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I think it's possible, but it will mostly depend on their personalities. We have 3, both younger ones adore the oldest but as they are closer in age the middle had a hard time adjusting. The "left out" gender is the middle, so personally I kind of think that helps the dynamic. But I feel like you never really know until it's too late anyway..

My friends cautioned me against having a 3rd because her middle daughter is constantly left out. I had never thought of that before. We are stopping at 2 for our own reasons, so it wouldn't be a factor to not have a 3rd but something to be aware of.

@misolee: We have a similar situation and similar hopes! Haha.

We’re about to have GBG and the gaps are 3 and 3.5 years. I expect third wheel stuff to happen but hope they can all be close at times. A good friend is 5 years older than her sister - they are super close now but I don’t think it worked as well at say 17 and 12. I figure my older two are already close, the younger two will spend more time at home together since oldest is already in elementary and I SAH for now, the oldest will “Little mommy” the baby ... and it will all change as years go by.
But even two siblings aren’t always close, I think personality really is a huge factor that you can’t control. Clearly I’m biased though since we’re already having a third!

I was in a family of 3 kids and so was DH. While you can have one that feels left out, I think it changed and also dealt with age and personality. Also, if it were just me and my brother, I wouldn’t feel like I had a close relationship with a sibling but I have my younger sister who I’ve gotten closer to, where my bro and sis were closer growing up. DH has a twin sister and older sister and they each have different relationships with the two girls being best friends!

We have 3 girls and I expect allegiances to change over the years but then I also hope that at some point, they’ll each have at least one sibling to feel close to!

I think it really depends on personalities. Growing up I was close friends (still am) with 3 siblings roughly 2-3 years apart each. First 2 were boys, then a girl. Oldest and youngest were social; middle was a bit of a loner. As an adult after college he moved to another country to teach English and even got married/had a kid there before eventually heading back to the states.

I am the middle child of 3 girls. Sometimes it sucked, other times it was amazing. My older sister is 2y4m older than me and my little sister is 23m younger than me. I haven't really ever got along great with my older sister (now that we're older it's not bad really just not like besties or anything), but that is due to her personality. She is a huge people pleaser, social chameleon that won't stand up for herself and goes along with whatever to make whoever happy... I am not any of those things. My little sister I am closer with but our personalities are much the same. I was the odd man out at times ("the other one" because they look like twins), and other times I was part of the 2 in the 2 against 1. I don't think being 1 of 3 made it any harder.

Now my mom is the youngest of 3, oldest is a boy, middle is a girl. My mom is almost 5 years younger than her sister, and she says it was almost like being an only child instead of the youngest of 3. Her sister used to treat her like my mom ruined her life because she had been the baby for so long, but my aunt is kind of a rip. My mom is probably closer with her brother than her sister, but she's more like her brother than her sister.

I grew up the oldest of 2 sisters, there was definitely 2 on 1 most of the time. There is 11 months between me and middle sister, and 18 months between her and youngest.

When we were little it was the two younger vs. me. I remember playing 'spy' and spying on them playing, lol, at least it taught me some independence.
As teen's, it was me and the youngest because our personalities are more similar. We were mean though to middle sister!
As far as our parents, I never felt left out, although the youngest was and is still the baby.

I have a younger brother too, but he's 7 years younger and we've never been close because of the huge gap!

@skipra: I mean, its a dumb decision on all accounts. I was really hoping I"d feel more certain about being done with this pregnancy than I am....we'll see. Maybe 3 will cook me.

It’s a very interesting discussion. I’m one of three where we were less close to the sister who was both a lot younger and very different in personality. I feel that there would have been less distance if our parents made more effort to treat us equally (she escaped discipline because she was the “baby”). We avoided playing with her as much as we could because she was a troublemaker, and we knew we’d be getting in trouble instead of her.
That said, I am a little bit closer to her now than my other sister because we are the two moms now.

I'm the youngest of three, our family was boy, girl, girl. I don't think any of us felt like a third wheel, but we weren't super close in age either (my brother was 6 1/2 years older than me, my sister was almost 3 years older than me). My brother and sister clashed a lot when we were young kids (their personalities were very similar, both very head strong lol), but my sister and I, and my brother and I always got along well.

I am the middle child and only girl of my siblings, and I have middle child syndrome. I always had higher expectations of me as well because I was the only girl and grew up in a house where my mom insisted we be close, but never really liked me. So there are anxiety issues because of that specifically, but it always sort of felt like my brothers against me. We're all very close now, but growing up, my mom always made it very clear that my brothers were more important because they were boys.

I have 2 boys now, and we're definitely done. My older brother has 3; Girl, boy, girl, and I feel like his middle gets looked over. I don't know if it's because of my own middle child issues or if it's because he is just quieter than his sisters are, but I feel like it's there.

All of this to say, I have some strong feelings about not having 3 because of how forgotten the middle child is.

@JennyLayneAZ: @2PeasinaPod: I'm the middle and I definitely have noodle child syndrome 🤣. I tell everyone I was put on this Earth to wear what the oldest can't wear anymore and get beat for what the baby did.