Anyone else’s DC having to share rooms?

[OtherCoraline]

I have 2DC, (nearly) 8yo DD and (nearly) 6yo DS. I am having another girl in June and whilst obviously she’ll be in my room for a while, eventually she’s going to have to go in with DD. Its not ideal obviously but in our area we can’t afford to buy a 4 bed, PLUS everywhere I’ve looked at on Rightmove (checked it daily for a year) has less ‘living space’ than us. We are lucky enough to have a separate dining and living room but due to the building and layout of this property (old flat), we can’t make any structural changes or change the dining room into a bedroom as it’s connected to the (galley) kitchen. Nowadays all I read about bedrooms is that each DC should have their own and whilst I’d love that in an ideal world, the reality is that I don’t think that we can. Is anyone else in the same position?

Similar position here, DD 7 and DS 4 are room sharing (bunk beds) as we're only a 2 bed and can't afford to move. I don't like it but there's nothing much we can do at this point. I hope one day we're in the position to give them separate rooms, although for now they're very accepting of it and seem happy enough.

they really dont need their own rooms.
if you felt that way you could chose to have the dining room as your bedroom

My kids are weird they could have a room each but chose to share. Do your kids like sharing? If they do then don’t stress just do what’s right about your family!

It’s not ideal as the age gap is only get to be more noticeable the older they get. Your older DD is very soon going to be moving out of child phase and into tween phase.

I would consider putting the baby with your son. The sex doesn’t really matter at this point and you would get at least 2 years out of the arrangement before it really became a problem.

id do that and make the dining room a play room.

My DD's share since we moved to a smaller house and I've been amazed at how much better they get on. They used to be much less tolerant of each other as they've got a bigger age gap than yours. There's definitely benefits as well as down sides. They've got to know each other better. Initially they complained but I pointed out I share with DH so they agreed it was fair enough. We all carve out our own little bits of space round the house.

To be honest if I was you, with the ages at play here, I’d be moving older DD & DS in together and have youngest in their own room, at least for the first year or two. My daughter is 11 months old now and I couldn’t have her sleeping in with an 8 year old who had to get up and go to school the next day so needs their sleep. She’s such a loud sleeper she even wakes me up via the monitor, nevermind if I was in the room with her I’d be awake constantly.

Could you sleep in the dining room on pull out sofa?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sharing as a blanket rule but I do think you’re going to be in for trouble expecting a baby to share with an 8 year old, that age gap is never going to make for good room mates. When older DD is going through puberty, needs privacy, at maybe 12/13 they’re going to be sharing their space with a 4/5 year old? I can’t see that working.

There’s nothing wrong with siblings sharing rooms per se. However their respective ages do play a part.

My step sons share a room at our home and their mums. Both perfectly happy, decent size rooms in both houses. But they’re only 3 years apart in age.

It’s the age gap which will make your girls sharing tricky. I wouldn’t rush to put a baby/toddler in with your daughter, more inclined to keep her in with you longer, and would try to find a work around because an 8 and 16 year old sharing isn’t really fair on either.

I'm surprised people think it's such an issue. Our age gap is a bit wider and the younger one spends all her time playing downstairs where most of her toys are whereas my teen is usually in the room then . When it's little ones bedtime the teen is downstairs watching TV. Little one gets up early and comes straight in to wake me and we go downstairs. Teen sleeps in. There's very little overlap in their use of the room unless they're asleep. I have divided the room in half with the wardrobes and drawers and decorated each half completely differently so it's clear whose is whose. I wouldn't move the baby in until they are past the stair gate age but apart from that I can't see it would be a big problem.

Give the girls the biggest room and try to section it off with some sort of room divider.