When did you start TTC after baby 1?

[Anonymous]

FTM here. We had our first baby last summer and are hoping to have at least one more kid, maybe two. I'd love to know when you guys started TTC after your first (and second) kids? Do you wish you'd space them out more / less? We were thinking of TTC this summer, after our baby turns 1... but suddenly that feels like very soon!!

I'm 34 and had fertility issues with kid #1. Part of me would love to have three kids before 40, but I'm trying to be open and flexible with what life brings.

[Anonymous]

Well, your situation is completely different than mine. I had my first at 28. I waited 4+ years to TTC our second, for a variety of reasons. We unfortunately encountered unexplained secondary infertility. Our children are 8.5 years apart. I had our second at 37.

[Anonymous]

I just posted on another thread. 30, 37, 42. I spaced them out. I didn’t want to run after two babies at the same time and I needed time to recover physically and mentally from pregnancy. My 12 and almost 6 year old play constantly! We’ll see what happens with the next one. First two are boys and this will be a girl.

[Anonymous]

I started right at 12 months, assuming it would take at least six (#1 took longer than I expected). I would have liked to start at nine months because I love being close in age to my sister. But medical advice said 12 so we waited. My kids are 23 months apart. I’m glad I didn’t wait longer because I found older child needing more and more attention as she became verbal and I think I might have chickened out on two if I’d known how much work toddlers/preschoolers are. 😅 But I’m glad I have two now. Good luck, OP! TTC is so hard because you can’t really predict how long it’ll take.

[Anonymous]

My first two are 2 years apart, my 2nd and 3rd are 3 years apart.

The first two are much much closer. They've just always done everything together and seemed like they were at the same age. When I had #3 after 3 years, it felt like I was starting all over. 2 years apart is crazy though, you need a lot of executive functioning skills to make it work and a lot of energy.

[Anonymous]

My first two are 23 months apart, second and third are 2.5 years apart. I prefer the closer spacing, but had changed jobs and needed to wait for FMLA.

Anyway, yes, it felt like our oldest was really young still (14 months) when we started TTC the second. But now that they're older, I'm so glad we had them with the spacing we did. I was 35, 36, and 39 when I had them, and no issues with fertility.

[Anonymous]

Well my current child is 8yo and we haven't started yet on a second. Mostly because my husband is not all in. It's been tough watching the years go by. I am 37 now and never thought I'd have kids over 35. I still might not.

[Anonymous]

I waited until my son was 18 mos. I felt too overwhelmed with new parenthood to start before that. However, it ended up taking 8 months to conceive (despite conceiving DS1 on the second try), so my kids are 3 years apart.

It feels like a good gap. I wouldn't want it to be bigger. Maybe smaller - but it was really nice that DS1 was potty-trained and relatively self-sufficient when DS2 arrived.

As they get older I think the smaller gap is nice because they can play together so well - I feel like it's probably a bit of short-term pain for long-term gain.

[Anonymous]

I had my first at 35. Pregnant the first month trying at 34 so I expected it would not be that hard to get pregnant again, but I wanted three before 40 so we started trying when DS turned 1. Pregnant the second month trying. When DD was born, I really regretted how close in age they were for about 5 or 6 months but have loved it ever since. (They are 10 and 12 now.) I never did have a third because two was harder than we expected and we felt three would put us over the edge. So happy about that now with busy sports schedules.

[Anonymous]

My first two are 25 months apart. The second and third are 36 months apart.

Start soon if you want three and it could take awhile. Start taking prenatals now and pull the goalie this summer.

[Anonymous]

We had always "heard" it was harder to get pregnant with the second baby and knew we wanted probably 3 so we started trying for baby 2 when baby 1 was only 8 months old. Of course I got pregnant 2 months later and was pregnant when baby 1 was only 10 months old. First two are 19 months apart. It was hard but now I am super glad we did it that way.

Started trying for baby 3 when DD2 was 2 years old but this time it took over a year and 3 miscarriages before I became pregnant. DD2 and DS1 are 3.5 years apart and DD1 and DS1 are 5 years apart. Great spacing for us IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FTM here. We had our first baby last summer and are hoping to have at least one more kid, maybe two. I'd love to know when you guys started TTC after your first (and second) kids? Do you wish you'd space them out more / less? We were thinking of TTC this summer, after our baby turns 1... but suddenly that feels like very soon!!

I'm 34 and had fertility issues with kid #1. Part of me would love to have three kids before 40, but I'm trying to be open and flexible with what life brings.

We were in a similar boat. I was 35 when I had my first, wanted at least three, maybe even four kids. It took me 7 months to get pregnant the first time, and we were actually in the middle of fertility testing through Shady Grove Fertility when I got pregnant naturally. After that experience, which was very stressful and upsetting (staring down the possibility of infertility) we wanted to get started on #2 right away.

We only prevented pregnancy until he was 4 months old (did NOT want to risk Irish twins) and then we didn't try/didn't prevent for two more months. At 6 months postpartum, with no sign of my period, I weaned to formula for a return to fertility and we started actively trying around 7 months postpartum. Got pregnant in 3 months the second time, much to our shock/relief and our 2nd is 19 months younger than our first.

I feel great about that decision. The first 3-4 months were ROUGH but we're past that now and it's great. And the risk of waiting and not being able to have the family we wanted was just too high, IMHO. You need to weigh that for yourself. While people think fertility drops off after 35, the real precipitous drop is at 37, and I wanted to have a second before then.

We will likely wait a bit before #3 - aim for more like 2.5 years between them rather than 1.5, which would likely mean being 40 when the 3rd is born, but I'm okay with that. Plus, if my fertility runs out (though I feel better about it after this last baby) that would be sad, but not the heartbreak of not being able to have the first two.

I think at this point, we're likely to stop at 3. Probably would have had a fourth if I was younger and we could space them out a bit, but such is life. I met my husband later in life and he's amazing, totally worth the wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FTM here. We had our first baby last summer and are hoping to have at least one more kid, maybe two. I'd love to know when you guys started TTC after your first (and second) kids? Do you wish you'd space them out more / less? We were thinking of TTC this summer, after our baby turns 1... but suddenly that feels like very soon!!

I'm 34 and had fertility issues with kid #1. Part of me would love to have three kids before 40, but I'm trying to be open and flexible with what life brings.

I was in this exact same position! I had my first at 33, after several years of trying with unexplained infertility. Since I had NO idea if we'd ever be able to have #2 or how long it would take, that definitely came into play on our trying. I will be completely honest and say we didn't have relations *that* many times during the first year. It was really painful for me until I had completely weaned, and then it got better, which was when my baby was around 10 months old. So we used condoms and then after the baby was a year, we stopped doing that. I got pregnant IMMEDIATLY. Kids would have been 19 months apart. I had an early miscarriage though. I got pregnant again about 5 months later when baby #1 was 18 months old. That one stuck and my kids are 26 months apart. I won't lie, it was HARD those first 2 years. My oldest was a chill, easy baby and an emotional roller coaster toddler. BUT, after those first 2 years ever month got better and better. Now mine are 6 and 8 and they are a total DREAM. Having them close together was particularly awesome during the pandemic, as they always had someone to play with!

So, if I was going to give advice I'd say maybe waiting until your oldest is over 1 by a few months. Especially if you aren't sure about what caused your fertility issues. In hindsight, I feel sure mine were caused by endometriosis, because they resolved completely after I had my first kid.

[Anonymous]

First baby when I was 36 - no fertility issues but it took 6 months to conceive. Started TTC when she turned 2. She's three now and we have a consult with Shady Grove this morning. Would really like to be pregnant before I turn 40 this summer.

[Anonymous]

I started after a full year because of my age (41 at conception) I got pregnant right away!