Thinking of moving my kids bedrooms and putting the youngest age almost 5 in the biggest room, for toys etc and the eldest age 11 in the smaller room

[LardLizard]

As she doesn’t really play with toys much anymore and is more into iPad and phone etc and watching YouTube etc

Perhaps I should hold off another year until dad is that bit older and totally playing with toys etc

I’m just thinking about when the youngest wants friends round to play etx

OH and I always had the smaller bed room in all of the many places we lived, leaving the bigger one to DS, his toy boxes, his lego, his train set, etc.etc.

He both slept and played in his, we just,err, slept in ours. And an extra bonus was that the sitting-room was (mostly) toy free.

Made sense to us.

I have done this. It makes a lot of sense.

Have you asked the 11 year old how they’d feel?

(I can vaguely remember being a child. Being moved out of my room in favour of a younger sibling is not something I’d find easy to forgive, unless it was my idea ...)

I would, that makes total sense.
I don't get why oldest children automatically get the biggest and youngest the smallest. My 5 year old has the biggest room, 9 year old has the second biggest, 11 year old has the middle, 23 year old has the second smallest and 4 year old has the smallest as thats just what works best for them at the moment, in a few years we probably shuffle them around again

Thanks for the advice, it seems to make logical sense to me
He needs more space
But dh has the whole idea of the oldest gets the biggest ? For some unknown reason xx

What about when eldest has friends round? At secondary age I think they need their own space to hang out. Would there be room for 3 or 4 pre teen or teenage girls in the smaller room?

We did this.

Everyone agreed as teens only need bed, clothes storage and desk.

Younger dcs need floor space to play.

If teens have friends round surely they’re downstairs?

this argument crops up every so often and people do seem to tend towards whether they were the oldest/youngest in the family and what they should be 'entitled' to!

years ago it probably made sense that oldest got the biggest room, as they were likely to move out fairly young, so the other child/ren could then take their room and everyone would have the larger room at some stage. If the youngest got the big room from the start they would be unlikely to ever swap round. However now more and more people are staying at home longer, so it doesn't always work that way.

I would say it depends on a number of factors: if your older child would be happy to give up the room, whether you offer them paint, new furniture, etc. as an incentive, if you plan on moving at any point, or having more children, what will happen in another 5 years when the youngest is the age oldest is now and the oldest is a gangly 15 year old cramped in a bunkbed, or a 19 y/o wanting uni bf/gf to come and stay...would youngest then be willing to swap back?

We’ve put the youngest in the smallest bedroom, she keeps most of her toys downstairs in the conservatory- she prefers to be where we are anyway.
Will the eldest have space to work in peace in her room? When the homework builds up she is likely to need space away from the 5 year old to study.

I also think it is better for teens to have space away from the family to hang out with friends as then they are more likely to hang out with friends at home rather than on park bench somewhere

When I was a teen and had friends round we spent most of our time in my bedroom, certainly not downstairs. I'd have thought that was typical unless you have a games room or similar.

No I wouldn't do this.

If teens have friends round surely they’re downstairs?

Depends whether there's a separate space downstairs where they can hang out away from the family surely?

I also think it is better for teens to have space away from the family to hang out with friends as then they are more likely to hang out with friends at home rather than on park bench somewhere

At best, they'll go to the house of the friend who does have a separate space for them to hang out. They'll presumably want to play music, watch videos, talk about music, tv, school, boys, try on each other's clothes, try out hairstyles and makeup. They won't want to do that in front of parents, or have younger siblings hanging around. They should be able to have some privacy.