planning for baby #2--welcoming comments please

[oregon2010]

Hello mamas! It is so strange, I have BABIES on the brain but yet I am not completely ready. My daughter is 19 months old.  Sweet, easy, calm--we are LOVING her to pieces and loving this time with her.  But I am a planner by nature :) I am 31 and we are pretty confident we are only going to have one more baby.  My husband just started grad school and will finish in March 2013 (when our daughter will be turning 3).  His program is pretty intense and busy.  I was very very sick the first trimester with my daughter and he has to do everything.  I worry that if I am pregnant while he is in school that it will be very hard (we dont live near family).  But I don't want our children to be any further than 3 years apart and some change.  I also kinda wanted to have the second baby in a different season but I don't think that is possible :( Also, I want my next pregnancy to be as calm and stress free as possible because I developed high blood pressure last time.  We have a lot of changes coming up in the next year (moving and my husband being in school).  So....mamas with children that are 3 years or more apart, what have been the positives and negatives?  Any other suggestions based on my situation?  THANK YOU!!!

[JMJ]

My second hasn't been born yet, but mine are 3 years apart.  Going through the first trimester with a toddler around was interesting.  I had to pull back from a lot of my outside commitments and mostly just focus on my daughter and my own health.  I went into this pregnancy with a pretty well stocked freezer and pantry so that I had nourishing things around to eat without too much work.  I had a nut/seed mix that I set out on the counter to snack on throughout the day to keep something in my stomach, and that really helped with morning sickness.  I spent a lot of time just snuggling with or reading to DD.  She's still nursing, so we had that snuggle time, though there's a lot to work out breastfeeding-wise when you're pregnant.  I took almost every nap with her, and set low expectations for myself about what I was trying to accomplish around the house.

It went amazingly well.  I haven't been under a whole lot of stress this pregnancy, and DD has been alright.  She mostly just needs me, and she really enjoyed having the extra attention while I lay around the house.  We didn't get out quite as much as I would have liked, but DH was able to take her for walks/hikes pretty often.  It's amazing how what has to get done does.

[Peony]

I got pg with DD2 right after DD1 turned 3 so they are 3y10m apart. It has worked out well, it has turned out to be my favorite spacing of all my kids, I have 4. The girls are 8 and 5 currently.

The oldest is old enough to entertain themselves and not be so needy. DD2 had a lot of health problems as a baby and had they been 2 years apart, it would of been a nightmare. DD1 was old enough to fend for herself through the worst of it. 

They have separate friends, likes, activities, this could be a negative but as siblings they often have to share a lot anyway and the spacing makes it so they do have separate things. 

With how their birthdays fall, they end up 4 years apart in school which can be a drag. Also spaces out the baby years, again good and bad. It lasts for longer but can make it more relaxed then packing it into a short couple years.