House Room Allocation

[Rooms1]

3 bedroom house.
3 x kids, all the same sex.

1x 1 yo FT
1 x 12 yo PT
1 x 16 yo FT

Who should get what room?

My thinking is that 1yo and 16yo should get their own rooms and the 12yo shares with the 1yo when they come over on the weekends.

The reason behind this is because they have their own bedroom at the other parents home.

But several people have said that they should share with the 16yo due to their ages.

How big are the rooms. Can you put a partition wall in or do an ikea screen partition type wall.

Sorry if already said

Absolutely this.

Obviously I don’t know the ins and outs of why your ex kicked you out of the family home and kept the kids but I assume you went to the courts immediately for them to intervene?
How was he allowed to keep them from you? Especially if he’s capable of kicking his 16 year old daughter out of the house!!!

Anyway, you need a larger house but it’s obviously not as easy as that. So as above, you, partner and baby in largest double room, 16 yr old in the other double room and 12 yr old in the single room. As you can’t magic up a larger house, you’re all just going to have to compromise a bit.

I think the OP is obviously doing her absolute best to resolve this in the best way, but sometimes wants and preferences simply can’t be accommodated, due to space constraints. I don’t think it’s reasonable for anyone who only stays in a house 1 night per week, to expect half of a bedroom when space is so limited.

This. At least when the middle child is with you.

The two older children have enough to deal with, with parents' marriage break up and new partners popping up. Providing a bit of space at Mum's house is the least you can do for them.

But I would think it a good idea to be working towards a solution where each child can have her own room. The 12 year old may want to live with mum and sister in due course.

Half a bedroom, maybe not, but a permanent bed plus a small amount of storage in a large room with her similar aged, same sex, full sibling is an extremely reasonable expectation.

are all girls sisters??? why is the 12 year old the only one who goes to dad's?

If you read the OP’s posts, this has been explained

The 12yo is not happy with having the smallest room of her sister is having the bigger room (again I understand her POV but she does have another bedroom).

I think I will try this suggestion again but if not then suggest she has our room and we have the front room.

Unfortunately this did cause issues before.
As were in a 1 bed and the older girls like to sleep in late etc we said that they could have our bedroom and we’d have the front room as our bedroom.
But we needed to go to bed earlier due to work, baby in a routine, normal tiredness etc and this caused an argument because they (the 12yo) felt pushed out of the front room and feels it should be a social room and she shouldn’t be sent to her room when we’re trying to sleep.

And no she is left home alone.
She has been left over a week before.
Her dad has a ring doorbell so can see if I come near the house and so I can’t just pick her up.
She didn’t have a phone at first but now she has a phone and so if there’s an emergency I will be there.

The school and social services are involved as many times she has not woken up in time or had a school uniform.
But they don’t seem to do anything about it.

No I have not been to court.

SS etc are involved and the police were involved when he kicked me out.

He basically (I believe) started a new relationship and wanted me gone so changed the locks and threw my stuff out. It was not my finest moment but this led to a lot of shouting and banging on the door from me as it came so unexpectedly. I threatened to call the police on him for kicking me out and then he rang the police and said I don’t like there.

The kids were witness to all of this and were questioned by police etc and it was a traumatic experience for them and the police said it’s best that I leave temporarily to cool the situation down. I have no family so the council put me in a homeless shelter.

He then told me he would be moving out and that I could go back and live there to raise the kids.
He was basically planning on moving in with his new gf and then that fell apart and then he got really nasty and put the ring camera up etc and told me I wasn’t allowed near the house or kids.

Everytime I tried it caused a huge screaming match and the kids would cry and it caused them too much stress and the police and SS said I cannot really accommodate them in a homeless shelter and so the court won’t give me access.

Things started calming down a bit and he let me take them for days out.
I then met my now partner and my ex kicked off again and stopped them seeing me again.

As I said previously, I am in 2 mins about whether to go to court over the 12yo as she doesn’t want to come to mine more than she does now but I don’t know if that’s because my ex has a hold over her, she doesn’t feel at home with me/she’s angry at me or that she just enjoys being in her own room rather than a cramped 1 bed flat.

My ex has always been a bit controlling but I don’t know if he has a breakdown or something because in 20 years we’ve never rang the police or separated etc.

So the most obvious suggestion is:

double - mum and dad
double - 16 and 12
single - 1

however, you could:

double - mum and dad
single - 16
double - 1 and 12 and have some sort of storage in the middle of the room to make it separate areas - with the 1 year old closest to the door so that if you need to go in at night it’s easier. I’m thinking Ikea kallax or similar - or a wardrobe each facing opposite ways. Just make sure to secure them so they can’t topple.

Sounds like you’ve had a hard time and are now trying your best to come back from it. Neither option is perfect but you’ll make it work OP.

I think you take the biggest room, 12 year old and 1 year old take the second biggest room and 16 year old takes the smallest room.

Baby goes in with you when 12 year old is there. You invest in some furniture like a cot on wheels that gets taken to your room and closed storage so any babyish stuff is not on view and there is space for your 12 year olds stuff. Maybe some decorations you can easily change around so it really feels like her space.

Like this?

The ikea PLATSA bed offers a natural way to divide too.

12 year old has the smaller room because the younger one has the smaller room in most families, that’s not an issue, she can be grumpy but there are only so many rooms..

But her being left at home without an adult
is a massive issue and please consider going to court about residency now you have a place bigger than a one bed because she is in danger without her older sister around.

There is an ikea hacks and tips FB page that will help you with ideas for dividing space.

I'm thinking a kallex partition wall set up with the majority of space for full time kid and a few storage slots for the part time kid with a small single bed or armchair bed. There is so much amazing space saving stuff about these days. Just takes imagination and a bit of cash investment.

This post gets to the heart of the matter.