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!

Posting this solution again as you seem to have missed it.

Toys go in the living room. My 2 kids only have puzzles and teddies in their rooms. They need a peaceful place to sleep, not a room filled with toys to keep them awake.
Minimise their clothes as much as possible. Get clothes storage such as IKEA pax where you use up more vertical space so the unit goes up closer to the ceiling than a toddler wardrobe. Minimal hanging space, lots of drawers, vertically. Then you should be able to have one unit for clothes rather than wardrobe and drawers.
And then 2 beds. I'd go for 2 cots beds for now, changing to a single and a cot bed when dc1 gets too big. Then when dc2 gets too big for a cot bed and needs a single, hopefully one of them will be able to use a ladder on bunks. It will be a few years away, my 4 year old is still comfortably in a cot bed (no sides) so you have until the youngest is 4ish. Or hopefully you will be able to move by then.
If more storage is needed, you could put a small chest of drawers containing DC things, where dc2s cot is in your room, once they are in with their sibling.

That's extremely useful, thank you for this. Definitely a viable option!

Op: help, please!
Mumsnet: helps a lot
OP: DON'T QUESTION ME! I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!!

It sounds like you need to have less stuff. You don't need a chest of drawers and a wardrobe in the kids room, pick one and only keep what fits in it. Also do a major cull of toys. Research shows that kids are overwhelmed anyway if they have access to 16 or more at one time.

Really, seriously, either read my OP or piss off. How DARE somebody have another child when they already have one with additional needs, eh?

Yes you really are rude OP.

Some kind of trundle bed, or storage beds?

Do you already have storage drawers under your daughter's cot bed? If you had these under both children's cots/beds you might be able to get rid of some of the storage furniture?

Thank you, that's very helpful too. I didn't ignore or miss your post. I was dealing with people who couldn't be bothered to read my OP instead. I'm not a new MN user (not by a long shot!) but accidentally managed to lock myself out of my usual account, hence this one. As an old-timer I should know by now that a minority like to analyse OPs and try to 'trip them up' or add details that don't exist, or ignore the details which were already there.

Bowing out of this thread now since it has been derailed. Your pic of this bed with stairs could be an option a few months down the line but I suspect our nearly 8 month old might be able to climb out of that little cot by then! Definitely saved for future reference though, so thank you!

This is so cool

How big is bed2 / can you move in there and all furniture and toys in room 1 (yours at moment)

toy boxes can we used as coffee tables- honestly in small houses it’s just about finding any place, not the best most ideal place. I’m not a fan of having toy plastic boxes next to my couch but needs must.

Sounds like the children are the problem. Get rid of them.

What! the gate locks and and a baby can't climb over the top gap there isn't enough room.

Just deal with toys in the living room, it isn't forever.
Give the kids your room but still keep your clothes in there.
They pretty much are your only options but I think you knew that and just posted to vent as you realise your circumstances are less than ideal.

Isn’t it just! They do some really good beds, even 3 & 4 sleepers.

we had 3 kids in a 2 bed flat.
we had to be really creative with storage.
So in kids bedroom we had floor to ceiling cupboards, and under the bed drawers.
Toys at the bottom of cupboard and in drawers, clothes further up and stuff not used as much in the high part.
All soft toys and teddies were in toy hammocks at the end of the bed.

But we also had floor to ceiling cupboard in our room and the babies clothes and nappies etc were all in our room as there wasn't enough space in the kids bedroom.

Chest of drawers are useless as they are short, you need taller storage which fills the space. Wardrobes are typically poor users of space for kids, get a cupboard with wardrobe above and drawers below. Put storage boxes on top of it. Or ditch hanging storage and fold it all on shelves, you'll fit so much more in.

Rotate toys from up high storage to the play level to refresh toys.

If you save clothes from oldest for the baby, they go in the loft.

You're in this situation so you're just going to have to deal with non-ideal solutions.

You don't have space for as much stuff as you have so you're going to to have to downsize. You don't have room for a load of toys upstairs so you're going to have to reduce them. Throw some away or give to charity or sell them. Ones that are left go in the living room. You might want an adult only space but I'm afraid tough shit, there isn't room for that. Like you said, no where else for them.

You and your partner need to sort out your clothes so there is room for some of the kids clothes in your room. Out of season clothes need to go into vacuum storage bags in the attic. When the kids move up to beds, you can get pull out storage under the beds for clothes/toys.

You may not like it but thats how you'll make do until you can move.

Might do this when my LO is ready for a bed for cousin sleepovers!

Could you and your partner have the smaller room and have storage or cabin style bed where you can have your chest of drawers/clothes etc underneath it?
then the little ones could have the bigger room? Would that work?

You could swap the kids into the largest. room.
Do you have any space for toy storage in the garage or a garden shed? Or can you put a large lockable store shed in the carport?
Once you throw out toys you don't need you could store others in the garage and rotate when you need a change.

Also consider hiring a storage unit and living more comfortably in your home with less clutter.

I would swap rooms, buy yourselves a bed with built in storage, and put your wardrobe elsewhere for now.

You don't need a wardrobe in your room. It's nice to have but it's not an essential. It can go in your DC's rooms or be gotten rid of altogether. Anything that needs hanging can be hung on the back of the door or in the bathroom, or downstairs overnight.

A small double they can share?

Have you considered re-hanging the bedroom door so it opens outwards? Gives more space inside, we did this with a small room and made a world of difference!