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A walking, talking, interfering, demanding, traumatised older child, close in age, who may not be thrilled to have a ready made playmate of a similar age but older and more established?

The idea of a playmate is understandable but in reality how will that work? Will your existing child cope with having a newcomer wanting to share his things - toys, affection, parents? One who will invade his territory? Who’ll be joining him in school ... and who he’ll have to explain to other kids? So, how come you suddenly have a 3 year old brother?

My younger two are only 20 months apart. They’ve never been playmates and even though they both have autism they’re chalk and cheese. They both came as babies so have grown up together but even so they’re nothing alike! Most definitely not playmates.

Im not surprised sws are considering you but whose needs are they prioritising? Yours? Your son’s? The new child? Or someone else’s? Presumably you had wanted to adopt a younger child for good reasons, reasons which you’d thought through. You’re not adopting to give your child a playmate ... I don’t mean that to sound harsh, it’s not intended, but I do think there are likely to be more cons than pros. Sorry

We asked for a 2 - 3 year age gap when adopting our second (eldest 3.5 when we started the process). However we were approved for 18 months plus younger than eldest. We were irritated as we had no intention of going for less than a 2 year gap and really wanted 3 years. We were told about children where the age gap was less but only pursued 2 plus years.

We actually found it hard to find another child as our LA only had one suitable child (whose bf lived too near and ended up with another family) in all of the two years we were looking, so we had to go to other LAs and mostly got told about children where they wanted them to be the only child in the family or where other children must be much older.

In the end our second child was 4.5 years younger. I can't say if that's a good gap. It works for us as parents, but the girls have always been quite jealous of each other, though they do get on at times. Youngest finds it hard that eldest can do things she can't due to her age and eldest feels we spend too much time with youngest (who is still very demanding even though she's in her teens now).

However I do believe a smaller gap would have been more tricky in terms of balancing their needs. At least eldest was at school when youngest was placed and things like bedtimes were easy to keep separate, so each got our full attention when it was their time. Family outings worked ok mostly as both could enjoy similar things, eg the park and swimming, for many years.

But being companions - not really. But you couldn't guarantee that for any two children, close in age or not.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I appreciate the honesty and straight talking and you have given some important issues to consider.

There are many reasons we are considering this child; we are from an ethnic minority group and profiles don't come our way often so I suppose we are considering a wider range, also we are on the older side so that's why an older child did appeal too to suit our family dynamics. Our son goes to a small private school they all know he is adopted and I don't have any issues about him or us introducing a younger brother to them. I know the reality of a child turning up to share in all his space/parental love/toys is a huge issue but our son is extremely sociable and just loves playing with other children. Whether we go to the park or a restaurant the first thing he will do is check out the environment for potential buddies to make. And when children come over for playdates they don't leave without our son giving one of is little toys away.

Again I appreciate the above could mean nothing in the context of a permanent fixture turning up in his life.

Thanks again for sharing your views.