AIBU not to give my children a double bed each?

[TheCherries]

I am in the process of decorating new bedrooms for my two young teenagers.

Both are insistent their friends all now have double beds and it isn’t fair I am making them keep their single beds.

Changing their beds isn’t an option we don’t have the budget for it anyway but it got me thinking is it really a rite of passage to have a double bed as a teenager?

Surely you wait until you are an age to share the bed with another. My feeling is the larger the bed the more you get used to spreading out.

I would prefer to keep the single bed with guest bed underneath for sleepovers and enjoy the extra space in their rooms the rest of the time.

We have two spare bedrooms so we don’t need to double up the use of their beds for relatives staying over.

Do yours have a double bed?

My dd is 26 and still sleeps in a single bed. A double or even a small double wouldn't fit in her room or the spare room. Small bedrooms.😕 none of my other dd's had double beds when they lived at home.

Oops. Dd's bed frame is from charity shop...it's easy to find beautiful things new...this was just lucky.

I’m really mixed about this. My 16 year old DD has recently moved downstairs & has a lovely room with en-suite but she chose a single instead of a small double for space reasons. She tells me that there’s a lot of her friends who have doubles & a lot of them have their girl/boy friends stay over & they sleep in the same bed. (Apparently if you have a double bed it’s pretty much expected! ).

I’m not sure a double bed is nicer than basic, even if there’s space and budget for one. What about having lots of floor room for hobbies - the drum kit, ballet barre, Lego constructions etc? I’d have thought lots of teens would have preferred that over a double bed. My dc certainly would.

t's not really about what you think tbf... it's about what they want as it's their bedroom!

Actually no it isn’t!
It is part of your house and coming out of your budget! So yanbu to decide what they get

My 17 and 15 year old dds have singles.

MN isn't the real world
Um I very much live in the real world thank you. I work full time, minimum wage for a charity and I am a single mum to 4dc (not my choosing!)
My bedroom and also my ds1 room, are 9ftx8ft each and we both have double beds in our rooms. It is tight but we don’t need floor space - we each like our own double beds.
Dd14 has a slightly bigger room than me and she has chosen a double bed as hers needs replacing.
I’m not rich and I don’t live in a mansion.

Growing up, me and my sister both had two single beds in our rooms. My parents have moved house and have 3 spare rooms now all with single beds. The beds are left from when me and DSis were at home and I guess they just don’t see the point in replacing them with doubles.

DH finds it strange sleeping in a twin room when we stay!

Guess the budget would decide this- changing to a double would also mean new linen, I see no reason for a young person having a double bed, a double bed is for 2 people.

4foot beds as a compromise ? Large enough to relax in ?

Haven’t RTFT but as a 9 year old I had a 3/4 bed which is the next step up from a single...not sure hi bedding worked??!! But I had my first double when I was about 15, if that help at all OP?!

Both my dc got double beds aged around 7 or 8 it made sense as they both had rooms big enough so handy when they have friends, my younger child pestered me for one, for a good couple of years he sleeps much better now. Most of their friends have them as far as I know.

How*

if you book a room for one you get a double room in every hotel I've stayed in over the last twenty years for pleasure and business.

If you book a double room, you get a double bed. If you book a single room, you get a single bed - exactly like the one I'm posting from right now. (Wouldn't mind if it was a decent mattress, as most hotels do have, but this is very far from a good mattress, possibly the worst I've ever had, And I type as someone whose teenage double bed had a bottom mattress which had been reconditioned during the war, i.e. about 45 years previously...)

If anything, but 2 ikea beds at the slightly smaller rate, including matresses, (I’ve heard ikea beds have different sizes when it comes to sheets, duvets, mattresses etc)

My son was 11 when he went into a double bed and my daughter went into a small double at 12

It's like anything in houses. You do what you can afford, or there is space for.

I slept in a single bed till I left home at 23. My parents had lots of money and a bigger guest room. But my bedroom was small, so that was that!

Don't beat yourself up about it! As adults they won't rubbish your parenting because their bed was small back in the day...

My dd got a double bed when she was 8. I really didn't give it that much thought. She's a very active sleeper and kept falling out of bed or banging into the wall so I bought one with more room. I really don't see what sleeping with someone else has to do with it.

I do not find it easy to believe that your children's friends all have mums and dads who have bought expensive double beds for their children along with larger sheets and duvet covers to wash. It is daft and if that is the way to a quiet life God help us all.

How double do they want the bed to be? A 4ft small double might be worth considering but you will lose the respect of your children if you pander to them in this way. Lucky them to have bedrooms large enough to hold a double bed!

Oh fgs, have what suits you! My DDs in their 20s and DS 15 have single beds with double duvets. There's not enough room for doubles, and they don't have double beds at uni either! It won't be a blight on their lives!!!!

For love nor money couldn’t persuade my teenager son to get a double when we changed his bed!!!

This is what I don't understand. Why are parents actively trying to persuade their children to change to double beds? Even when the children don't want to, or don't care either way? I suspect that this is a status thing - doing what the other parents do, or better. That's the sense in which I think it's over-indulgence.

Surely all this 'what bed size?' chat is more about the size of the bedroom in question. Should I get my x year old child a double bed? Well, does it fit in the room along with the other furniture they need? For example, I'd rather my teenager had a desk they could study at than a bed they could in? (sleep, obviously) ;) And btw, a double is the same length (190 cm) as a single. The bed would need to be a kingsize to be a whole 10 cm bigger in length.

My eldest has a double, but only because if we have guests they use his room and he goes downstairs on the sofa.

Otherwise I don't really see the need.

"Totally unnessary and a sign of our wasteful society. Think of the washing. "
This ^. No child 'needs' a double bed.

Also, re 'tall' children needing double beds, the lenth of a small single bed, standard single bed, small double bed and standard double bed are all the SAME LENGTH 6' 3" (190cm) its only the widths that are different. My DH is 6'2" and I'm 5' 11" and we are both fine when we regularly sleep in standard single beds.

Not everyone has rooms large enough for double beds no matter how much they would like one.