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[alaskanmomma]

I have an EDD for April 21st... my issue? DS is an April 25th birthday. Does anyone have experience with having babies born so close together?! I'm kind of sporadic with when my babies come.. one was 4 weeks early, one was 2 weeks late... so it would be my luck baby is born on time . Anyways, I guess my pregnancy hormones are just fretting over having possibly two kiddos sharing a birthday or being SUPER close together.

[camprunner]

All I can think of is that they can share a birthday party! Mine are born 6 weeks apart and for many years they shared one and thankfully are to the age where I am trying to phase parties out!

[MomInTheMitten]

If we're lucky enough to indeed have an April baby, then my kids will have birthdays a few months apart. So I can't speak from a mother's perspective on this one but there are a few shared birthdays in my family.

I have set of cousins who couldn't be more different from one another. One is a competitive athlete and devout Catholic, the other is a tattooed free spirit. The one touchstone I see them connecting through time and again is their shared birthday. Sharing that day has been really meaningful in both of their lives.

I, on the other hand, share a birthday with a quirky bachelor uncle, the baby of his large family. He has always gotten to choose the particulars of the birthday celebration (even though we don't typically celebrate 'grown up' birthdays as an extended family), and I've always had a chip on my shoulder because of it. It's totally silly and minor, but it was quite painful for me during my formative years.

When my second son was born on the same date as my husband's best friend (the quirky bachelor uncle in our kids' lives), all sorts of emotions welled up inside me.

I think that as long as you build in time for each child to feel special individually and acknowledge the specialness of their shared/close birthdays (without wearing yourself too thin), then the rest will be icing on the birthday cake!

[Ethelpea]

I have 5 children, two of them have birthdays one day apart...April 4th and April 5th.    I've had no issues with it and neither have my two little ones.  My newest  baby is due right in the same time frame.  So it is highly likely that s/he'll share a birthday with someone. 

[alaskanmomma]

It's nice to hear other stories :) My son shares a birthday with my BIL(4 years apart), and I refuse to celebrate their birthdays together, so maybe I'll be more inclined to share DS and new baby's birthdays with each other, since money will definitely be a factor in everything and probably won't be able to afford 2 different birthday parties. 

[theypswife]

This baby is due April 4th, and s/he will probably have to share the spotlight with two girl cousins, born 3/25/11 and 4/4/10. I don't think it'll be too big of an issue to share, as the cousins live out of state.

My biggest struggle is that my husband, an identical twin, has his bday on 12/23, DD was born on 12/24, and then there's all the holiday hoopla with Christmas! It really falls on my shoulders to make it special for everyone, and as long as I start planning early enough, it's worked out so far!

[firespiritmelody]

I don't have kiddos with close birthdays, but my husband has a large family and there are several birthdays near each other. So we do birthdays kind of differently lol. For our immediate family, the birthday person gets to pick where we eat dinner on their birthday. It's usually just us without any extended family though occasionally we bend that rule depending on every ones schedule. This is great for us because my girls have very different tastes and like different foods so on their birthdays their sisters aren't allowed to complain, at all.

Once they're in school we have a small friend party - I don't generally invite family, just school mates and we always shoot for somewhere inexpensive and easy.

Then MIL usually hosts a family party for all the birthdays in that month (or close together) So for example, my DD2 shares a family party with her GGma and aunt, etc.

So for us, birthdays are a month long ordeal lol. I should also add that DD1's bday is 12/18 so we have her birthday parties in Feb so it's not over shadowed by xmas.

So, like pp have mentioned, it's all about how you handle it. Even if they're a day apart, you can still make a special dinner just for them etc. It'll all work out fine

[NZmumof2]

I've just told our 12 year old we're having another, his b-day is April 4th and this one is due the 1st.  His main concern was that it better not decide to arrive on his birthday - but he said it smiling!

Anna

[TIFF4NY]

My daughter was born on my mothers birthday which turned out to be sort of a blessing. DD was the first grandchild on both sides and my mother is a super proud Nana and was just elated to have DD born on her day. They have quite the special bond and my mother does not mind DD having all the glory on their birthday. I also happened that we had already decided to give DD my moms middle name.

This one would be due 3 days after my brothers birthday and he would be thrilled to share a birthday with this one. He is so very much in love with DD and I know having this one on or very near his birthday will be special for him as well. 

I can see how it would be different if they were sharing with siblings or other young family members but my mom doesn't even care to celebrate her increasing age ( ;p ) anymore and my brother is 35 and beyond the spotlight phase. 

In a way I kind of hope this one is born on my brothers birthday. What a story that would be.

Oh and my DD was born the exact same day my half sister had her DD so we call them 'twin cousins'. That's extra neat because my half cousin from that same side of the family and I share the exact same birthday. Lots of sharing going on in our family!

[cagnew]

I have three children and the two youngest are within 6 days of each other. We celebrated their birthdays on the same day this year and it was fine. It was dd's first birthday, so I just made a small cake that was part of my son's bigger cake. I think that's all they care about... having a cake and candles to blow out, and presents. Birthdays are special days in our house, but we don't generally do big birthday bashes. We try to keep it simple, but make the children feel loved and celebrated.

This baby is due within a week of my 5 year olds birthday. We haven't told the kids about the baby yet, but I did mention casually to her that maybe the next baby could be her birthday buddy. She liked the idea :)

Really, it's kind of a nice teachable opportunity about sharing and not being selfish and self-centered. It helps them to know that the world does not revolve around them and makes them aware of others. 

[love bug]

My DH shares his birthday with one of his brothers (6 years apart). They seem fine with it although my dh still remembers being bummed that he didn't get a fisher price garage that birthday that his brother arrived:)

That brother (he has 3) and us have children 2 days apart and one day apart. its pretty neat that they came so close to each other. But we also live far from each other so there is little sharing of their special days. 

[1babysmom]

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Edited by 1babysmom - 3/19/13 at 8:14pm

[kellykins]

My brother and I's birthdays are exactly a week apart. We always shared family birthday parties and had seperate friend parties when we got to be school aged. We actually miss it big time now that we live in different states just sharing an adult perspective as having grown up with this situation!
Oh, and my oldest and this babe will potentially have the SAME bday.