Close Encounters

If you've ever done any family planning, you know the conventional wisdom: children born less than two or three years apart are developmentally doomed to a lifetime of rivalry, with their weary parents as eternal referees. But what if you learned there are proven strategies for helping closely spaced siblings get along? Perhaps you would be tempted to buck the trend that's led to an average four-year gap between American siblings, up from 3 1/2 years a generation ago. Though it may be heresy for parents who do everything by the book, perhaps you would choose the sweet, messy bounty of having your kids close together. Among the positives: closely spaced siblings emerge from infancy in rapid succession, allowing their parents to purge the house of baby toys, sleep through the night again and resume their careers that much sooner. As kids get older, close spacing simplifies everything from clothes shopping (same store) to child care (same after-school program) to family entertainment (same movie rating).

Having kids back to back might suit other needs too. Says Joseph Hagan, a committee chair for the American Academy of Pediatrics: "People put such a premium on getting birth spacing 'right,' but there are so many other factors in family planning--finances, work, the age of the mother--that couples might not want to wait the full two years."

Tell it to the feds. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that between 1990 and 1995, the most recent period for which statistics are available, 11% of births by women aged 15 to 44 occurred within 24 months of a sibling's birth. Citing health concerns--the shorter the interval between pregnancies, the greater the risk that a baby will be born too soon or too small--the Department of Health and Human Services wants that number to drop to 6% by the year 2010. But it has a hard time explaining exactly how Uncle Sam plans to promote that goal. "I'm not sure why we have that as an objective," says an HHS staff member, noting that while it makes sense to encourage gaps between births in developing countries, "malnutrition isn't really an issue here." Indeed, the vast majority of closely spaced pregnancies in this country turn out just fine. Bao-Ping Zhu, author of a leading study on the subject, notes that women can improve those odds by getting plenty of rest and eating well to make up for lost nutrients and postpartum stress.

If you're a rebel, you might want to heed the advice of Susan McHale, a professor of human development at Penn State University, who says parents can minimize the "handicap" of close spacing by carefully preparing the older child for the birth of the younger (don't promise an instant playmate); by teaching the children to empathize with one another in the preschool years; by helping them play without competing throughout childhood; and by continuing to spend time with the two of them--together--even after they reach adolescence.

Like twins and triplets, closely spaced siblings run the risk of being lumped together at home and beyond, so it's important for them to have separate friends and interests. "It's become a cliche," says Nancy Samalin, author of Loving Each One Best, "but each child needs to know he's unique." That's good advice for all parents, no matter how far apart their children are born.

For more on sibling rivalry, visit www.samalin.com You can e-mail Eugenie at Eugenie_Allen@yahoo.com