Sleeping on a different floor of the house?

[mamaofprincesses]

Our house has a main level and a basement, two bedrooms on each floor. DD1 is five, DD2 is almost three, and DS is nearly three months.

DD1 has expressed a desire for her own room. Right now, one of the bedrooms downstairs is a playroom, and the other is slated to be an office, when we finally get around to doing that. But, she waffles. One day she wants to be down there by herself, the next she wants to sleep downstairs but with her sister, and the third she wants to stay where she is. I'm trying to figure out how to configure the rooms (we just moved here) and whether or not to invest in different furniture or closet organizers or other things that would help ME manage the kids' stuff.

If you have a child who sleeps on a different floor of the house than you do, what age did that start? Thoughts?

[staceychev]

Personally, I wouldn't do it at that age. I think it's more dangerous, in terms of household emergencies (fires, whatever), but I also just wouldn't be more comfortable having my kids sleeping that far away from me. Personally, I'd tell her that she can get her own room as a milestone event--like when she turns 10 (double digits) or maybe 13.

[velochic]

My brother died in a house fire when I was 12, so I'm hyper-aware of issues like this. I would not do it until she is much older. I wouldn't do it ever if there is only the one way (stairs) out of the basement.

[mamaofprincesses]

There are four large windows in the basement, including one in each of the bedrooms. Otherwise it wouldn't even be a possibility.

Thanks for the comments, though.

[Tjej]

Well, our kids are upstairs and we are down. We can hear them if they get up and walk (through the floor) and so we would know where they were if they got up. I would wake.

They have been up there since they were babies, and it works okay most of the time. My DD is almost 4 now and DS is 2. They share a room.

I think that if they could walk around and we wouldn't know it and/or if the weather in our area was dangerous (really icy and cold if they got out at night) I would re-think our arrangement. And if our kids had different temperments - DS is still in a crib, so I don't have to wonder what he is doing and DD is good about staying in her bed at night.

HTH

Tjej

[Landover]

We have a master on the main level and all of the secondary bedrooms are on the top floor. We will eventually put all of the kids in the basement in two large rooms on either side with rec rooms, bathroom, etc in the middle so that they have their own area.

I keep the babies with me until they are 12 months, and then they start sleeping upstairs at short periods of time. My DD is 1.5 and she takes naps upstairs and sleeps in her crib for the first part of the night. My DS is four and sleeps upstairs all of the time.

We have really good monitors with video. We also have a full perimeter alarm with motion so that I know nobody can get up there to "take" them. I do worry about a fire, but we really aren't that far away, and this is the way our home is set up.

Honestly, it works well for us. It is REALLY nice to be able to put them to bed and then not have to worry about the noise level on the main floor. I really love the way our house is set up!

[MJB]

We don't anymore, but did in our old house. Our bedroom was in the basement (with lots of big windows) and the kids were on the first floor. They were 2.5 and 5.5 at first and we lived there a year. Because we were right under them, and the basement ceiling was uninsulated, we could hear their every move-- we could overhear conversations, hear their footsteps, even hear them pee when they got up in the middle of the night. I'm a light sleeper so I woke up every time one of them got up in the middle of the night. I was a little paranoid about someone breaking into our house and the kids being right there on the main floor, but the chances of someone breaking into your house and hurting/kidnapping your kid are probably 1 in a million so I didn't let that sway my decision.
We're moving again this summer and I would definitely put my boys on another floor if that was most convenient. The baby will be with us until 2ish.

[SomedayMom]

We have had 2 houses with main floor master bedrooms and the other bedrooms upstairs (we have also always had a walkout basement with another bedroom down there). My boys coslept as babies/young toddlers, but once they were sleeping on their own, they were upstairs. We've always had really great monitors to hear them and they are, of course, always always welcome to join us in our room. It works out fine for us. As for fire safety, we do keep their doors shut when they are sleeping (safer) and we make sure our smoke detectors are working well. They are linked into our security system. I feel very safe. My boys have their own rooms, but they like to sleep together in the same bed too

[lilyka]

I wouldn't hesitate to put the kids in the basement with the master bedroom upstairs. at any age. if it was a main and upstairs I wwould put the kids upstairs and sleep on the main floor. I do worry about my kids sleeping on the main floor even if I am down their with them. Just to easy for someone to reach in and snatch them.....yeah, totally paranoid but we sleep with open windows here. scary. I have one child up on the third floor which is scary but she begged abd begged and so for her 13th birthday I let her move up there.

[MacKinnon]

We've got two main floor bedrooms and one very big upstairs room. It's a converted cottage, and there is no real master. We had the downstairs rooms set up as kids rooms but they never slept in them, in large part to the fact that they are on the ground floor. So, we set the upstairs up as one big sleeping room, with all our beds and dressers. The two downstairs rooms are now a playroom and an office/guest room. This is working well for now, DD will be 6 next week, but I suspect withing 6 months to a year we will need to rearrange to give her her own room. We're debating making a room divider and having the giant room upstairs one big kids room, or putting boy/s in one room, girl/s in another downstairs, and keeping the big one a master. We'll see!

[angie7]

We just moved into a new house where the master is on the main level, 2 bdrms are upstairs and there is also one in the basement. The bdrms upstairs, one is a playroom for my 3 y/o (soon to be 4) twins and the other is their shared bdrm. I still use a monitor so it doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. In our old house, their bdrm was about 5 steps away from our room. I think your dd is old enough to have her own room. I'm hoping to cut the monitor here shortly but they still have moments where they wake in the nite and need me so I'm hesitate at the moment.

[madskye]

We have a smaller old house and we sleep upstairs, DD downstairs right below us since she was 3 months old. I hear everything. I hear her if she coughs, or cries, or drops her cuddle toy. I used to have a monitor but stopped using it because I hear everything anyway. In our case, I go to bed after she does and wakes up long before DD, so it really hasn't been an issue.

She's woken up before me one time that I can think of, and she just yelled up the stairs that she was awake. Now she's 4.5 and not a very mischievous kid, so I would have no problem with her awake in the house before me, but my DH and I get up around 5:30-6AM every morning so it's just not likely to happen.

[aloharuiz]

Hi. I am a mother of two beautiful children from the Philippines. Here, we don't practice our kids in sleeping in another room not until they're 10 years older or so. I don't want to separate from my kids neither because I'm afraid something might happen to them. We have a lot of thieves here, especially during the night. So I'd better keep my kids guarded.

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[Landover]

I should note that we also sleep with the doors closed in case of fire. We also had a serious gate mounted to the top of the stairs that stayed locked until about a year ago when I was sure DS could make it down the stairs by himself if he wanted to sleep with us. Once DD gets old enough for a toddler bed that gate will go back to being closed and my DS will have to talk to us through the monitor to get us to come open it for him.

The biggest pain is going to get the baby when she wakes up so that she can come downstairs with us. By the time you climb the steps, walk back down toting a 28 pound little girl, and crawl back into bed, I am out of breath (well, I am 20 weeks preggo again though - lol).

[bobandjess99]

Westarted having the older boys sleep in a bedroom (together) on a different floor when they were 6, 7 and 10.

[RiverSky]

Nope, too young. I'd probably wait until she was at least 7 or 8.

[loudmama]

My DD,who will be 9 in March has had a basement bedroom since we moved into this place when she was 7. Her bedroom has regular sized windows. In fact, the city I live in will not allow it to be considered a bedroom if it does not have windows that are big enough to get out of in case of fire. We put, & still have, a monitor in her room to make us feel better.

L

[*bejeweled*]

Originally Posted by staceychev

Personally, I wouldn't do it at that age. I think it's more dangerous, in terms of household emergencies (fires, whatever), but I also just wouldn't be more comfortable having my kids sleeping that far away from me. Personally, I'd tell her that she can get her own room as a milestone event--like when she turns 10 (double digits) or maybe 13.

I agree with this. Age 10 sounds good.

[Annie Mac]

If you feel OK with the safety issues that have been brought up, I would suggest letting her "camp" down there for a couple nights. My daughter, at 10, did the same thing, wanted a room downstairs. I had no problem with that, so we moved her down there. Maybe a month or two later, she wanted come back upstairs. Too isolated feeling for her.