Family of 5 one bathroom

My ex in-laws used to have a shower literally in a cupboard in their bedroom so do you have one bedroom which you could sacrifice a corner of maybe for a shower? Or given you say downstairs space is great sacrifice some for a small shower room downstairs.

Otherwise I think I’d move - I think it will be chaotic when the kids get a bit older with only one place to wash.

When you say maxed out I’m just wondering do you have an understairs cupboard or and area of garage you can section off and convert to a downstairs toilet? It doesn’t solve the ‘bath/shower’ element but it would help if someone’s in shower and another person needs the toilet of to brush their teeth?

i survey homes and people have good solutions for these issues.

we’ve got a very small ensuite and the toilet sink and cupboard are one unit and it’s really neat. I’ve also seen the toilet with sink on the cistern so you’d only need a small amount of space. Not sure if that helps but worth looking at 🙂

(edited because if predictive text 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Do you have 2 toilets? I have friends who added a downstairs loo in a small understairs space. I think then you could probably manage to stagger showers etc given the age gap of the children.

Personally I have two bathrooms which with two teenagers is brilliant (and I can’t be bothered to deal with their mess all the time) but I realise that is a luxury. And I take ages faffing around with HRT, or makeup removal etc.

There's me, DH and 4 kids age 15-17 living in our house. Often have an extra teen round at weekends as well.

We just have one bathroom upstairs and a loo downstairs. Zero problems. Teens shower in the mornings before school/work and adults shower at night, or if we want a morning shower then we know we have to be out of the bathroom by 6.30am to allow the kids enough time to get ready. They all have a set order that they worked out themselves.

I grew up in a family of 5 with just 1 bathroom with 1 toilet. We are currently a family of 4 planning on another DC soon and we only have 1 too. Not an issue x

Well I was brought up at a time when it was normal to only have one bathroom. There were five of us.
As well as the bathroom upstairs we also had an outside toilet - I was terrified to use it incase there were spiders . And also it no lighting.
But in those days daily showers weren't a thing. In fact even having anything other than a shower attachment for your bathroom taps wasn't normal.
I think nowadays with the accent on daily showers and hygiene it's much more difficult to live with one bathroom unless the whole family is very disciplined about routine.
My current home has a family bathroom downstairs and upstairs there is a shower room with toilet and wash hand basin which has been installed in what used to be a walk in landing cupboard. I've just had the shower room totally redone and it's lovely.
Don't you have a cupboard you could convert into a shower room OP? It would make live easier but it is possible to live with only one bathroom.

We survived. 2 adults four children. 1 bathroom and 2 bedrooms for the most part.

Eventually a downstairs bedroom and bathroom was put in for my disabled sibling.

Needing a bathroom for every person is ridiculous.

We (that is, my two parents and their three children and, occasionally, visitors, too) survived. We did have an extra toilet outside, if you decided you were in a hurry. Everyone was just expected to be efficient so we were. I never remember ructions.

Sometimes, rules were put in place - x is going out at a certain time and needs to be clean - but otherwise we just rubbed along. Everyone had only one bathroom and everyone got clean.

We were a family of 5 and only had 1 bathrooms, but we did have separate downstairs and upstairs loos, so the barhroom was for washing and cleaning teeth only.
I do not ever remember queues and sometimes there were a few of us in there together.
However, that was considered normal in those days. It seems now that everyone expects an en suite and more bathrooms than there are people living in the house.

When you say one bathroom does this also mean one toilet? I grew up in a family of 5 in a country where ensuites aren't a thing. We had one family bathroom and we had a toilet downstairs and actually put in a shower 'for when the kids get older'. None of us ever used the downstairs shower. Ever. Although I might have been hosed down once after playing in mud 😆 It was never a problem. But if it's one toilet then it sounds trickier but not impossible (unless there are any IBS type issues of course).

Surely your 5 and 2 year old can’t spend that much time in the bathroom? I would double them up together for baths and teeth brushing, and triple them up with the teeth brushing with the 10yr old. By the time the teen years hit the youngest two, the 10yr old will have likely moved out.

Everyone getting up a bit earlier than they’d like is the solution.