How do you decide which child get which bedroom?

[Brambles35]

We live in a 3 bed house and likely to stay here for a while so want to get this right. I have a (20mo) son and soon to have a daughter. We have decorated the good sized middle bedroom for my son to go into and the small box room for the nursery/daughter. This decision was based on child age, I.e. Elder child getting bigger bedroom.

But......MIL has told me that I should give the bigger bedroom to my daughter as girls need more room and their bedroom is more important to them than boys?? (She had 2 boys so not sure where she got that!)

Wondered how others decided?

[SweepTheHalls]

Older child in this case, bigger room.

[misscupcakes]

The same way as you - elder child gets bigger bedroom (or first choice if moving and they're a bit older).

[NapoleonsNose]

We went with age. DD was not quite 2 when DS was born. We'd not long been in the house so she got the bigger room and he got the box. I can't imagine we'd have made a different choice if we'd had DS first either.

[Delilahfandango]

Yup, elder child gets bigger room!

[excitedforbaba]

We have actually given our baby girl the biggest room in the new house. She had the smallest in our previous house but before we even put the cot in it was already cramped!

Even here with the amount of clothes toys & baby rockers,swings etc the bedroom is coming down!

I definitely think babies come with much more stuff & in my experience girls took more interest in the bedrooms than boys

[morethanpotatoprints]

We did eldest in biggest until dd came along and then swapped accordingly.
Eldest went in second and ds2 the smallest.
She had the biggest room but it was also her playroom and had all the big toys in there rather than downstairs.
You do what suits you at the time and change them round when you need to.
I think all our family have had most bedrooms, except me and dh haven't had the smallest 2.

[greensnail]

We put the older child in the larger room. Then they decided to move in together so went into the larger room together when they were about 3 and 4. That lasted about a year and then the older one wanted her own room so she moved out into the smaller room!

[lexyloub]

My brother is older than me he always had a bigger room however when we moved house when we was teenagers I got the bigger room as I did have more junk than him and I always had friends sleeping over

[Brambles35]

Thanks guys, decision made, I'm going to ignore MIL, hurrah! Lol

[NoParking]

Youngest has room closest to mine, for ease of dealing with middle of the night calls / cries. So my criteria is proximity rather than size.

[Andcake]

I still resent my parents and brother for 30 odd years ago for swapping mine and my younger brothers bedrooms over because he needed the bigger one because he was a boy.

[lilacblossomtime]

I agree it is fairer to go by age. If your dd is still in the smallest room when she is older, you could give her extra storage elsewhere in the house.

[SleepIsOverrated]

Child with the most kit gets biggest room. Child who needs me most in night gets room nearest me. Child who needs loo most often gets room nearest loo. Child who needs quietest room gets room furthest from main part of house.

All changes at different stages and ages and there's no assumption I'll have the biggest.

Growing up, I had one medium sized room and my younger siblings shared one big and one small room. Sometimes with one room each, or bunks in tiny room with big room to play, beds in bigger room smaller room for study.

[SleepIsOverrated]

Nb helps if rooms decorated fairly neutrally; pictures/duvets/rugs can move around fairly easily to theme the different rooms if needed.

[Thisismyfirsttime]

Pick your favourite. Give them the bigger room.

[ApocalypseNowt]

We have an annual very tense game of hungry hippos. Winner gets dibs.

[FernGullysWoollyPully]

My youngest (when she's born) will have the smallest room. It's a study, only big enough for a cot and drawers, but we have it decorated as a nursery from my last dd.

Except for that, my oldest has the next smallest room. But he's the only one that won't have to share with anyone. 2 older girls share already. And the current youngest will share with the baby when she's old enough.

we'll get our office back then!

[Roseybee10]

We're trying to find a bigger house just now (in two bed flat, dd1 has second bedroom and dd2 is in with us still). Dd1 will get the bigger room as it just seems the fairest way to do it.

[knittingbee]

DC1 has a bigger room than DC2. It was his room before she came along so I have no plans to move him out of it plus I'm the eldest of three and reckon that the oldest sibling gets the biggest room

[attheendoftheday]

I think your mil is talking utter tosh and that approach would breed a lot of resentment!

At the moment our dds share in the biggest room, but when they want to split up I expect dd2 will get the little room, but maybe store some stuff in dd1's room.

[ch1134]

My son is keeping his room, the smallest room, when his sibling comes along. The little one will have the biggest room as it also has a sofa bed and then we can have guests. When they're bigger we'll stick bunk beds in the smallest room so we can still have guests.

[SavoyCabbage]

We have our youngest the bigger room when we moved (they were 6&3)as we thought they would play in the bigger room where the toys were and dd1 could still have her own that wasn't full of playmobil zoos.

[TendonQueen]

Is anyone here a younger sibling sticking to the 'eldest gets the biggest room' rule, even though it didn't do you any favours? Just wondering. Surely a totally fair system would involve some switching round so that each child got a turn in the bigger/biggest room.

[SquarePeggyLou]

Can I borrow your thread OP?
Here, the youngest has the smallest room. DD1 goes to university this autumn, would it be unreasonable to swap so DD2 has the largest bedroom and DD1 has the single bedroom as she's only going to be home in the holidays or should she keep the double bedroom?

[Love51]

SquarePeggy, does dd2 want the bigger room? It should be hers when dd1 goes to uni. Dont make dd1 swap before she goes, tell her (in advance) that the day she moves out dd2 can have it, she is unlikely to.care. She has had years of bigger room, would be churlish to want to keep it when she doesnt need it.
op, put the baby where it suits you. Babies dont 'play in their rooms' but do nap there. Kids wont question it. They never question the stuff you put consideration into, just the stuff you forget!