Giving moved out daughter’s bedroom to younger sister

Nothing that neurotypical people say will change my mind on this, it just shows the classic Mumsnet ableism and inability to sympathise with autistic people. A parent considering the needs of an autistic child with an ED isn't actually harming their other kids no matter how much you all want to pretend that they are. That's just something you made up. A smaller bedroom isn't some human rights abuse of the sixteenth year old. Avoiding retriggering the oldest DD's eating disorder is a big deal, and it just shows you don't understand and can't empathise.

Not that I'm surprised sadly. Every time I come on this site the attitude to autistic people is the same. I'm not even saying the oldest DD necessarily should keep the room forever, just that considering her needs and not handing it over to youngest DD isn't wrong, and that giving her ongoing stability and a sense of safety matters a lot. Anyone who disagrees with that is just saying they think her needs are unimportant and they don't understand what it's like to be autistic and go through life changes. The transitional period into adulthood is well known to be challenging and moving out is actually pinpointed as high risk for young women with EDs or a history of them! Maybe do some reading before you criticise OP unfairly.

Yes indeed being autistic and with ED should be treated sensitively and sounds like it has been.

How do you square that with the big bedroom being left empty half the time and youngest being in the box room forever more (...or more likely until as soon as she can move and I bet the OP will not see her for dust)?

The OP has three DDs. Two of whom have probably been overlooked as the OP has focused on her eldest - rightfully so but the OP is giving strong vibes of favouritism. The OP needs to get her head in that space and to support her DD to do the same. The OP has disappeared I suspect all the advice isn't what she wants to hear.

I stole my sisters room the minute she was out of the door!! No discussions 😂 if they are staying with you occasionally then can they stay in the small room?

not only is she least worthy of the biggest room while her siblings lived there but now she comes below an empty room in the pecking order!

I think this is crucial and should be allowed to properly sink in.

As an autistic person with a history of anorexia myself I can understand why OP is so concerned and I'm glad my parents were never as harsh as some of the posters on this thread seem to think is best practice

You can't just assume because your parents weren't harsh that that's best practice.

I've never had an eating disorder and my mother used to say 'no you can't have two biscuits because that's how people get fat'.

I never gave it much thought and have a perfectly healthy relationship with food and with my mother.

Yes, she has needs and challenging circumstances; but I still don't see why her younger sister has to give way to make allowances for them indefinitely.

The room was never going to be hers forever, whether younger siblings moving up to it, mum and dad moving/downsizing or whatever.

Those challenges need to be approached at some point, and I would have thought that her moving out would be the logical time to raise it. It's a positive thing that she's grown up and moved out to a place of her own, although she's always welcome to visit and stay back 'at home', of course.

If they don't do it now and let it linger, that will cement in her mind that it is her room forever, so how is she going to react when she's been living in her own home for 6 months, a year, two years, five years?

Meanwhile, her youngest sister has been waiting for 16 years for a decent sized room. She may not have autism or ED, but she will still have a natural sense of fairness, of mattering and of being considered equally important to her sisters. It's not her fault that any move will be a 'bettering' - that's only because she's already had the worst for all of this time.

This.

The eldest child isn't automatically entitled to the biggest room and for those implying it's cruel and unfair for her to have the smallest room, why doesn't that apply to the youngest child who has presumably had it her entire life? Some families swap every few years or do random selection so the eldest dd could have ended up with the box room anyway.

Lots of parents downsize when their children move out so they don't have a room at all. She will still have a room with you but it is absolutely ridiculous for her to have the biggest room empty most of the week while her sister stays crammed in the smallest one. Oldest dd just needs (well she doesn't even NEED, she wants) a bed to stay in once a week. Youngest dd needs to store all her stuff and somewhere quiet to study for exams as well as a sleeping area/somewhere to hang out with friends.

Not being autistic doesn't mean the youngest dd doesn't have feelings, not only is she least worthy of the biggest room while her siblings lived there but now she comes below an empty room in the pecking order!

I'm saying this as an oldest child btw!

Agreed.

Phrasing is everything.

"The big bedroom" rather than "your old room" is a good call.

And don't structure it as a request. "This is what is happening, now how would you like the smaller room decorated?"

Needs must, Dad became ill and stopped working when I went to uni so my parents downsized to be mortgage free so when I came home I was on a sofa bed in the living room as they had no spare room.

The younger sister should have the larger room, the box room can be the older sisters half way house, decorated in a more mature and spare room type way than when it was younger sisters.

DD is autistic she is very logical and would be entirely on board with the logical reason why the room swap was necessary. Your older daughter needs to know there is still a place for her if she needs it but it doesn't have to be her old room.

@Loooooo @TheaBrandt I hope my children will be like you. I’m trying my best to show them love and they are wanted so they might feel the same.

unfortunately I never felt like I was enough, I was never good enough, I was never loved and I felt like my younger sisters where preferred. Therefore it hits harder being told you don’t have a room and to leave / pack your stuff, you are no longer welcome here. If you want to come back you could maybe stay in the guest room but you no longer have a place here.

So many people on this thread who don't understand the seriousness of eating disorders (which are incredibly dangerous and often retriggered by periods of transition) or the challenges of a life change when you're autistic. It's not favouritism for OP to take her oldest DD's needs seriously even when that seemingly means putting her "first" - her needs are different and that is valid. It's more of the Mumsnet ableism that so many people are totally dismissive of the DD having a legitimate need. As an autistic person with a history of anorexia myself I can understand why OP is so concerned and I'm glad my parents were never as harsh as some of the posters on this thread seem to think is best practice.

EDs don't just magically stop being a risk because someone is an adult. There is always a risk it can come back and be very, very dangerous. Anorexia is life threatening. The youngest DD isn't unreasonable to want a larger room but that is a want that has to be weighed against the genuine need of the oldest for a soft transition without triggers.

Why did you care though? When I moved out to university was a massively exciting busy time don’t think I gave my old bedroom a moments thought. So admit I don’t get the angst about this issue.

Oh ok. I think the same happened to me when I moved out but it didn’t bother me in the slightest. I’d moved out so it made no odds to me

@Loooooo You missed my point, and no I didn’t have the best room. It was the fact that my sisters old room was called the guest room and I never had a room ever again but my sisters did even when they moved out.

Hence my suggestion to move the rooms around but do not call the new room the guest room and to make it her room still for when she visits.

It's not 'taking away her current bedroom' - she has given that room up, as she no longer lives there. She has her own room in her own home!

They could always 'officially' designate the box room as the eldest's room when she stays, rather than referring to it as a guest room.

Even in the worst-case scenario, if her relationship fails and she needs/wants to move back in with her parents, she will still have a room all of her own there - and she will still have had a turn to have the biggest room for many years longer than her younger sister(s) ever will (assuming that they themselves move out in due course).

Yes, this is baffling me as well.

It's not like the eldest is grudgingly being given a grubby coal scuttle in the back yard to bunk down in; there is a whole bedroom available for her, that she can gladly use whenever she wants to stay over - the same bedroom that has been considered perfectly adequate as her younger sister's full-time bedroom for years.

On countless stepchildren threads, posters always say that a child who lives with their DM in their own big bedroom most of the time shouldn't expect to have the biggest room for one night a week with their DF, relegating his DC with his new wife - who live there permanently - to the smaller rooms.

Obviously, a big factor there is that the (dependent) children never asked for their parents to split up and remarry, so that they would live between two homes, or for any new half-siblings to be born; but in this case, the eldest (adult) child has chosen to move out!

At what point does she accept that it is no longer her permanent room? Will she still expect it to be set up and reserved as her room when she's 40? Will she expect a greater inheritance, when the time comes, because a larger part of the family house being sold is 'hers'?!

I realise that she's finding the transition a challenge, but she needs to understand that her sisters - who are younger than her, too - can't be expected to live less nice actual lives in order to accommodate her own idealised two-home life.

I agree, if that’s what the middle one wants.

I have 5 children and whenever one moves out the next oldest gets the biggest room. My eldest son has just gone to uni , so second son has moved in to his room and small room is made up for eldest when he's home from uni

Doesn’t it occur to her to feel guilty? She sounds self absorbed.

"She comes home a few times a week as she gets lonely when her boyfriend is at work".
Perhaps what she most needs help with is this - being more independent, and less reliant on her boyfriend and her parents for company. Does she have any friends of her own? Does she work herself? Have any hobbies or interests outside of work? Can she not find other ways to deal with her 'loneliness'?

And even if she does want to come and see you in the evenings while he's out at work, why does this mean she needs a huge bedroom of her own? Surely spending time with you happens in another part of the house? (or are you saying that she feels less 'lonely' sitting in her childhood bedroom in the knowledge that her parents and/or more outgoing (non-quiet) sisters are somewhere in the same building?! Can't she come and visit you, then go home to her own 'lovely flat' to sleep?!

Same in my family. I was in the box room for quite a while when we first moved into our new house because in my old house, my 2 younger sisters had shared for years. So they had the biggest rooms in the new house. I swapped with one of my sisters for a year before I left and as soon as I left she moved straight back in. I wouldn’t have expected anything else

Just talk to DD1, tell her you're planning to give DD3 'the' big bedroom, not 'her old bedroom', and ask DD1 how she'd like the small bedroom decorated for her use when she stays over. It's natural process, doesn't have to be a minefield, just discuss it.

As 3 girls there were 2 equivalent rooms and one tiny bix. We all had a few years in the box room. So when I left obviously the two remaining sisters went in the two decent rooms. Looking back it was really fair.

So your room was better?! So you are still aggrieved that you didn’t retain the best room even in your absence?! The diva vibe is strong in these eldest daughters! And I am one! I fully accepted my younger sister got my room as soon as I left because fair enough! Didn’t occur to me to whine about it was so obviously the fair thing to do.