation. My brother is 5 years older than me. After my parents got divorced, A LOT of the responsibilities of taking care of me fell on him. He was angry at my mother for YEARS because of this. He finally told my mom about being angry with her recently (about 20 years later) and she sincerely apologized with no excuses. They have been much closer since.
On the other hand, he used to torture me (literally....lock me in closets for hours, burn me with lighters, use me as target practice for his bb gun, etc.) because of his anger for having to take care of me all the time. He has since sincerely apologized to me with no excuses and we are much closer now.
Happy ending, yes, but with much pain and anger prior to the happy ending.

I think having a sibling help out a little bit each day is not bad, but for a sibling to have to be a babysitter or a "parent", could lead to problems.

 

The way I see it, if you have three kids, there is bound to be a big gap between the oldest and the youngest. If I were to get preg. now, my oldest would be @ 8 years older than the new baby. But, there would be a 4yo in between. I wouldn't worry too much about it a negative thing.

 

I have been contemplating the same thing.
I mean, I just had my baby, but I'm also young and am going back to college in September, and I'll be there until she's about 7 or so. I'm going to school to be a nurse, so I'll have a job once I'm done, and my hubby is going back to school w/ me and his courses are just as long as mine are. By the time that we can financially afford another kid, she's going to be so much older. But I also don't want to have another baby while we're living on student loans.
So I guess we're going to let fate take it's own course, and if we're meant to have another one sooner, then so be it.