having children one year apart

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i have no frame of ref here, but im just curious. is pregnancy really a joyful/wonderful feeling? if not, is it just a planning/brooding instinct thats stronger than a comfort instinct? this means that when your NEWBORN child is like 3-6 months old, you are conceiving a NEW child.

― petesmith (plsmith), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 13:56 (twenty years ago)

is it like a double album? do you know going into the first one that youre gonna be doing this twice or more?

― petesmith (plsmith), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 13:57 (twenty years ago)

my brother and i were born pretty close together, only a year and four months or so. i'm Use Your Illusion 1 and he's Use Your Illusion 2

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:10 (twenty years ago)

It's like one of those double albums with the first LP bearing sides 1 and 4 and the second sides 2 and 3, for ease of changing.

If only.

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

Then there's the Hasids who do this FIVE OR SIX TIMES IN A ROW WTF.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:19 (twenty years ago)

My brother has four children the oldest being 5 and then 4,3,18mths.

They're all wonderful children but to me, what a nightmare.

― Miss Misery (thatgirl), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:19 (twenty years ago)

If you weren't allowed birth control and were married before your early 20s you'd do it too.

― sexyDancer (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:21 (twenty years ago)

my next-door neighbors, who are these hardcore fundamentalist christian be-fruitful-and-multiply types, have like 9 kids.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:24 (twenty years ago)

you've been holding out 9 months for sex and you forgot to buy condoms because you were too busy buying new baby things. but you're bursting! and so WHAM! comes another pregnancy

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

Last time I checked, birth control is pretty easily obtainable in the U.S..

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:26 (twenty years ago)

x-post

and on top of that there's grandchildren and people from their tiny church (the father is the pastor) are always running around.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:26 (twenty years ago)

xpost: by Hasids?

― sexyDancer (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:27 (twenty years ago)

If they want it! Do the rabbis come search their dresser drawers for condoms?

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:27 (twenty years ago)

DUD, at least from the viewpoint of a fellow mass transit user/restaurant diner/shopper/anything

― salvatóre, Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:27 (twenty years ago)

My (two) kids are 21 months apart. At the time, my daughter was growing so obviously and becoming so (seemingly) independent and enchanting and it didn't seem like a huge burden to have another. But two was exhausting, in reality.

Pregnancy was a pretty joyful state, for me, except for the complete cumbersomeness of the last months. And the dreams about giving birth to puppies. I could have done without those.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:28 (twenty years ago)

I think when you have a caesarian delivery you're s'posed to wait a few months befor conceiving a new baby, no?

My friend just wrote me she delivered on "all fours." WTF! Apparently it's a new *thing* in Japan.

Pregnancy is GREAT. Only I do worry a bit too much at times. :-(

― nathalie, a bum like you (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:30 (twenty years ago)

xxxpost: don't they? Maybe I have illusions about how controlled the Hasid community is.

― sexyDancer (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:31 (twenty years ago)

holding out nine months for sex?

Pregnancy is way more fun than I thought it would be, and on balance possibly more fun than being not pregnant. But I've had it super-easy. I don't think I'd mind being pregnant again after I've had my first, but the thing that would make it hard is breastfeeding the first while trying to grow the second. It takes a lot of energy to grow a baby!

xp all fours sounds great, let gravity do the work!

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

btw, having kids a year apart is called 'Irish twins' in america at least.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:33 (twenty years ago)

maybe looking after two babies around the same age = economy of scale?

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:33 (twenty years ago)

exactly the same age = two of everything = not

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

i'm going to guess this happens a lot because people think they can't get pregnant while they're still breastfeeding, so they don't bother with birth control, but that doesn't always work.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 15:19 (twenty years ago)

also, I guess if you're going to have more than one kid, why not get all that shit out of the way during one phase of your life, because it isn't fun.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 15:20 (twenty years ago)

Why doesn't some kind of birthing chair ("the chair with the hole") exist which gives gravity all the help it can get while supporting the woman in the most comfortable position possible? Or does it?

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

I think it's that actually squatting gets the baby in a better position for delivery than sitting would (although when the actual time comes the baby comes out at a bit of an angle so straight down wouldn't be good), plus you need for someone to easily be able to get in a good position to check out how things are progressing.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

alternate answer: it's called a toilet.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

When I was being potty trained I used "the chair with the hole and the removable bucket."

― martin m. (mushrush), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 15:27 (twenty years ago)

Birthing chairs do exist - they were the rage 20 or so years ago, before the "giving birth in a bathtub" movement got going. fwiw, there is no "comfortable" position per se, especially during labor. One position will work for a few minutes, then you want to get reorganized or walk or anything.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

Birthing chairs were around hundreds of years ago.

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 16:05 (twenty years ago)

I think birth control amongst the Orthodox and Hasidism is not encouraged. Be frutiful and multiply, sin of Onan, etc etc

(which I suppose are similar reasons that contreception is frowned upon amongst strict Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants)

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

one advantage is that you'll have kids that can play together.

― nobody, Tuesday, 25 October 2005 16:16 (twenty years ago)

I have read that native women in some cultures sometimes work outside in tending crops or just doing everyday things well into their labor and then just squat and squirt the kid out when it's ready to come. It makes it sound ridiculously easy (if unsanitary)method compared to all that we go thru.

― Wiggy (Wiggy), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

Those crazy native women, huh?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

My grandmother did the squat-and-squirt by the time she got to her tenth. She didn't even have time to get to her bed for that one. That was my mother.
Part of me wanted to have one baby after another. It's such an amazing thing. But the other part of me prevailed and I only had two, two years apart. There's a lot to commend bunching them like that. Gets the diaper thing over with. What really boggles me are the people who have a new baby when their older kids are almost grown. Do they have something against travel and movies and restaurants and uninterrupted sleep?

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

16 1/2 months apart: Three-year-long pregnant/nursing/pregnant/nursing cycle. Sheepishness around suddenly high-protestant in-laws. Buying diapers in two sizes. Two car seats. Complicated asymmetrical sibling rivalry. Oops. But, you know, these things happen.

― M. V. (M.V.), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 17:02 (twenty years ago)

nobody - i can totally get behind that reasoning. some part of me wants (in yknow 50 years) to have a few (2 or 3; more seems excessive, but i have a huge crush on three-close-kid families)closely-clustered children. im gonna probably 60-70% defer to whatever wife i have, though.

― petesmith (plsmith), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 17:08 (twenty years ago)

Oh I forgot to add that my brother has to basically drive a bus now to tote all the kids around.

― Miss Misery (thatgirl), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)

Last night at the gym, a dad and his 3 (boy - 12ish, girl - 10ish, boy - 8ish) were so happily running up and down the basketball court, having such a great time all of them, dashing and passing and dribbling, it made me not mind cranking on the elliptical for 45 minutes. Watching them play together was so much better than TV.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 17:16 (twenty years ago)

But, that said, my sister and I are 18 months apart and fought like cats and dogs, making ourselves and parents miserable, until we grew up and I realized how much I missed her when she went into the military.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 17:19 (twenty years ago)

But, that said, my sister and I are 18 months apart and fought like cats and dogs, making ourselves and parents miserable, until we grew up

That's exactly what happened with me and my sister.

― So so Krispie (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 17:24 (twenty years ago)

Ours are 2.5 years apart. We are in the tail end (pardon the pun) of having to buy 2 diaper sizes. Rufus just wears a diaper now while sleeping, but I expect we won't have to buy any more for him after this pack runs out.

The new kid arrived just as R. was really getting into the terrrible twos. I suppose it would be harder if the baby was into crawling/falling/licking sockets mode while R. was into smashing/crashing/yelling/running mode. Apparently it gets harder once both kids are mobile.

The killer for me is staying up all night with the baby and then having Rufus want me to get up at 5 or 6 with him and be present and reading stories.

I just really don't understand how anybody with multiples does it. I don't think there's any "easy" span between them. The closer you bunch them, though, the sooner you're done with the constant supervision part.

I can't wait.

― Maria :D (Maria D.), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 18:09 (twenty years ago)

I had my tubes tied. No more surprises.

― Maria :D (Maria D.), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 18:11 (twenty years ago)

I had one, two years later had "Irish twins" a year and 5 days apart, and five years later, 2 more "Irish twins" -- pregnancy is fun, except for the first two months when you have your head in the toilet, and the last month, when you can't breathe, or sit, or stand, or lie down, or walk, or....

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 18:19 (twenty years ago)

My sister had 4 kids in 4 years, the youngest one is only a few months old. The middle two are twins. Visiting them is a bit like going to the zoo.

― Hanna (Hanna), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 18:26 (twenty years ago)

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