AIBU to give DD (7) the downstairs bedroom?

I have an office upstairs, three bedrooms and a family bathroom. All four DC share the family bathroom. Two teenagers have a bedroom each and two youngest DC share - it's a great solution.

We don't even miss our living room. Our kitchen was big enough for a large table so we all eat there together. Dining room is now the new living room. 🙌

We've had these arrangements since mid March 2025 and won't change back as we love it.

The teenagers love having their own personal space.

I would move downstairs and use a monitor for the baby.

You haven’t read the OP’s latest post then?

Id make the downstairs room a playroom and have the girls share a room until they are older.

I think you also need to bear in kind that the move is also her being usurped by the baby - she’s giving up her room and either having to share or move to a different floor

i think the kindest thing you can do is let her keep her room and give the baby yours for now. Leave a bed up there so you can sleep up there if the baby has a sleep regression

True you never know for sure but as far as I can know, I think she would go out the window. But it does depend on the child, she was not one to get scared of things like that but her little brother probably would.

She was 8 when she moved to the downstairs room and I felt reasonably sure about how she would react in an emergency, especially after school did a realistic fire drill with no warning, smoke machine to simulate smoke, and main exits blocked off so the children had to think and act under pressure. But tbf I would not trust her little brother, who is 7, to get out by himself if he was in the downstairs bedroom so does depend on the child.

She had been crossing roads by herself for a couple of years already by then, plenty of 7 year olds can be trusted to cross busy roads!

Could you sleep downstairs and have baby monitors for upstairs ?

We have a converted bungalow and from the age of about 3 all DCs were upstairs and DH and I were downstairs. We couldn’t all fit either upstairs or downstairs. The main thing I worried about was fires. We had fire alarms in room and hardwired ones on landing.

We have slept on the floor below our young children in a town house, that was fine and never an issue. It was just a set of stairs to go up if they needed us in the night.

I just couldn’t put a 7yr old on a ground floor alone. Logically I know the risks are low, but it just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.

In your scenario I would either have the eldest share or I would take the ground floor room and out the kids upstairs.

It's not the same feeling at all for a child to go upstairs to their bedroom at night, than it is to stay downstairs when everybody else leaves and go upstairs. Even in a small house.

For many of us, having to take stairs if sleeping downstairs is irrelevant, we would still go downstairs to check on the sleeping child alone when we wake up at night anyway 😂

First you NEVER know how anyone will react in an emergency until it happens, child or adult.

The biggest lesson I learnt from firefighters was: throw your kid by the window first, don't expect them to jump after you. That did hit hard.

I routinely check she knows what to do in a fire
might work for yours, but a lot of kids would be absolutely terrified if they are sent downstairs when everybody is upstairs and then have drills about possible fire! Talk about inducing anxiety.

If she’s 7, you can’t really know how she’d act in an emergency until it happens, no matter what she’s been taught.
7 year olds can’t even really be trusted to cross a busy road by themselves, never mind keep their head in a crisis.

Not mine, I routinely check she knows what to do in a fire and the fire brigade come to school every year to teach them what to do which always starts with telling them their instincts will tell them to hide but they mustn't do that, they must get out.
And if she doesn't I can break her window from outside to get her out - it'll be more difficult getting her little brother out from upstairs if we can't go down the stairs (there's a ladder under his window so can be done but more difficult)

No, not safe.

They won't do that though, they will wait for their parents or even worse go looking for them.

We had a house fire, the kids slept through the fire alarms and didn't leave their (upstairs) rooms until we went and got them! Kids assume they are safe until parents tell them otherwise, especially kids with good, solid home lives, they look to their parents for direction in an emergency.

Personally I would sleep downstairs and install excellent baby monitors upstairs and just accept I would be walking up a flight of stairs a couple of times a night for the foreseeable future.

Or ‘her baby sister would steal her bedroom & she wouldn’t have her own room any more.’

Our house is what you have described, and I wouldn’t do it. Unnecessary risks and it would feel isolating for a 7 year old. Especially as presumably her baby sister would steal her bedroom and then she gets banished downstairs. Sounds like a bad option to me. Either you go or the older 2 share.

You have 3 beds, so older 2 share if you don't want to put the baby in there. Or she stays with you.

I wouldn't put such a young child down stairs alone.

I'd put the 6 and 4 year old together in the biggest room so everyone is upstairs until I'd feel comfortable about moving downstairs. You can divide the bedroom with clever storage solutions.

OP, you say that none of your children’s bedrooms are big enough to divide, but is your master bedroom big enough to divide, and you move into a smaller bedroom, at least until everyone happy about someone using the downstairs room as a bedroom.

Agree. I feel happier about DD being on the ground floor if there's a fire as she can go out of her window easily.

I disagree with people saying fire is a risk. If you’ve got enough fire alarms (and the ones that yell “fire”) a 7 yr old could be up and out their window (if necessary) really quickly. Or you can get down from an upstairs window and then break hers. It’s children on a floor above me that would worry me in a fire - if the staircase gets blocked there’s nothing you can do to get to them.

I agree with the points abut the child feeling isolated, and just a general sense of not wanting a child alone though.

That’s what I was thinking - I know people are saying they’ll love sharing but I’d have hated it at any age as a child, & another poster has a thread running at the moment about her oldest not liking sharing with his brother.

I think unless they’re actually enthusiastic about sharing, you going downstairs & using baby alarms for both the younger ones if necessary would be better.