Three kids in one room

[Fairy4tmama]

I would love to hear any ones BTDT advice or tips in general, we are getting ready to move from a 547 sq ft 2bd apartment to a 700 sq ft 2 bd apt. Most of the new sq ftage is in the living area and kitchen storage. Currently both of the boys share a room and dd sleeps with us. All of the kids toys and clothes are in the boys room. when we move in a few weeks I would like to start having dd sleep(consistently) in with the boys.

We have a bunk bed with a twin on the top and a full on the bottom. Right now for the most part the boys and occasionally dd sleep horizontally on the bottom and the top bunk is mainly a play space.My options are to let all three sleep on the bottom, have ds 1 on the top and ds2 and dd on the bottom. or get a toddler bed. The new room is 9x10 so I could fit a toddler bed in with the bunks but it would eat up the majority of the play space.

In addition to the bunk beds this is what is in the room

• Each child has a set of plastic drawers for their clothes.
• We have two under bed storage drawers .
• I have a child sized coat rack for most of the dress up stuff, however in addition to what fits on the rack we have a unruley bin of dress up hats and shoes.
• 1 large rubbermaid contianer (with no lid) with about 300 unit blocks.
• several medium rubber maid containers that have legos, duploes or playmobile, there is usualy one of these out and two in storage
• several smallish rubermaid containers that have potato heads, imaginex play sets not well contained ie not all the pieces fit (these are actually currently in my closet supposed to be going to storage)
  And then there are the toys with no home
• imaginex bat cave and big boat.
• dolly potty,clothes and chairs

I am not good at organization at all. I have decluttered a ton as our last move was from a 2000sq ft 4 bd house 9 months ago. We do have an off site storage unit. We will be in this apartment for 9 months, then hopefully move into a 3-4 bd house.

Has anyone used their top bunk exclusively as a loft play space? IF so, did you replace the mattress with a board?
How do you store toys and clothes?
How do you keep the room tidy and usable?
What do you keep in the bed room vs living room?
TIA

[magnolia_mama]

My three children share a room. The older two have a bunk bed and my youngest has a toddler bed. My son's clothing is in a 3 drawer system that is underneath the bunk beds. The girls share a dresser that is in the center of the closet. Clothes are hung on either side of the dresser and we are also able to stack some clothing on top. We have tall (floor to ceiling), skinny bookshelves for each child. This is where they store all of their special belongings. We also have a plastic container that slides underneath the toddler bed for dress up clothes and open shelving for baskets of girl toys and boy toys, pretend food, plastic animals. I actually use a lot of various sized wicker baskets to contain things. It not only looks cute, but makes clean up really easy. We have a storage ottoman in our living room for extra toys and bookshelves throughout the house. Thankfully, we also have an area in our unfinished basement for the kids to play. We do keep all of the bigger toys downstairs.

[Fairy4tmama]

magnolia_mama, thank you for sharing how you are working 3 kids in one room. I am considering shelves with baskets but I must admit when I tried this in the past it totally did not work, though I think partly it could be that the bins go all the way to the top and you have to take the bin out to put stuff in, oh and did I mention that I am organizationally chalanged . Any chance you could post a picture?

[ASusan]

I would put the oldest on the top bunk, as he is probably wanting to have some space that is his own and relatively undisturbed. I would put the younger 2 on the bottom. IF your older DS wants to sleep with the younger 2 on the bottom and 'give up' his top bunk space to playspace for all, I would allow him to make that decision.

I would ask the children to "shop" through their toys right now and pick out their favorite (insert number here: 3? 5? - understanding that "blocks" or "dress up" can count as one). You select one or 2 more, based on what you know they play with the most. Put the rest in storage. Because your living situation is temporary, have them go "shopping" again at about the mid-way point - say, at the end of the summer. They can trade one-for-one or something like that. Cull books at this time as well. Keep half in your apartment and half in storage. Re-visit/trade at the end of the summer.

[ParisApril]

We have two kids sharing a bedroom now and you could fit a third in there at least to sleep. We have bunk beds and a trundle bed under the bottom bunk. The room in only 10x10 so with 2 dressers and a small shelf in there, that doesn't leave a ton of room for playing though.

[yeahwhat]

We have 3 kids in one room, but it is 12x12. There's a bunk bed plus separate twin for sleeping. In a smaller room, a toddler bed could be used for a younger child.

The bunk is along one wall. At the end, the twin is going the other way. The 8yo sleeps on the top bunk, the 2yo on the bottom, and the 6yo on the separate twin (by her choice). Along the second wall, beside the twin is a shelving unit for books and toys, then large window and space for walking around the twin. On the third wall is a book shelf, dresser for the older two girls, and closet with double bar and shelves inside. On the top bar are the 2yos dresses and out of season clothes for the older two. On the lower bar are in season clothes for the older two. On the shelves are extra sweaters, shoes and blankets. The 2yos other clothes are in my room, although I could put them in the bedroom by moving the smaller bookshelf. On the fourth wall is the end of closet, door, hooks for sweaters and pjs, and narrow part of the bunkbeds.

I could put more things in there since the space under both beds is empty, but we have a basement playroom and and under the stair closet for clothes that are waiting for the next child to grow into.

[Fairy4tmama]

Thank you for your replies I am hoping they won't be necessary though as last night we happened upon a duplex just going on to the rental market. It has three generously sized rooms AND a back yard that opens up into the coconino national forest. The landlord seemed to like us and was flexible on a few key points (like including the water bill in the rent). She already had a showing set up for today to show the place to the neighbors friend. She said she felt "obligated to keep that appointment". It doesn't sound like she is best friends with the neighbor or anything so if all goes well hopefully I will be putting down a deposit this afternoon. I don't mind the kids sharing a room but the extra space in other areas of the house and the yard would just make all the difference. As DH put it there is alot sane space in that house (we have been on top of each other for the past 9 months)

[cappuccinosmom]

We have our three boys in one room. In our old house, their room was very small.

Two slept in a bunk, and the youngest in a pack n play. We had no toys in the room, and just a few books. I put a small dresser inside their closet and that's where the bulk of their clothes were stored. Underwear and socks were in a small plastic drawer unit in the room.

We moved and their room is much larger now, but it's not that different. They have more books in there now (for rest time), and a different clothign storage set up. The only toys in there now are their individual boxes of matchbox cars, which they can play with in their beds at naptime.

Keeping toys (mostly) out of the bedroom is really the biggest thing for me. I don't envision changing that ever, no matter how much space we might have in the future.

[Fairy4tmama]

Thank you so much for all the ideas! We got the duplex

It has three bed rooms so now I just have to decide who gets to have their own room or weather to go with cappuccinosmom's suggestion and have a sleeping room and a play room......its tough but someones gotta do it!!!!!!

[libranbutterfly]

I only have two children currently, however could easily(and may soon) add a third. I agree to storing the toys and rotating them.It makes the toys more special to the children and because they arent being overwhelmed with choices, they will play more. My girls currently have their dollhouse with all accessories, a doll bed with some dolls, a small bucket of dressup clothes, and one small shelf in their room. The small shelf currently has a basket of happy meal toys, magnadoodles, shape sorter, 2 puzzles, and a puppy in my pocket house (that we have no puppies for LOL) Al of the other toys are stored in the hall closet, in separate bins or buckets for each type of toy. At any time, the girls can ask me for a bucket of toys from the closet, or a couple buckets of toys if they have a big project in mind. At the end of the day, when they clean their room, the buckets of toys are returned to the closet