Last year I started noticing a trend via Facebook. More and more of my friends (and I use this term loosely, b/c most of the people I am "friends" with on Facebook are more like past acquaintances) appeared to be pregnant at their first child's 1st or 2nd birthday parties. That was before I had my own kid, and I found it to be kind of nuts that they were already having another one so soon after the first.
This year, I am noticing it more and more so I decided to google it to see if it was really a trend. Turns out, it is and it even has a name - baby bunching. I found this article in the Washington Post, and it is really interesting. It goes into the pro's and con's of having your kids back to back, and also the reasons people seem to be doing it more. With people marrying later and more women wanting to get established in their career, we are having babies later than previous generations. And if women want to have multiple children before the age of 35 or 40, basically they are bunching them together.
Very interesting idea, I don't know how I feel about having 2 kids in diapers at the same time? I can see both the advantages and disadvantages. Readers, what do you think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
My to children are 17 months apart...not on purpose!! But I love how close they are! When we had our second our first never did get jealous because she was too little to understand but I do have to agree the two in diapers is both expensive and time consuming!! working on getting the first potty trained!!
Hi Kim! Found your blog through our mutual friend Katy Guercio King. I have three little girls - Caroline (March 08), Annaliese (July 09) and Millicent (October 11)...three babies in 44 months. While the first 9 months after Annaliese was born were some of the most sleep deprived and just plain hard months, we wouldn't change it for the world. And many of the reasons the article discusses hold true for us. I did a post about this a while back (http://hotmessmunsons.blogspot.com/2010/11/15-months-19-days.html). Glad to know there is a term for our fun and craziness!
I was one of those women pregnant at their older child's birtday. My two are 19 months apart. We planned to space our children close together and conceived during the first month we tried so they're a little closer together than we anticipated.
Many of our reasonings were mentioned in the article. My husband will be 35 this year (I just turned 30) and wants to have our family complete before he's 40. It's definitely not easy, but we have an amazing support system. It also helps that my husband is a very active parent and has no problem putting one child to bed while I tend to the other. To date I have never taken both kids on an outing by myself. The thought alone terrifies me!
My midwife told me three different times that I need to wait at LEAST three years to think about having another child to give my body a break. I'm not sure if we're going to take her advice completely, but we're definitely going to try to space the next one a little later than the first two. For our family, the pros of having our children spaced close together outweigh the cons.
We have a 3 yr old, a 10 mth old and due with another baby in 3 mths. None were totally planned but we love it because of the closeness and potentially being done with the baby stages in our early 30s. One way I learned to save money is cloth diapering! I love it and it's alt easier potty training as well.
I also found your blog through a friend. Thanks for sharing this article. I'm happy to know there's a name for it. We have three boys (age 5 as of Feb, age 3 and 22 months) and our fourth little boy is due any day now. :) So with 4 boys 5 and under, I guess we definitely "bunched."
Nicole
Post a Comment