Sibling room sharing « Back to Group Discussions

[firespiritmelody]

Currently our 3 girls all share a room but our youngest actually sleeps in our room. Their room is quite large so there's plenty of space up there for all their stuff and it works out pretty well. Now that we're having a little boy, I'm wondering how we'll set things up as they get older. He'll be rooming with us for the foreseeable future and our youngest daughter will completely move up with her sisters. At some point though, I would like to regain complete use of *my* bedroom lol. Our house is really old and even though there are 3 bedrooms, one is more like a storage room and since it's part of what was once an attic, the ceiling is sloped so there is nowhere to put a bookcase or anything like that.

We rent, so we'll probably live here for a few more years and then hopefully be able to buy something with more useable space. At some point, I'd like to give my oldest her own room (she just turned 13) and it's likely the littlest two or possibly three (my now 8 & 4 year olds and the new baby) will share.

So, how do you have your kids spaces set up? Do they share? Have you had experience with boys and girls sharing a room? Just wondering what's working for other families since it's something we've never had to think about before!

[alaskanmomma]

My two share a room, and all 3 will share eventually(unless we get a 3 bedroom..but with our income/how much rent is, doubtful anytime soon).. they just.. do? Haha, I've never really did anything except put them in different beds and even then they sleep together when they come in my room in the middle of the night ;) Idk if we're more relaxed than most, but the kids are 95% of the time just chilling in their undies/diaper, they bathe together, etc. so they've seen each other naked and all that good stuff and I don't shield them from it at all lol

[bmcneal]

Right now, the two kids have their own rooms. When the baby is born, NB (new baby) will sleep with us until... sometime, then either share a room with either DD or DS, depending on whether it's a boy or a girl, or we are thinking about going to one kids' room, and the other be a playroom/office/library type thing. Up until we got this house, DD and DS shared a room, and used to sleep in the same bed (not by necessity, they each had their own beds, but because they wanted to). I don't see a problem with it, IMO, until they show an issue with it.

[IronMam]

DS will be in our room for a while...but if we move, I may want to find a place I can set up with a play room, and a bed room that DD and DS share. I'm just worried DS will wake DD up too much. She's a monster when she's tired and cranky. ETA: She gets that from her mom.
Edited by IronMam - 12/27/12 at 9:18am

[brooklyn_warbler]

Like Alaskanmama, my two share a room.  We actually just made the transition to my son sleeping in there and it's going beautifully so far.  I must say I am LOVING having our own bedroom again, but it will be short lived as we're due so soon now!  This little one will sleep with us indefinitely, and then eventually move into the kids' room, but I'm not entirely sure how!  Probably a toddler bed somewhere because we won't be able to fit another full sized bed in there.  It will probably be a long time (at least 5 years, but probably more) before we can afford to take over another floor in our house (and therefore get another bedroom) so unless we adults move our bedroom into the basement (ugh) we'll have three kids in a room for a while.
 

[Greenlea]

My two boys share right now and they are 3.5 and 2 yrs. We will be in a 2 BR apt come end of Jan so the baby will be in our room for at least a year, which is fine as I did that with the other kids. We just bought the boys bunkbeds and we'll probably use the crib in our room for the baby when we aren't co-sleeping. If we ever move into a bigger house, and this baby is a boy, I wouldn't mind having all three kids in the same room as long as the room is big enough and they do well falling asleep together.

Growing up we had 4 kids (3 girls and 1 boy) in a large attic bedroom. It was a small old house with really only 1 BR that my parents used. The attic was finished so we all shared it. It was fine for us but got a little hairy for my older sister eventually, as she was in that bedroom with us until 8th grade. Then we moved and she got her own bedroom.  The fact that our brother shared with us didn't matter to us, he was our brother. And my parents owned it not rented. I think if you tried to put that many kids in a one bedroom house nowadays they wouldn't rent to you.

[camprunner]

My girls 10 and 7 share a room and this baby will move in with them eventually. My son has his own room but will probably share with this baby for a few years until it is inappropriate.  I'm planning for my girls to share a rather large dresser which goes in their closet when the baby comes. I need to get in there room and see how they have their drawers set up since I let them work that out and have them put their own clothes away.

Could you find a bed that has drawers under it for the sloped room? I think there are even some places that sell "drawers" that go under any bed.  As far as a book case, if you are looking for a place to put books, I saw the idea of putting gutters on the walls to hold books and I loved that idea. It might be able to go over the bed area? I'm planning to do something similar once my son's room is set up better.

[1babysmom]

My 3 share a room- 2 girls and a boy.  We don't have other options, though.  The girls are in bunk beds, and DS is in a toddler bed on the other side of the room (which is only about 3 feet away from the girls bed LOL)  All toys are stored in labeled sterilite boxes under the beds, so that frees up our floor space because otherwise we wouldn't have any.  Books are on some really sturdy wood shelving higher up the wall on DS's side.  Stinks that they can't reach them easily, but we make it work.  I just rotate a small basket of books by the beds every now and then so they have books to look at during quiet time or bed time.  The new little one will sleep in our room/bed for the first 2ish years so I don't have to think much about that one for a while, but eventually we will probably just get a bunk with a double/queen on the bottom and have 2-3 sleeping the "wrong" way on it.  There just isn't really any other way for us to work it out in our tiny farmhouse. (not so much the "tiny" that is the problem, but the poor- VERY poor- layout of this place...the guy who remodeled it before us was...umm...not thinking right.)

[firespiritmelody]

Those are great suggestions Camprunner! Both rooms have the sloped celings, one room is HUGE and the other is barely bigger than a closet so that's been our hold up.

It's so interesting to see how everyone configures their kids spaces! I'm curious at what point you all think room sharing becomes "in appropriate"? At what point do you think a kid really needs their own space? What do you do to give them that space when you're limited on room configurations?

[bmcneal]

Originally Posted by firespiritmelody 

t's so interesting to see how everyone configures their kids spaces! I'm curious at what point you all think room sharing becomes "in appropriate"? At what point do you think a kid really needs their own space? What do you do to give them that space when you're limited on room configurations?

For myself, and our situation, I think when one/both/all of them express a desire to have their own room(s). Before I moved the bunkbed frame into the front bedroom and turned the back bedroom into a playroom (earlier today), we would put DD (7!) in her bed in her room (the front) and DS (3) in his bed in his room (the back), but they would (almost) always end up sleeping in the same room/bed at some point in the night anyway, so I/we thought that if we put the bunkbed in one room, and their toys in the other, that would give them plenty of room to play, without being too crowded. If/when DD wants/needs time to herself, I let her go into our room, close the door, and read, watch a video, color, whatever, and distract DS with something elsewhere. DD and DS are *very* close, as we've/they've been through a lot, and sometimes, the only constant they've had is each other and us. HTH!

[camprunner]

Originally Posted by firespiritmelody 

Those are great suggestions Camprunner! Both rooms have the sloped celings, one room is HUGE and the other is barely bigger than a closet so that's been our hold up.

It's so interesting to see how everyone configures their kids spaces! I'm curious at what point you all think room sharing becomes "in appropriate"? At what point do you think a kid really needs their own space? What do you do to give them that space when you're limited on room configurations?

To me it is never inappropriate for same sex siblings to share a room.

I plan to follow the guidelines my friends have to follow with their foster children for oopposite genders. I believe it was age 6 they had to separate but I could be mistaken.  Not concerned about the space requirements they have but figured separating at those ages would be best in case we were ever questioned.  Their own space is also different than their own room and I've seen it dealt with in many ways. My oldest has the bottom bunk and she drapes a blanket down all sides of her bed so she can be "alone".  My youngest is so high up in her bunk that it IS like being alone.

I had a student tell me that his mom had certain times of the day they weren't allowed to go in their room so that each sibling had their own alone time.

[alaskanmomma]

I don't think it's ever "inappropriate".. I don't really see why siblings sleeping in the same room ever would be... I could understand changing around the opposite gender stopping at a certain age, but I used to sleep on the same couch as my close-in-age male cousins almost every night when we were neighbors as an older kid-preteen, and nothing weird happened/wanted to happen.. we're RELATIVES, ya know? 

Whenever we can afford a 3 bedroom, we'll move, but I don't see it happening for 5ish years, by that time I'll have a 9, 7, and 5 year old.. lol

[Lisanne]

We have 2 girls in one room now and baby will be with us for awhile. Then we'll have all 3 share. There is already a bunk bed in there so when we turn the crib into a toddler bed it will just go in there too. Our house has 3 bedrooms, but I'm not willing to give up the playroom anytime soon. I love having all the toys separate from sleeping and living areas. 

Boys and girls can totally share. My parents have 9 kids and only 5 bedrooms so there have been many different sharing combinations over the years. I think my baby brother was in a room with 2 girls until he was about 7 or 8 and they were all fine with it. The girls are 3 and 5 years older than him.