I have a 4 year old boy & a 3 months old girl. It feels suck to plan family activities. One parent tend to stay home to take care of baby, and the other parent take the boy out to play to release energy. If we go out together, it is we drag our baby girl in stroller to playground or have a walk or casual eat out. I am so jealous to see friends posting their same gender kids (1-2 year old difference) go out & play altogether. I hope things will get better once my baby is 2 years old. However, they are different gender, not sure if they can click with each other.

Mine are almost 4 years apart - both girls. Like you, not intentional.

The upside as that at 12 and 8 they are pretty close. Downside is it's really hard to keep the younger one "innocent" b/c of the age gap.

My older one definitely resented the younger one and never had any interest in being a helper, but they play together and are pretty good buddies.

Anonymous wrote:i have an 8 yo boy and 3 yo girl. they love each other -- she adores him and he actually enjoys playing with her. (sometimes he gets bored, but he's a good sport.) we do often have to stop his teasing her, but she can be quite dramatic. (3.)
I was a little nervous about the age gap, but it seems to be going well. and his friends are so cute with her.

Same for my 9-yo boy and 5-yo girl, especially the teasing and the drama! They've always been super close, and even though they bicker, they still sleep and shower together every night.

I'm 4 years older than my brother, and although we weren't particularly close growing up, I think that had more to do with the fact that my sister was between in age and probably closer to us. As adults, we're super tight.

Good luck, and have fun!

Anonymous wrote:Not my family's spread, but one of my friends had a brother about 4 years older and they were SUPER close all through childhood, and seem to have stayed friends as adults. I think it relies on the older one being a big fan of having someone to look/after protect, which is really personality dependent.

Agree with this, with the twist that extroversion in the oldest really helps too. My oldest isn't a natural caretaker, but she always wants to be around people, meaning that interaction with her 2 year old sister (she's 7) is better than nothing. The 2 year old idolizes her sister, so all is great, but she is also content to play by herself, and I'm not sure the dynamic would work as well if their personalities or ages were flipped.

My boys are 4 years apart and it's been great so far. They are still young (3 and 7) but they play together all the time and adore each other. Best buddies. There is little competition so far since they also have their own "things" (different activities, schools, etc.). They certainly bicker, but it's never yet been serious.

There was only one year (infant and age 4) where they were both in full-time daycare at the same time, and they won't be in college together at the same time, either, which is helpful financially--to spread out the $$ burden.

Anonymous wrote:I am 4 years older than my brother. We were never particularly close, but I always viewed that as being because we have very different personalities than because of the age gap.

When I was a kid, I always thought a ~4 year age gap between kids was normal and never for a second wished I had a sibling closer in age. It seemed to be the exception rather than the rule to have friends with closer-in-age siblings. Don't overthink it. 4-5 years is fine.

Also, I was never, ever expected to be a caregiver for my brother. Hell, even my husband who has a sister who is 10 years older than him was rarely cared for by her as a child. If you as parents don't expect it, it doesn't have to happen.

I am 4 years older than my brother. We were never particularly close, but I always viewed that as being because we have very different personalities than because of the age gap.

When I was a kid, I always thought a ~4 year age gap between kids was normal and never for a second wished I had a sibling closer in age. It seemed to be the exception rather than the rule to have friends with closer-in-age siblings. Don't overthink it. 4-5 years is fine.

i have an 8 yo boy and 3 yo girl. they love each other -- she adores him and he actually enjoys playing with her. (sometimes he gets bored, but he's a good sport.) we do often have to stop his teasing her, but she can be quite dramatic. (3.)
I was a little nervous about the age gap, but it seems to be going well. and his friends are so cute with her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am 4.5 years apart from my younger sister. She was my best friend from the day she was born and still is now (at 40/36 yrs).

thats really sweet. I'm not OP, but im looking at this same age gap and these posts make me happy

Same! My sister and I are 4.25 years apart and we are best friends in our 30s. I hope this isn't relevant for you... but our parents' divorce really made us close because with all the stress of shuttling back and forth, dealing with stepparent issues, etc., we always had each other.

Anonymous wrote:OP my sister and I are 3.5 years technically which I know is not what you're asking, but we were 4 years apart in school so it always felt like 4 (we were rarely in the same school for example). We still played together a LOT as kids and are extremely close as adults. I feel so grateful to have her! We were talking about our age gap once and agreed that probably when I was in high school was when we were the least close, she was in middle school and I was in later high school so our experiences were just pretty different. But I don't remember fighting a ton. Once I went to college though and she was in high school, the closeness built back up again. My husband and his sibling are 2 years apart and have a pretty difficult relationship, so as others have said so much of it has to do with personality of the kids and family dynamic.

Also can confirm I definitely was rarely expected to be a caregiver for her so maybe that helped. Though fine to have some normal older sibling helping!

OP my sister and I are 3.5 years technically which I know is not what you're asking, but we were 4 years apart in school so it always felt like 4 (we were rarely in the same school for example). We still played together a LOT as kids and are extremely close as adults. I feel so grateful to have her! We were talking about our age gap once and agreed that probably when I was in high school was when we were the least close, she was in middle school and I was in later high school so our experiences were just pretty different. But I don't remember fighting a ton. Once I went to college though and she was in high school, the closeness built back up again. My husband and his sibling are 2 years apart and have a pretty difficult relationship, so as others have said so much of it has to do with personality of the kids and family dynamic.

There are truly pros and cons to every spread and as other have said it’s definitely more about personalities than anything. I have 3 sisters - one is 2 years younger than me and we have always been rivals and are still not close to this day (we have really different personalities and get on each other’s nerves). My next sister is 5 years younger and while we were not super close growing up, we are definitely the closest of all our siblings now. My last sister is 9 years younger and we never had much of a relationship but we are friendly enough today. My parents always comment on how different we all are from one another and she expected us to all be playmates for one another but that was not the case.

I have two kids who are 6 years apart (currently 4 and 9) and they adore one another. They don’t really “play” together but we do a ton of family stuff that appeals to both. I hope their relationship continues to grow.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure why you’d ask, OP. If people say it’s difficult, are you not going to have a 2nd child?

I was merely asking for experiences. No need for your comment, if you don’t have one to share.

I truly wasn’t trying to be sassy. I liked your post, but when I saw the responses I felt sad. They were negative. So I was wondering what you were doing with the responses. Ignoring them or taking them to heart.

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure why you’d ask, OP. If people say it’s difficult, are you not going to have a 2nd child?

I was merely asking for experiences. No need for your comment, if you don’t have one to share.

I’m not sure why you’d ask, OP. If people say it’s difficult, are you not going to have a 2nd child?