Children and bedroom fairness...

Topcat1982

duchy wrote: »

Clearly I should have shared with my brother though according to you as my Mum was Catholic though !!!! <shakes head>

That was me that said. Didn't mean to offend other catholics, just meant the families at my school tended to have more than two kids, that's why they had to share

meer53

Wait until you have the second child before even thinking about it. Second child may never arrive, they're not guaranteed.

belfastgirl23

Just as a thought, would you not prefer the kids to be above you in the end? I'd much rather that the kids had to walk past my door to get out than that they could potentially come and go without being heard, at least til they're late teens...there's always the possibility of sleepwalking besides anything else.

We lived in a 5 bed house briefly when I was little, my sister and I still shared a room for the first few years, which I liked, the house was too big to sleep in alone. And when I was given a room to myself I used to go and get into bed with her if I felt scared you just don't know who your 'little stranger' will be and what kind of relationship they'll have with their sibling.

And as an aside, I'm kind of surprised at the notion that the children would have a room each and a playroom that's miles away from the general living area. Would having a room each not be enough? Would you not prefer them to be playing where you can be around when they're little?

pigpen

Tigsteroonie wrote: »

What upheaval? Identical beds, different bed linen. Take down the posters and swap to the other room. Maybe move a personalised rug. Swap clothes between wardrobes & drawers. I know as children we helped with the process; it also acted as a spring clean, and a chance to throw out old toys etc.

Maybe we had less stuff back then, maybe we weren't quite so indulged in terms of our bedrooms being personalised.

Obviously this was normal for you.. but that would simply not have worked for us.. It all seems so impersonal and the upheaval of shifting your stuff every tme you get settled.. Did you never pick your own wallpaper or paint? Or your carpet or curtains?


It took 3 months for my boys to go to sleep without hysteria when we moved house.. and when I repainted it.. good heavens you'd think I was skinning them alive the carry on!

Duchy.. I did share with my stepbrother until he was 6 and I was 12. 2 bedroomed house and 4 children there wasnt a great deal of choice in the matter. Until I was 17 and pregnant I shared a room with my sister who was 14 years younger than me!!

Very few of my school friends had their own room.. which is why I never had a sleepover until I was 34! haha

Kim_kim

Mojisola wrote: »

Do kids expect to have an ensuite these days? :eek:

No I don't think they do.

But they do have 2 bedrooms & 2 bathrooms on the first floor.

missbiggles1

duchy wrote: »

Then you either didn't visit many friends in their homes or had a very privileged upbringing. We're of an age and certainly for me growing up in middle class Surrey room sharing wasn't uncommon -and in some cases siblings shared even when there was a guest bedroom available anyway.

Clearly I should have shared with my brother though according to you as my Mum was Catholic though !!!! <shakes head>

Oy, I wasn't the one who made the Catholic comment!

Despite growing up in leafy Surrey myself (although from a poor working class family) I didn't know anybody who shared but then I don't remember anybody having a sister. The people who I knew well enough to visit at home were either only children like me or they had brothers.

Mind you,we weren't in and out of each others' homes the way children are today and sleepovers were pretty much unheard of. Whilst thanking you for the compliment, I'm pretty sure I'm a fair bit older than you are, which may explain it.:)

onlyroz

RainbowLaura wrote: »

That was our plan when we bought the house, but we've found we can't get the building regs permission to do that because of the position of the stairs and the extra restrictions on 3 storey homes

Currently there is just an archway through from the top bedroom into the dressing room, but we're looking into options to make it more of a doorway. It can't be a "proper" door though due to fire regs (although the dressing room does have a large window which is not on the floorplan picture)

Thanks for the ideas everyone

We have a three-storey house after doing a loft conversion. My understanding was that each landing needs a wired-in smoke alarm, all bedroom doors have to be fire doors, and there needs to be a fire door on the ground floor separating the kitchen from the rest of the house. Is there anything you can do to reconfigure the landing and put in fire doors to turn the "dressing room" into a proper bedroom? Have you consulted with a few builders to get an idea of what is possible?

If you can't change the layout then I'd say move your eldest up to the "dressing room", put the new baby into the bedroom next to yours, and then have the top floor bedroom as a play room (or study as the kids get older), with a sofa-bed for guests.

piglet74

Myself (female) and my brother shared a room as kids!! We did live in a two bedroom house at the time,
I didn't know anyone who had their own room as a kid, though we did grow up in a rural part of Ireland

onlyroz

Person_one wrote: »

I'm not a parent, but I know a lot don't like to have young children on a different floor, in case of illness, emergency etc. Would that bother you?

When they're toddlers, sure, but when they're older it is truly MARVELLOUS having the kids on a different floor to you (particularly on Sunday mornings ).

catkins

I had to share with my two sisters until I left home at 23. We lived in a 2 bed council house and the council said we didn't need a bigger house as we could share.


We had the biggest bedroom but it wasn't big enough for 3 beds so there were bunk beds and a single bed. I had the single bed and my sisters the bunk beds. When I left home at 23 my sisters were 21 and 17