Siblings

[SuzySunshine]

I know several families here whose kids are 4+ years apart and they LOVE it from the parent side, the older child is responsible enough to actually be a help. I sometimes feel like I shorted A by having R so close to her because when he was at the really fun stage of 2 1/2 - 3 I felt like I missed that with her because there was a new baby in the house. I think everyone's dynamics are different regardless of age/birth order/etc.

[alison]

I love 2.5-3. You can devote so much time to the little person who is talking and asking question after question. I am not good at multitasking and wouldn't know how to handle a newborn in the throes of the Terrible Twos.

[civilspouse]

I'm the third of four. My older sister is 6 years older, brother is 4 years older, and younger sister 3 years apart. We each have very differernt personalities. Growing up I spent a lot of my time with my younger sister by default, but now that we're adults I am very close to my older sister. She is the person I talk to about everything, ask parenting questions, etc. My brother and I have always had a difficult relationship but it's pretty good now that we live 1000's of miles apart and only talk on holidays.

We are expecting our second baby this summer and DS will almost be three when the baby arrives. I worried and worried about the age difference and what was right, but like everyone has said I think it's more about personalities. DH is the oldest of three boys and they are like three only children. None of them are close and they don't act like brothers.

I was just talking to DH about favorities. I was always the favorite growing up, but now that I moved away I have fallen out of favor. DH's middle brother is their favorite although don't think DH sees it that way. I don't want our kids to see us favoring one child, but I think it's natural to click with one child more than another. I nannied a couple boys for about 5 years and over the years as they changed and entered different stages my favorite shifted. I'm sure I will love different things about each of my children because they will be different people, but I hope that neither of them feels like they are not as good as the other.

[MsSassyBaskets]

My brother is just 22 months older than me, and a stereotypical oldest child in many ways. He's the high-achiever with a 4.5 GPA (out of 4) in high school, valedictorian and speaker, perfect SATs and is now finishing up his PhD at Stanford. As kids he bossed the hell out of me, ganged up with my parents when I was being a pain in the ass, and overshadowed me in every possible way. As far as we know, he never stepped a toe out of line growing up. I grew up extremely resentful of him, and I think his older-child tendencies to be overbearing and "parental" actually brought out the worst in me and gave me more to rebel against. If one of his friends picked on me as a kid, he hung around in the background protesting mildly while I popped the other kid in the nose and got in trouble. I was the "rebellious" "underachiever" if you can call it that when I still got near a 4.0 in high school and went to a top 10 liberal arts college. I'm finally at a point where I understand that different things make us happy... He wants to be a high achiever at any cost, while I put a lot more stock in having a happy relationship. Now that we've found our separate places in the world, we get along fairly well on the rare occasions that we see each other, living in different parts of the country. We're not super-close, but pretty friendly. I don't think our parents played favorites when we were younger, they just interacted with us very differently. I think my mom had an easier time with my brother until I was an adult, but now we get along well.

DH is the older of 2, and he and his sister do tend to fit the older/younger child stereotypes, but not as extremely as me and my brother. His younger sister is definitely the preferred child as far as MIL is concerned. When they were in high school MIL was convinced that DH's straight-A, nerdy friends must be into drugs and drinking, and they weren't allowed to come over to the house. Today, his friends are a doctor, engineer, Lutheran pastor, teacher, etc... SIL could do whatever she wanted with her friends, and at least one of them ended up a teen mom. SIL has been babied and supported well into her mid-20s, while DH had the car and loan payments handed over to him as soon as he graduated college.

I worry about how MIL will play favorites with our future kids, but we'll just have to see when we get there. She already has obvious preferences between our cats! :/

[reciprocity]

I'm the oldest, my brother is six years my junior and we had a sister in between us who died when I was about nine.

My brother and I get along very well as adults, but weren't always super close growing up. I was much more academically inclined and he was much more socially gifted, although that ended up getting him into some trouble when he used those powers for the forces of evil. It also didn't help that he and I each aligned ourselves with different parents (who had divorced shortly after my sister died)

But he's one of my favorite people in the world now!

[DCJenn]

I am the oldest of two- we're 25 months apart. Growing up we had nothing in common other than somehow we came from the same set of parents (we look alike according to others so apparently there's no denying it.)

I'm bossy but I'm not at a perfectionist- I was the kid (and still am) who failed algebra because I never showed my work. I'd get the right answer but couldn't demonstrate how. John is meticulous, the kind of kid who did his book report the week it was assigned. He was super shy, I'm extroverted (duh...) and on and on. It wasn't until he married my SIL that our relationship improved because she and I are pretty good friends.

Nikolai is an only child in our household but he does have Russian half-siblings out there. He's very demanding and does expect that we're his peers. Trying to get him to understand that we're not a three equals is VERY hard. He's definitely got the artistic personality- all drama all the time. I can't imagine parenting more than one child, to be honest. I have to say the greatest thing in the world is crossing off that developmental stage and moving on. Potty-training- check, kindergarten- check, riding a bike- check.

My husband is from a very odd situation. His then 16 year old mother married her 19 year old boyfriend and immediately had his older sister and then 365 days later had his next older sister. Definitely jealousy between the sister. One sister gets a boob lift the other gets a whole body job. It's kind of sick. The best thing the second one did was move out of their hometown- at age 50. Then came my husband who was adopted when the girls were 6 and 7. My MIL had the RH factor problem and was told not to have the 2nd daughter (but when you're 18...) so finally they decided to adopt. Three years later MIL was a single parent with 3 kids. She remarried the man I knew as my FIL and when the girls were teens and my husband was about 8, she had another daughter with that husband.

I don't know how he fits in to the birth order thing- he's so very different than the sisters- one is a nurse but that's the only commonality they have. He joined the Army at 19 to get the heck out of there and never once looked back. The rest are almost all still there, in the armpit of Southern California. (which does have armpits, trust me)

J.

[Thirteen]

You're right!
I actually don't like the baby phase much. My least favorite phase is when they're around 15-18 mos and they destroy everything. And take hard falls, because they do stupid shit. There, I said it. We're done with diapers, bottles, strollers, baby stuff. And it's so liberating. Not to mention sleeping.... I just want it to be over. I love cuddling babies, but I love cuddling a toddler more. So hurryupalready!

It's funny, but I agree with a lot of this. (I always secretly felt guilty that I wasn't super thrilled with my son as an infant...)
I'm pretty sure it would have been different, if he would have slept or taken naps - I have never, ever been that tired in my life. I remember REALLY starting to enjoy him at around 9-10 months (right before he could army crawl with the quickness), and was more interactive. Around 13 months is when we introduced time outs, if that tells you anything. I would say about 2 months ago, we really hit our stride and it's been wonderful (sans TV fits, which are now a non-issue, since we completely removed the television from our living room). He is playing with toys, makes "jokes," and is an all-around joy. The whining is MUCH LESS than prior months, and that plus him sleeping regularly for naps/bedtime is so great.

If everything works out okay (planning-wise), he will be 3 and a handful of months when #2 is born. Both DH and I thought we would have 3, (since we are both 1 of 3), but I'm not so sure we will now. 2 might be it for us.

[GreyhoundsRUs]

Both DH and I thought we would have 3, but I'm not so sure we will now. 2 might be it for us.

That's us, too!

[SoonerTexan]

Then came my husband who was adopted when the girls were 6 and 7.

Ah, so that's how he escaped the craziness!

[diggitydot]

DH is technically a middle child, but was really raised as the youngest. His sister is 20 years younger and more like a niece than a sib.

[Flynn]

I am the oldest of three and very much the oldest child.

When I taught school birth order was VERY apparent. I got so good at it kids who were new to me asked where they were in their family because they had friends who I guessed right.

I remember telling one student he is very much like the oldest but I thought he was from a blended family. I asked if either of his parents had been married before and he replied "you are spooky." I guess he was the oldest child of his father's second marriage.

What's that book that was popular not too long ago that said birth order was a HUGE determiner as to your success in life and what you chose to go in to?

[HouseofWool]

I am the oldest by 3.5 years. My sister and I fought terribly as kids. It was awful. I had a short temper and my sister knew how to push every button to ensure *I* got in trouble for over-reacting and not her for being a brat... At one point, when we were sharing a bedroom, we actually taped a line down the middle of the room to divide the space. She had the door to the hallway, the closet, and the bathroom on her side, so we even taped paths on the floor. She was such a snot, one year, we were given matching dolls for Christmas, one was blonde and the other brunette. I came home from school to discover that she had given my doll a "makeover" with a ball point pen. I was devastated. I lurved that damn doll.

Fast forward 30 years and she is one of my best friends. We talk several times a week, our kids are in the same school, two of them are in the same class and when the Littles start kindergarten, they will most likely be in the same class too. We live within walking distance of each other and I love it.

But my family is a bit weird because when we were young, my parents ran group homes for teens, first boys, then they switched to girls. When I started second grade, they got out of it for the most part, but 2 of the girls stayed with us until they graduated high school. One disappeared from my life, but the other was a permanent fixture until about 5 years ago when I finally decided I was done with her BS. So, I had older siblings around until late elementary school, but after that it was just me and my little sister.

[Curegirl]

Very happy only child right here.