Anonymous wrote:I have a 1 year old DS and am pregnant with #2. We just found out baby #2 is a girl...they will be about 2 years apart. We are probably done after 2, and I'm a bit sad that neither of them will have a same-sex sibling. If you have 2 (DS & DD) please tell me the things you love about this combo and the things I should prepare for that might not be obvious. I really appreciate your insight!

Good Lord! You cannot be serious.

I have a boy and girl that are just under two years apart. They are BEST friends at 5 and almost 7. They have lots of games they play together and some more gender-specific type of play that they do with same sex friends.

I have a 4 year old boy and 2 year old daughter. Their sex has nothing to do with it IMO. It’s all about their individual personalities.

For instance, my son is the quieter, calmer, more easy going and gentler kid of the two of them whereas my daughter is more aggressive, rambunctious, demanding, and outgoing. I know these things will likely change as they get older and some of it is just the ages/stages they are in right now but so far they don’t fit the gender stereotypes very much at all. My son does naturally gravitate toward trucks and my daughter has naturally gravitated toward baby dolls and dress up clothes but other than that, I haven’t noticed much difference at all. Oh and my daughter was easier to potty train than my son. But my son hit most milestones, including talking in full sentences, at a younger age than my daughter did.

Anyway, point is you can’t predict much about them based on sex/gender alone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gender will be the least of your worries for the next year lol, I have a 2 yo and a 3 month old and it’s a shitshow. The only real difference so far is diaper changes are more frightening because it’s hard to clean poop out of a vagina?? And oh my god the meconium poop traumatized us with a girl in the hospital.

Girl clothes are fun to buy, so there’s that. With them being so close in age, they will be great playmates at least as children, I can already see that starting.

Congrats! Most people love having one of each so you’ll get lots of comments on how perfect your family is

LOL yeah I have a 2 yo and a 5 mo (both girls though) and shitshow is right. I am starting to see a glimmer of hope that I'm going to survive this thing, now that the 5 mo lets me put her down for awhile and doesn't take 3 hours to go to sleep every night, so have faith! I hope for both of us this gets a lot easier.

Ha, seriously. It feels like it’s non stop and I wonder how adding one more makes exponentially more work. DH is going out of town next week so I’m on my own 4 nights my older one thankfully goes to daycare, but getting everyone out the door in the morning and to bed is gonna be a cluster.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gender will be the least of your worries for the next year lol, I have a 2 yo and a 3 month old and it’s a shitshow. The only real difference so far is diaper changes are more frightening because it’s hard to clean poop out of a vagina?? And oh my god the meconium poop traumatized us with a girl in the hospital.

Girl clothes are fun to buy, so there’s that. With them being so close in age, they will be great playmates at least as children, I can already see that starting.

Congrats! Most people love having one of each so you’ll get lots of comments on how perfect your family is

I found it much easier to clean poop off DD than any kind of diaper change with DS, who will. not. stop. pulling. at. his. penis. any time he is without a diaper. Just remember with a girl wipe front to back!

Lol ok fair, but I guess I normally forcibly sit on him (it has to be done sometimes) or distract him but yes he has rolled away from me before with poop on his butt *cringe*

With DD (and we’re still in liquid poop phase) it’s like how deep to wipe inside? Why is it every time I wipe I feel like there’s more but I’m afraid to hurt her?? And then I am very afraid thinking about solid food poops. Ugh.

Anonymous wrote:
I love having both a boy and a girl, because then I get to experience raising both genders.

I ended up with a quiet, gentle, non-athletic boy. And my girl is very competitive and hypercritical.

My daughter likes wearing some hand-me-downs of her brother's. They are closely bonded but could not be any more different!

Dp sounds like she is just like you!

Op, I have a brother and I am very close to him. We were very close buddies growing up. Just love your kids. It will be ok!

Anonymous wrote:11:08 is right, the sex of your kids will not matter one bit while you are surviving the 2 year age gap!

I have one of each and it's awesome. Once the baby is born you really stop considering all the other possible combos because you are so in love with what is right in front of you.

Mine are 3 and 5 now and it's SO GREAT. I thought the first year of 2 was hard, and then I also thought the 2nd year of having 2 was hard (in new and different ways!) and now I can say IT'S AWESOME. It's finally stopped being mostly hard and is really fun a lot of the time.

And yes, girl clothes are way more fun, but I actually really like the simplicity of boys clothes. So I like having both

I also wanted same-sex siblings, as that's what I grew up with. Didn't happen and I'm fine with it now. I have a 5 year old son and a 2 year old daughter. They get along so well and play so well together. DS is a very gentle and sweet older brother (even though he's rough with others). The girl clothes are WAY more fun (and I'm not really a clothes person usually) and girl hair is a lot harder to deal with. Otherwise, not seeing any huge differences yet. DD is more verbal than DS was at this age, and also more coordinated and athletic, but less of a rule follower. She is easier in some ways (potty training! speech!) and harder in others (ignoring what I say to do what she wants, climbing on every piece of furniture she can find).

I have one of each.

Whether they get along will depend on their personalities. Even when they are little. My girl happens to be more athletic and more intense. My boy is kind of an arty dreamer. Don't assume you're getting Boy and Girl and they just won't be able to relate to each other because of this. Mine find lots of interests to crossover on.

One major pro to me is they are less competitive with each other. I had a sister growing up and we did a lot of the same activities, same coaches, etc. That got tough at times. Even if you have a boy and a girl who both play soccer, it's going to be some what different because they're different genders.

Anonymous wrote:Gender will be the least of your worries for the next year lol, I have a 2 yo and a 3 month old and it’s a shitshow. The only real difference so far is diaper changes are more frightening because it’s hard to clean poop out of a vagina?? And oh my god the meconium poop traumatized us with a girl in the hospital.

Girl clothes are fun to buy, so there’s that. With them being so close in age, they will be great playmates at least as children, I can already see that starting.

Congrats! Most people love having one of each so you’ll get lots of comments on how perfect your family is

I found it much easier to clean poop off DD than any kind of diaper change with DS, who will. not. stop. pulling. at. his. penis. any time he is without a diaper. Just remember with a girl wipe front to back!

I have two of the same gender but most of my friends have opposite gender kids. Some thoughts:

- because one of each is the societal ideal, you will avoid the pity that moms of only boys or dads of only girls get. it's a real thing and it's annoying especially when your kids are old enough to understand people asking 'don't you wish you had a girl?'

- as preschool and elementary age children (this is what I mostly have experience with), same sex siblings tend to be closer. They will likely have more similar interests and the boy/girl divide is big at that age. I know a number of kids with elementary age kids and the same sex siblings tend to play together constantly while the opposite sex ones only do if forced.

- try to really focus on the relationship with your opposite-sex child. I see a lot of mom taking Julie to ballet while Dad takes Bobby to baseball and as they get older and activities get more intense, that can turn into all-day things... etc

- as others have said, as they grow older (teenagers/adults) the relationship will be more about their personalities and your overall family dynamic than their gender.

Congrats!

Dating each others' friends is a recipe for ruining any friendships either sibling has. Plus, my ds and dd started fighting around 6, and it has been also WW here since then.

You will not be able to use the hashtag #boymom or #girlmom or any of the associated mom memes. Sorry!

I have a DS and DD. DS is a little less than 3 years older than DD. I also had hoped for a 3rd, but it's not happening. I grew up with only a 18 mos younger brother and we are not close. We didn't really connect as kids and quickly grew into vastly different people. I would say my two are already much more of a team and closer than I ever was with my brother. They definitely squabble and there is jealousy/rivalry, but they beg to sleep over in each other's rooms and sometimes prefer to do things together as opposed to go play with friends. They have their own inside jokes and bond completely separate from me and DH. DS had an "about me" assignment at school and he wrote "My sister is my best friend" and I about died.

I do think you shouldn't go into it with assumptions about them having stereotypically gender-based qualities that might hamper their relationship - DD is super athletic, loves soccer and rock-climbing with her dad, is gregarious and loud, while DS prefers individual sports and is more introverted, cautious, and creative. They had similar development timelines and milestones.

I have 1 boy and 1 girl, 15 mos apart, now teenagers. It's really impossible to say if they will be great playmates, fight like crazy, ignore each other, whatever. So much is dependent on the individual personalities of the kids. Mine were reasonably good playmates as young children, when they had nobody else to play with and they never fought that much. As they've grown they tend to ignore each other more than anything else and operate very separately at school (2 grades apart), to the extent that some of DS's friends don't even know he has a sister. And, DD is fine with that, she said if they knew she was his sister they'd talk to her in the halls and that would be weird LOL.

I'm happy that they don't hate each other like some close siblings do, but it would have been nice if they were the super-close "best friends" everyone seems to say close-age siblings will be. But, they've always had completely different interests and DS is an extrovert while DD is an introvert.

Anonymous wrote:Gender will be the least of your worries for the next year lol, I have a 2 yo and a 3 month old and it’s a shitshow. The only real difference so far is diaper changes are more frightening because it’s hard to clean poop out of a vagina?? And oh my god the meconium poop traumatized us with a girl in the hospital.

Girl clothes are fun to buy, so there’s that. With them being so close in age, they will be great playmates at least as children, I can already see that starting.

Congrats! Most people love having one of each so you’ll get lots of comments on how perfect your family is

LOL yeah I have a 2 yo and a 5 mo (both girls though) and shitshow is right. I am starting to see a glimmer of hope that I'm going to survive this thing, now that the 5 mo lets me put her down for awhile and doesn't take 3 hours to go to sleep every night, so have faith! I hope for both of us this gets a lot easier.