To share or not to share (a children's bedroom conundrum)

[pegasus02]

Parents of troubled sleepers, do your little ones share a bedroom with a sibling? Does it work?

We have an almost 2-year old DD (very light sleeper, still not sleeping through the night) and a baby on the way. In the next year, we will have to decide whether they can share a bedroom once the baby is old enough, or if they have to take a huge bedroom and a box room between them. So many factors here I realise, but I wanted to get the thoughts of parents of bad sleepers in particular please - did your little ones share rooms successfully? Or am I better off giving them the very unequal rooms and hope they're not bothered?

Thank you

Definitely not share.

I would say sharing would be better because as they are little they will have company.

Share the big room. Gives you more options for your family home.

I'd give them unequal rooms while they're too young to be bothered. By the time they're old enough to care they'll hopefully both be sleeping a bit better - then they can share the big room.

@WardrobeJumper do you say that because no-one will sleep?

@Mandarinfish that's a good idea. Do you think 2- and 4-year olds will notice the difference in room size?

Mine shared and both were shit sleepers. They rarely woke the other one up and loved sharing until recently (10&8 now)

My four year old was a bad sleeper / scared of the dark / nightmares etc. When we put his sister (21/2) in the same room so that "he could be big brother and look after her" he started sleeping through / no nightmares etc. Sometimes good to put them together. Now he is older he is back to a room of his own and we have put the two girls together again with ages 4 and 2 1/2. I think company sometimes helps.

No-one will sleep.

Also, it's really nice to have your own room. I loved this growing up.

I have a two year age gap. My eldest was a heavy sleeper; my youngest a frequent walker. We had them separate and then when the youngest was 2, we tried them in the same room. I have no idea how or why but the sleep of the younger one improved immensely. It also meant a single nighttime routine rather than trying to do two separate stories, tucking in, etc.

Is there any particular reason you need to decide in advance? Until well into primary school age, they don’t really play in their bedrooms so you don’t need specific decoration etc.

I just don't want the one with the box room to feel put out. Would say a 2-year old notice?

@sycamore54321 thank you, that's helpful. I suppose I don't need to decide right now at all, I just like to plan ahead and know what's happening

I've got two bad sleepers. They share a room in the hope that when they wake in the night, they are reassured by the other one's presence and go back to sleep.

In reality, one messes around so much at bedtime it keeps the other one up, and when they wake up in the night they still come in to us.

My only advice is get them single beds asap so that anyone can sleep anywhere. I don't think small children are particularly bothered about the size of their bedroom.

They definitely won’t give a toss about the size of their rooms. If you were really bothered, I’d put the elder in the box room as whichever room the eldest has will be coveted by a hero-worshipping younger sibling.

I don’t think a 2yo would notice. Maybe aim to move them in together when they’re 3 and 5?

Thanks all. I feel reassured now that they won't be bothered by the difference! I was starting to think we should do a rotation system to make it absolutely fair, but can now see that's madness

We give the oldest one the biggest room, with the proviso that when we have guests, they have to give up their room. Seems fair.

And where does the oldest one go when you do have guests wardrobe?
Do you make the youngest share so that the oldest can take over his/her room and go through all his/her things?

My youngest has the bigger room but that's because it was our gaming room when we only had the one child. My 6 year old son doesn't seem to have noticed that his room is smaller, or at least he hasn't said so. Growing up my sister's room was easily twice the size of mine, which was in turn twice the size of my brothers' rooms. This is because her room was originally the nursery and was the only bedroom left when she showed up. We didn't mind :) Nobody complained, we were all used to our room sizes. I should think it would be fine OP!

Or one option would be to put your kids in together when they're small and let there be the option for one of them to move into the box room when they're older if they want more privacy. Then it'll be a question of, yes it's a smaller room but it'll be yours alone, and a decision they'll have made for themselves.

My 6 & 9 yo have recently been split. The 9yo has been "promoted" to the box room with a cabin bed and loves it. 6yo keeps the larger room so is happy to keep it to himself.

They liked the company for a long time, but had reached the stage of disturbing each other.

We tried sharing and had to split them up. One is a night owl and the other a lark and neither are good sleepers. It was a disaster. DS1 (7, lark) complaining bitterly that DS2 (3, night owl) was chatting to his teddy at bed time. DS2 complaining that DS1 was waking at 6 and turning on the light to read. Argh!

Oh and when we have guests DS1 (bigger room and double bed as it had to go somewhere) gets a mattress on our floor. DS2 is jealous of this apparent favouritism...

Ours are in together and it definitely helps the younger one sleep. They're arguing a bit as they're getting older (9 & 7) but we often hear cackling and hoots of laughter first thing in the morning.

her is what I would do.

Make the box room the baby's room. Have nappy change/clothes possible an arm chair for feeding in there. If you like even a single bed.
have baby in your room to sleep, but it means in the middle of the night you have a space to change nappies/sit and feed without waking the other one if you want to. And you can use the bed if one of you is sick or you have a visitor.

then when the baby is older/ready to move into their own room, you can see how everyone is doing wrt sleep etc.
Or move the baby into the box room when they are 6 months and then when the baby is 2 you can think about sharing or not. But by then you will know how the family dynamics are working.

We lived in a 2 bed flat and my 3 kids all shared
So aged 6, 4 and 2 when we moved on, and then a bigger room until aged 8, 6 and 3+. At that point oldest was VERY ready for his own space!

I would give them the separate rooms.

Reasoning is that if when they're older they decide they don't want to share then you will have an argument about who has the bigger room.

If they've always had the rooms, then it becomes "their room". It's not such a big thing to have the smaller room.
I had the smallest room, and wouldn't have swapped because it was mine.
What I did resent was that if me and dsis were given something joint, it had to go in her room because there wasn't space. I then had to ask permission (family rule for all rooms) if I wanted to use it. Also I was told I couldn't have a dolls' house because it would be too big for my room. Tbf I suspect this was an excuse but I did feel that was totally unfair.

My siblings shared a room for years and the box room was a spare room. My parents always intended to put one of them in the small room when they got older but they didn't actually bring it up till the oldest was 15 so it worked for years. The younger sibling got the smaller room and then moved into the big one when the oldest went to uni. It worked well for them.