Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU not to give my children a double bed each?

529 replies

TheCherries · 16/04/2019 23:22

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?

OP posts:
HelpIcantfindaname · 17/04/2019 00:04

Dd10 has a double bed but she is nearly 5'8.
There was a double in the spare room & she had a single so we just swapped them recently. She still prefers to get in my superking with me!

DarkDarkNight · 17/04/2019 00:06

It’s definitely more common now than it used to be. My 5 year old has one. I bought it when I was replacing the cot bed. I don’t know anybody who had a double growing up but know lots of young kids know who do.

DearPrudence · 17/04/2019 00:07

Mine got a double when he needed a new bed and the room needed decorating aged about 14.

InceyWinceyette · 17/04/2019 00:08

Mine move sprawling across a double bed.

But if you haven’t got the budget that’s that. No question.

InceyWinceyette · 17/04/2019 00:09

‘Love’ not ‘move’

notangelinajolie · 17/04/2019 00:09

Yes, double beds for mine. We don't have huge bedrooms or anything but single beds just look lost.

iamthere123 · 17/04/2019 00:10

I’m 33 and very long term single living and still in a single. Had a double a few times at uni and only ended up sleeping on one side and as my room at my parents was a tiny box room I still love having the extra space in my bedroom that having a single gives me!

SummerPlace · 17/04/2019 00:10

What about a King Single?

mummymayhem18 · 17/04/2019 00:10

My daughter has had a double bed since she was around 8. We moved house so when decorated all her room we changed the bed also.

Twillow · 17/04/2019 00:11

It is becoming more common, but not necessarily 'the norm': depends entirely on your space, budget and preference. I think what is becoming more common is for children to dictate their preferences, in a slightly entitled way that I don't think my era would have dared.
Not sure what being tall has to do with anything, a single isn't shorter than a double?
And single beds didn't stop me having surreptitious sex at mine or my boyfriend's houses!

PinguDance · 17/04/2019 00:12

I only had one friend who had a double bed when I was a teen and he was a very louche character! oh no actually I've just remembered a female friend who had one too and it was borrowed for another friend to lose her virginity in.
It seems very indulgent to me somehow - feel like this must be my Protestant streak showing through.

brizzlemint · 17/04/2019 00:14

Is a King single the same as a small double - a 4 ft double?

MrsTerryPratchett · 17/04/2019 00:14

Teenagers are more horizontal than adults so they need more space.

Can they contribute financially, that's what I do when my 8 yo wants something for her room?

Meandwinealone · 17/04/2019 00:17

Basically aside from cost YABU

PinguDance · 17/04/2019 00:17

I actually like single beds tbh (though I also like small box rooms as a bedroom which I can't imagine many on Mumsnet do) occasionally sleep in mine in the spare room as a treat. For a start bedding is cheaper and easier to dry, takes up less space, and it enforces spooning in a nice way when sharing with a lurverrr. (That was me aged 26 in London - fond memories of my tiny room and single bed)

EBearhug · 17/04/2019 00:18

I had a double from age 13 when I got my own room - but if we ever had guests staying, they got my room and I had to go on the floor in my sister's room.

Lilymossflower · 17/04/2019 00:18

A double bed each would be a luxury, not a necessity, since they already have a single bed each.

So if you can't afford the luxury, you can't.
Or you can take some money out of there birthday or Christmas amount and explain it will mean they have less/smaller presents when it is there birthday/Christmas

brizzlemint · 17/04/2019 00:18

My heading towards 18 and just under 6' DD is still happy in her single.
What are your views about sex? Not prying, but whilst I might know my DD is having it, I don't want to encourage it in the house

I felt a bit weird at first knowing that they could be having sex in the next room but they either don't or are very quiet, they aren't going to want Mum/MIL knowing are they?! Grin I've got used to the idea now but then they were both adults when we got the double bed in there.

Windbeneathmybingowings · 17/04/2019 00:20

How are teenagers more horizontal now than they were in decades past when they were all in single beds?

Meandwinealone · 17/04/2019 00:20

@Windbeneathmybingowings
You have to ask!!??

How tall are your teenagers compared to how tall your grandparents were at that age.

Windbeneathmybingowings · 17/04/2019 00:22

I didn’t have a double bed as a teenager. If DH isn’t in bed with me I still just sleep on my own side as I would if he were in there. Lots of people have said they didn’t have them as teenagers, we haven’t all grown a foot taller as a species in the last 20 years.

Meandwinealone · 17/04/2019 00:25

@Windbeneathmybingowings
Are your teenagers the same height as you were at 14?

I’m 5 inches taller than my mum
My brother is 8 inches taller than my dad and a foot taller than my mum

In any case it’s a moot point. It’s just much nicer to sleep in a double. And they aren’t really that expensive these days.

MrsTerryPratchett · 17/04/2019 00:27

@Windbeneathmybingowings they just are more horizontal!

I'm sure my grandad would have been horizontal had he not been fighting the Nazis! And by all accounts my grandmother and great aunt were pretty horizontal by the standards of the age. Racy both of them!

DustyMaiden · 17/04/2019 00:29

DS had a double since he was out of the toddler bed. It’s was nice to have a cuddle. Anytime he was unwell I could sleep beside him.

Windbeneathmybingowings · 17/04/2019 00:29

It’s not really moot, because it shows the need doesn’t really exist, it’s just something nice to have. Making OP and anyone else that doesn’t have a double for a child not unreasonable.

Not everyone has the same height dynamics that your family do. I don’t have teenagers, I was a teenager myself in 2001 and I don’t recall a sudden generation of giants. 😂

Swipe left for the next trending thread