Children's bedroom difficulties!

[Shittenshite]

Hi, can any MNers help with a quandary about my daughter's bedroom please?

We have 2 bedrooms. One is my 3 year old daughter's, and the others is mine and my partner's. We have a 7 month old baby and he is still in our room - we're not ready to move him out, so there's no need or rush to. He is still breastfed and wakes twice in the night for a feed so practically he can't go in his sister's room yet anyway.

He's in a Next2Me crib next to our bed but rapidly growing out of it. We already have a travel cot ready which will be his upgrade!

Anyway, eventually we're going to put them in the same room. But, it's a nightmare. My 3 year old has additional needs and is still in a cot bed (with both sides on) for a number of reasons. I expect she will be ready for a proper bed later this year.

Problem: in her room there's her cot, a small wardrobe, large chest of drawers, and a toy storage area with wall-mounted bookcases above it. We can't find a way to fit another bed or cot in there. My daughter definitely would NOT be able to use a ladder on a bunk bed and won't be safe to even try for the foreseeable future.

So that leaves our only logical option as:

We get two very small beds - a toddler bed and small cot for the baby. What happens when baby grows out of said small cot and/or 3 year old grows out of toddler bed?

We can't swap rooms (the little ones have our room and we move into our daughter's). There's no way any of our furniture would fit in her room once we've got our double bed and bedside tables in there. We need drawers and a wardrobe too but no chance.

If you're wondering why we didn't think of this before having another baby, we did! We planned to move house before our son was born but the rising cost of living changed that for us when I was already pregnant.

Obviously we're looking into moving again, but that won't happen quickly even if it's possible. We also know that having a boy and girl means eventually they'll need their own rooms anyway.

I've scoured the Internet looking at different options for children's beds but drawing blanks.

Obviously with our baby in our room there's no urgency but I'm trying to come up with a plan for later this year. My partner and will want our room and space back eventually!

Thank you!

Maybe start with toddler bed/small cot (my son is a large 4 year old and still has loads of room in his toddler bed). Then a single bed with a trundle underneath? You can store the other bed away during the day. Something like this:

Can you move some of the other furniture out? Not ideal but toy storage in the lounge maybe?

Or go for the 2 very small beds and keep saving to move?

Thank you both.

I'd never heard of a trundle bed before. I don't think it's fair or appropriate for a child to sleep on one long-term though really.

Not possible to move the toy storage to the living room. There just isn't room at all and don't want my living room to look like a busy playroom ALL the time. I need a space where we can relax with other adults without having dozens of toys everywhere. I've turned one of the two sideboards in the living room into a toy storage cupboard and yes of course our children play in the living room and have toys there all the time BUT putting the entire (growing) toy collection of two young children in the living room would not be an option for us.

I'm thinking at the moment to keep my daughter's cotbed, take the side off when she's ready for a toddler bed, and get a smaller standard sized cot for her brother. I don't see any way we can put the baby in what is currently her cot and fit a toddler bed in there as well. The only way to do that would be to have the toddler bed close to the radiator which would be a nightmare in Winter.

Honestly the most important thing to have in the room are the beds. Chest of drawers or toy storage will have to move out to another room if they won't fit.

Great if a small cot and toddler bed fit for now, but you'll have to consider other options if you feel unable to move.

Chest of drawers essential for clothes, and toy storage moved to another room... where? Where is this other room and how do I find it? We live in a normal two bedroomed house, not Hogwarts.

Would it be possible to move the chest of drawers or small wardrobe into your room? Or get rid of one of them and streamline the clothes so they fit into just the wardrobe or chest of drawers?

You'll just have to get rid of some stuff if it won't fit else where. There's no other solution really

If two small beds/cots will solve the problem for now then just do that and worry about a long term solution when the time comes. You might be able to move by then. If not you can always do trundle beds for a few years at that point until your youngest is old enough for a top bunk.

I think your solution of the cot and small bed is all that will work and your house is just too small so moving must be a priority.

Can you rotate toys and keep some in the loft? My toddler doesn't have toys in her room only downstairs, and most are in a cupboard out of site bar a big wooden pop up shop with a role play toy on it and a basket of other toys by the sofa.

If it won't fit you will have to move toys downstairs. I can't see how else it will work if you simply don't have the space. I get you would rather your living space was toy free. But you don't appear to have that luxury. I don't think there is some sort of magic answer. The priority is somewhere to sleep for both your children.
I had the kids toys in the living room for quite a while. I found I had to be very careful to tidy everything away at the end of each day, out of sight otherwise it would feel a bit smothering. I got round it eventually by building up into the loft and creating another bedroom with a loft extension.

Cull the toys and clothes. Really seriously go for for it. It's hard because kids accumulate so much crap but hardly play with any of it.

Have a box of their 'special' toys, and then 2 further boxes that you can rotate between.

Same with the clothes. Get rid of what they've grown out of / can't pass down and then try to buy neutral underwear / pjs / coats etc that you can pass down when the time comes.

Look to resize the furniture. Can you get different pieces that don't take up so much floor space?

You use every bit of space you have... yes to the loft.....I bored ours and rotated toys and clothes. Toys go downstairs. Put them in large toy boxes if you feel the need to hide them in the evening.
Look for other solutions - we had book cases on the landing. Do you have a big space at the top of the stairs - can you put shelving and storage there? Do you have a garage.

The trundle beds have proper full size mattresses on - so can be a long term sleeping solution. Or what about a small double they share together?

Do you have space on the landing for a chest of drawers and/or wardrobe?

I get you want your living space free but I don’t think you have much choice here really - if you want to fit the room so both kids can sleep in it then you’ll need to move something and toys seems the most logical solution. Maybe look into creative storage ideas for the toys downstairs, or as others have said have a really good cull and see what you can put in the loft/shed/wherever so they’re out of sight and rotate.

You seem to want a magic solution that doesn’t exist I’m afraid.

IKEA extendable beds are good to save space and don’t need to be fully extended for years. My nearly 9 year old has only just had hers fully extended and she is nowhere near the end of it. They also have built up sides so that when it’s on the smallest setting, there is some security to stop them falling out of bed. But they are also very low so it wouldn’t be a big fall.

there is space underneath for storing things - you could get pull out boxes for toys or clothes. Theh have different styles - metal and wood.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/junior-extendable-beds-45847/

You might not want a living room full of toys but you might not have any choice if you’ve got limited space. You can get nice toy storage that doesn’t look like kids stuff. And yes to toy rotation which is a good idea anyway, have you got loft space? We’ve got a big IKEA Kallax full of boxes, can fit so much stuff in but looks neat when it’s all away. Or swap rooms but change your bed to the kind you can store things underneath (maybe an ottoman than pulls up) and put some shelves on the wall by the bed instead of bedside tables.

Its not what you want to hear but at your stage, my childrens clothes were in my room and the toys were in the lounge. I would have loved an relaxing grown up space but i didnt have one until the chikdren grew out of big toys.

A trundle is fine for LO to sleep on long term, they’re normal mattresses on a base and besides, floor beds are ideal for young toddlers as there’s no chance of them falling out of bed. Some people spend a fortune on Montessori floor beds!

Then I’d also move their clothes into your room and toys downstairs with some decent storage so you can tidy them away and plan to rotate them so you never have too much out at once; it keeps them interested too. We’re ok for storage but I always rotate toys as they play so much better when they don’t have the same stuff out all the time.

There’s no need to be rude. Your situation isn’t other posters fault, nor do they have to solve the issue for you. People are trying to help.

I agree something has to move somewhere. I'm also thinking about underbed toy storage as others have mentioned. Another option I've seen is "toy hammocks" slung from the ceiling.

Is your bedroom any bigger?

As far as I see it you have 2 options, one is bunk beds (ikea Kura, bed up high, with a mattress underneath for the baby is a lowish bunk bed option given their ages) or sacrifice the living room to toys. If you have money to spend on storage then the large ikea kallax are good for hiding toys in, or Ikea Besta with doors- you need to use the height of the rooms when rooms are small not just the floorspace. Things like putting shallow boxes under existing furniture, extending any bookcases upwards, putting shelves up over doorways etc and using the loft for anything that doesn't get used frequently. You could get cabin beds for the children with the storage underneath them? It all depends on the type of additional needs your eldest has though whether a higher bed would be suitable for her.

How long is it before you are able to move to a bigger house? If it's just a year or two I would just keep DS with you and let DD have her room. It sounds like the only sensible option, especially since the room is only just big enough for one child.

You don't need a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Get ikea pax wardrobe with hanging space above and drawers below and put all clothes for both kids in that. Put out of season clothes in storage boxes on the top.