Where to put all these kids?! Wwyd?

[MissMooley]

Wasn't sure where to post this to get the most advice.
Basically I'm in a 3 bed house. Me, dds 14 & 19, and ds 11&8.
Currently, dd 14 & 19 have their own rooms, and the boys share. I have a bed in the living room.
It's worked for us nicely, but now I'm due twins in 10 weeks 😂🙈
I have no idea where they're going lol
My options so far are:

1- Scrap having a living room and just make it a full bedroom for me and the twins.

2- make the living room a full bedroom, and move the sofa etc into the outshed, but not sure how that will go in winter, it gets pretty cold and I don't have the money to fully convert it (also a council house, so would need permission I assume?)

That's it. I don't like the idea of having no living room but there's literally no space to have the cots and all the baby stuff in there with my bed and the sofa etc too.

I've considered the girls sharing, but eldest has asd and several mh disorders so can't see that working for her.

Just feel a bit stuck and hoping someone has a magic solution I haven't thought of!

I'm just trying to think of how to find the money for the work the house and outhouse will need to be even remotely suitable

The main thing is that the kid's each have a quiet space to retake themselves off to should they need to inorder to do homework and stuff like that.

Except they won't. Room sharing and only downstairs reception room doubling up as a bedroom means that quiet space will not exist. The OP will have to make it work, but it isn't going to be a "it'll be fine" situation as so many posters think it will.

Sceptre86 the house I live in now with my partner and one dc is a small, 3bed semi with the usual living and dining room downstairs and 2 double bedrooms and a box room upstairs. No garden, just a small yard.

I got to know the owners grandson a little and he informed me 11 children used to live in my house and how happy he'd been living here.......given he was my dcs teacher it obviously hadn't held him back or set him or his siblings on a race to the bottom. Instilling a positive mindset in children and providing a happy home is far more important than making sure they have a room to shut themselves away in.

There was widespread child abuse, neglect, illness and lifelong health problems caused by poverty.

That's how they 'coped'.

Friends in similar situation to OP got a small caravan in garden where eldest slept 9m of the year, kept their things & could retreat to. Just slept in living room in a few of the coldest months.

What other space do you have? I live in a 3 bed with 3 older teens. Everyone needs their own space for various reasons too. We do have a large storage cupboard though with lights and a power source in. Not big enough to sleep in, but big enough to fit a desk and chair on one wall with a PC, then shelves and cupboards all up the other side. One of my children has a sofa bed in the living room, then the cupboard they use as their space, all their belongings are in there except their clothes, which are in drawers on the landing next to the bath room. I was in the living room, but with my shifts i was sleeping earlier than my kids a lot of the time, and getting annoyed at them coming through it to get to the kitchen and disturbing me. Even worse when i was on the night shift trying to sleep in the day, so one of them came to me and suggested that they had it, listed their plans for the cupboard, and why they were happy to not have a room (no being responsible for cleaning it was the main point).

My point is, the child without a bedroom still has access to their own space and privacy at times they want, is there a similar thing you can do? then keep the boys sharing, 1 dd has a bedroom, and you have another with the babies, and the other dd has an areas thats theirs, but a bed in the living room?

What would you prefer? Her sobbing in the corner for our benefit?
She's trying to make the best out of a very difficult situation and being sneered at isn't helping.

For all we know, she's putting a brave face on here and she IS sobbing in a corner.

Women do seem to love pulling other women down

I love people harkening back to the early 1900s as a time when “people had 11 kids and were fine”. Then why are you whining about food banks? Poor people starved in those days, that’s how they coped.

And whether you like it or not, the modern days of the welfare state are over. The NHS is being privatised. Private housing and University is unaffordable for most and housing is being squeezed and squeezed.

In many professions the gap between the rich and poor is widening. OP seems to think her kids will be fine because they’re “bright”. They won’t. You can see how the underclass just sustains itself every generation through poor decision making.

I know you've said your daughters can't stay with their dad but what about the boys?

How far does your mum live? Would she have 1 or 2 a couple of nights?

Is the twins dad around?

You've mentioned your DD is autistic and others have said you may be.

I'm autistic and this is the situation I worry I'd be in because I just don't think. A PP us right there should be more help. Obviously if you aren't autistic ignore the bottom two paragraphs.

Ive not read all your comments op but yes this. just why did you decide to have more kids knowing you already didn't have adequate accommodation as it was. Did you think it would put more pressure on the council to move you up the priority list to be offered bigger accommodation I know some people actually do this.

Get a bigger house. You will be very overcrowded no matter what room changes are made. You will probably go to the top of the housing list. But on the other hand there arent many council houses with more than three bedrooms. I think people should be made to move out of under-occupied social housing.

This !

Work on getting the outhouse converted. It may make a lot of difference. Is there a local charity that can give you a grant?

So you think only the rich should have kids then?

Does the dad / dads pay maintenance if not can you get it?

Yes 100% because you can only have:

1. Six kids in a 3 bedroom house

OR

2. No children

Nothing between that. Congrats on cracking the code. Genius level analysis.

I cracked the code on posters like you a long time ago.

This has put me in mind of youtube/tiktok videos I've seen advising people how to comfortably fit two or three children into what originally appears to be a small room. A lot of the involve quite a bit of DIY which I don't expect you'll be massively up for pregnant with twins(!) but it might spark some ideas about what's possible that you could apply to your house fairly easily? Just a thought - there are some really great ideas out there re storage and stuff.

OP last posted at 02:55, saying she won’t be reading any further.

That we believe children aren’t puppies or kittens to placate the spoilt, bored and irresponsible?

That they actually should be cherished and cared for?

Thanks, I agree.

@Anycolouryoulike I think you've jumped from one extreme to another. 2 kids is expensive and so would 4. We all know what MN is like so I'm not sure why OP posted this. I actually wonder if it is a wind up also.

Well it certainly brought all the MN arseholes crawling out. So maybe that was it's aim after all.

Slightly random suggestion, but do you have a drive? Cheap caravan on the drive for eldest girl? Younger girl in the smallest room, you and twins in the biggest? This would be a good start towards independence but knowing mum was close by too…