Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

About PIL in DC room

108 replies

ConfusedYetAgain · 12/05/2018 22:27

I have somehow ended up caught in the middle of a disagreement and would be interested to hear who people think is unreasonable here.

SIL and BIL recently moved to a town about 1.5 hour drive from PIL. They have two young DC. Their house is 3 bed but both the DC rooms are very small, you’d struggle to comfortably fit a double bed in either.

PIL are planning to visit. SIL and BIL were intending to offer them a sofa bed in their dining room. PIL are angry with this and think they are being made unwelcome. They think they should be offered one of the DCs rooms and the DC should share or one sleep in parents room.

SIL doesn’t want to do this as in order to fit in a double air mattress for PIL they would have to move furniture (bed and shelving unit, possibly something else I can’t remember) out of the room. She thinks it would be disruptive to both DC as they would have to move furniture into one room, and the DC wake each other if they are in same room.

PIL also think that DC should learn that they have to give up their room for adults. SIL and BIL both say that’s fine but they are too young to understand that lesson at the moment so it’s just disruptive to the whole family. PIL think it’s about the principle that DC should accommodate adults so the DCs age isn’t important.

I tend to think PIL are unreasonable as the sofa bed would be equally comfortable as an air mattress, and they can have privacy in the dining room as much as in a bedroom. But on the other hand, I do get that guests would rather have a bedroom than just a sofa bed that needs to be cleared away during the day.

So, who is unreasonable?

OP posts:

catinapatchofsunshine · 12/05/2018 22:57

The principal that children move to accommodate adults is utterly wrong anyway. It's not one of be teaching my kids as I was always the one kicked out of my room for guests to take mine, due to the location of my room being slightly separate in my parents' slightly higgeldy-piggeldy house. I hated it and resented the guests. My grandmother smoked in my bedroom and my horrible creepy uncle got my room too and I hated returning to it afterwards.

A separate dining room with sofa bed sounds a perfect ersatz guest room, better than an airbed in a tiny kids' room.

The PILs sound unpleasant.

Singlenotsingle · 12/05/2018 22:58

It wouldn't even occur to me and dp to expect our adult DC's or their children to let us have their bedrooms when we visit. We've used blow up airbeds on lounge floors, or a local b&b or hotel. Very selfish to expect otherwise!

Sparklingbrook · 12/05/2018 22:59

YY to a day visit. 1.5 hours is nothing.

Failing that a hotel.

Fruitcorner123 · 12/05/2018 23:00

This might be a generational thing

no. my mum stays on the sofa bed at ours. she is single.so I have offered for the kids to share and she can have one of their single beds. She doesn't want them disrupted. it's not generational.its just entitled.

Nanny0gg · 12/05/2018 23:00

I also think that the SiL and BiL should give up their room.

rookiemere · 12/05/2018 23:01

I’m very hospitable in our house but would only offer our own bed if absolutely necessary. I’m amazed that folks are comfortable with this. I’d also feel quite weird sleeping in my hosts bed - only time it’s happened our friends slept in their campervan - it was hugely kind of them but folks bedrooms are about the most intimate place you can be so put in that position i’d much rather stay in a premier inn.

Allgirlskidsanddogs · 12/05/2018 23:01

PIL are guests. They have no right to disrupt the household, especially as the children are young and there would be significant upheaval. I’m surprised that they feel this way and shocked that they let their hosts know! With their attitude they’d be daily visitors in my house and not welcome to stay at all!

catinapatchofsunshine · 12/05/2018 23:06

Seeing your 22:47 post Id point out that the children are more important to their parents than the pil surely. If you had to save your kids or your parents (or pil) from a burning building it'd be the kids first every time... If that's what pil are upset about, perhaps therapy to come to terms with reality is the answer!

BoomBoomsCousin · 12/05/2018 23:06

If it was impractical for the DC to give up a bedroom (and it sounds like it to me!) I would expect to offer my own bedroom to parents. Not to any guest, but to parents I would. However, given PIL’s attitude, I’d probably not want them to stay over at all.

Bridesmaidinchief · 12/05/2018 23:08

I would give PIL my room and take the sofa bed for sure.

thegreylady · 12/05/2018 23:10

Whenever we have stayed with any of our adult children we have been given their room. We have 5 dc and this has happened whenever we have both visited. In one case this meant ds and ddil sleeping on a sofa bed. We have never asked or expected this but they always insist. There was an occasion when I visited alone and was given dgd’s room which has an en suite and she slept upstairs in spare (single) room.

BigPinkBall · 12/05/2018 23:15

This reminds me of my parents, we have a 3 bedroom house but in reality it’s 2 bedrooms and a boxroom/cupboard and pre-DC we kept a double bed for guests in the 2nd bedroom.

When I was pregnant my mum was visibly shocked when I told her the baby would be having the 2nd bedroom and they’d have to sleep on an air bed or stay in a hotel when they visited. She genuinely thought we were going to set up the nursery in the box room to accommodate her 4-times a year visits and she now strongly hints that she wants our bed when she’s here.

catinapatchofsunshine · 12/05/2018 23:16

I agree with rookie and others about giving up my room or wanting to take the bed from my hosts - no. I'd rather an air mattress than someone else's own bed in their own bedroom, and I'd hate any other adult than my husband in my bed and bedroom.

I'd only give up my bed to someone who actually needed it, say due to frailty or disability meaning it was the only place they could manage to sleep fortunately my bed is up an extra awkward staircase so it will never be any help anyway

As PIL are making themselves so unpleasant they aren't likely to be people anyone but a hostess at all costs martyr would give up their own bed for rather than offer to wave them off home after dinner or a take it or leave it sofa bed.

Esspee · 12/05/2018 23:21

The children could resent their grandparents appropriating their room. I would give the grandparents our room and use the bed settee as a good host. On the other hand if I was the grandparent I'd take what was offered and not be difficult.

0SometimesIWonder · 12/05/2018 23:22

Thank you Fruitcorner123.
When we visit my DS and family we always sleep on the sofa bed in their lounge.
Wouldn’t dream of turfing the grandchildren out of their beds.

Seeingadistance · 12/05/2018 23:22

Why do they need to stay overnight anyway? They don't live far away!

grumpy4squash · 12/05/2018 23:24

I have (quite a few times) given up my bedroom to guests and slept in a tent in the garden! It was completely fine and everyone was comfortable.
I can understand why someone wouldn't choose to do so though.

grumpy4squash · 12/05/2018 23:27

And more relevantly to the op.....
It doesn't make sense to try to make a double bedroom out of a child's single bedroom. It simply can't work. So the PIL point about DC giving up their room is irrelevant. unless they each want to sleep in a single bed or cot.

Sashkin · 12/05/2018 23:28

Are these PIL extremely elderly or frail? I assume not, if the grandchildren are young enough to be waking at night.

My mum wouldn’t dream of turfing her precious grandson out of his bed!

Surely you know that when you stay round at somebody’s house you are not going to be in the lap of luxury? If you want hotel-quality sleeping arrangements, you book into an actual hotel.

HeddaGarbled · 12/05/2018 23:31

Yes, seriously, in my family, if there isn't a spare bedroom, the master bedroom is always given to guests. I wouldn't dream of putting guests on a sofa bed in a dining room and neither would anyone else in my family or friendship group. Is this a class thing, or a generation thing? Our parents were working class, so small homes, no spare bedrooms, so this is what we have been brought up with: hosts shift temporarily for guests.

TheOriginalEmu · 12/05/2018 23:38

where exactly are B/SIL meant to put the child's bed and other furniture for the duration of the stay???
PIL are being utterly ridiculous and childish.
I had my exs parents to stay once when we had 2 small children (ds was newborn, they live the other end of the country so came to meet him) and we lived in a tiny 2 bed house. so 4 adults one of which had raging PND, a toddler and not very well new baby. all cooped up together for 7 days. FIL had serious health issues, so needed to sleep on the same floor as the bathroom, so it meant decamping me, ex and ds to the sofa bed with a travel cot. It was hell on earth and every time they came after that they stayed elsewhere. disrupting small children from their rooms runs the risk of disrupting their sleep for weeks after which the parents then have to live with/resolve.
there is NO way i'd be moving me or my kids out of our rooms just because PIL are having a strop.

shouldwestayorshouldwego · 12/05/2018 23:41

I would tend to put them in the dining room, unless of course the children can be relied upon to wake frequently in the night. 'As you are upstairs and the stair gate means the dc can't get down I will just run through their routines. Tarquin should only wake 3 or 4 times in the night, you just need to pat his back and sing lullabies for 15 minutes or so. Tabitha generally sleeps for a few hours at a time. If she seems hungry then there are some sterilized bottles in the fridge, she is teething so I will pop out some Calpol. Of course we won't hear a thing downstairs but I am sure they will be fine with you looking after them. It is so kind of you ... what's that? You would prefer to sleep downstairs in your own room and not be woken in the night?'

Atthebottomofthegarden · 12/05/2018 23:42

I believe the way it should go is that SIL and BIL should offer their own room, as it is the only double. PIL should refuse and say they are perfectly happy on the sofa bed.

Takfujuimoto · 12/05/2018 23:46

I would stay at a hotel but if I didn't have the money for one or it was booked up then I'd rather take the sofa bed tbh.
I can't stand the thought of taking someone else's bed and room and I wouldn't offer mine to anyone unless they had a house fire and were injured and physically needed a bed.
The PILs sound rude and entitled, if they don't like it they can go home or sleep in a hotel/Airbnb.

TheIcon · 12/05/2018 23:46

Tell the miserable bastards to fuck off to a hotel if they must darken the doors.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Swipe left for the next trending thread