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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To give neither child an en suite??

426 replies

HamRadio · 10/09/2020 23:46

Yes - first world problems I know.

My kids are 9 and 6. Two girls. We are about to move house and two of the bigger bedrooms have an en suite.

DH and I are having one. The other I was going to make a guest room/office. There are two decent sized bedrooms for the girls.

DD9 wants the en suite. She has been going on and on about it but I don’t want to give it to her.

Firstly, a nine year old does not need a bloody en suite.

Also, I don’t think it’s fair to let her have it and not DD2 so in my view the fairest solution is that neither of them has it (I feel like DD2 gets a lot of hand me downs etc and it’s an issue that I have become quite conscious of).

DH agrees with me but my sister thinks we are bonkers to make the second biggest bedroom a barely-used guest room and that it’s a waste of space.

Would appreciate some views...

OP posts:
GrumpyHoonMain · 11/09/2020 08:21

The 9 yo is closest to periods so I would give it to her. Agree with others that wasting the second biggest bedroom as an office / guestroom is bonkers

sherbetlemony · 11/09/2020 08:21

We have the same set up and our older dd has the en-suite. I do feel a bit bad for dd2 as dd1 also has a bigger room but birth order wins here. Plus dd2 has the main bathroom pretty much to herself.

Do what feels right to you but it's much easier at bedtime when they're brushing their teeth in their own bathrooms, no queuing for the loo etc. As they get older we'll appreciate it even more. Well worth the extra cleaning for us!

Lillygolightly · 11/09/2020 08:21

Due to fairness being an issue I would offer the following:

They can have the en-suite but this means that they share the bedroom and the other room gets made into a den/playroom/kids study or whatever

Or

They can have a room each and not have to share and the en-suite room remains a guest room as you planned.

This should hopefully sort things out as I would think she’d rather have her own bedroom more that she would want a bedroom and en-suite that she has to share with her sister.

HelloDaisy · 11/09/2020 08:22

I would use it as a guest room/office and not for either dc.

Great for visitors to have their own en-suite when staying and also good in this current climate if any of you are ill as can stay in there with own facilities until better.

Frazzled2207 · 11/09/2020 08:24

I agree with you. No children need an en suite. We all grew up perfectly happily before ensuites were a thing.

Why would you want 3 bathrooms to clean instead of 2? Although either girl could use the 3rd bathroom if no 2 bathroom was taken. V useful for guests and presumably you can make good use of the guest bedroom too.

Evilwasps · 11/09/2020 08:25

I wouldn't give either the room. But as you don't intend to use it regularly an idea could be to give the eldest the room and the youngest the two other rooms as a bed room and private play room. You could put a sofa bed or a day bed in the spare 'play' room so it can be used for guests, which let's face it, arent going to be frequent in the current climate. Then you could use the intended downstairs play room as a family room with a sofa bed, so eldest doesn't claim it as her own. The eldest won't like the idea but its a sweetener for the youngest.
Sibling rivalry is part of having brothers and sisters, but you don't want to foster resentment in the youngest. That can cause huge issues for people as they grow up, no one likes being second best. You seem to know that though, stick with your plan, or even the score

thinkingaboutLangCleg · 11/09/2020 08:25

Just an extra bathroom to clean all the time if you give it to DD! An ensuite for guests is lovely.

canihaveabrew · 11/09/2020 08:26

Honestly OP, you’re making the best decision.

I was the six year old in this situation. My sister always got the best of everything because she was older. Bigger bedroom, new clothes, first choice on hobbies etc.

In exchange, I got the shit leftovers. Like many second children.

If you cave on this it will add to years of resentment between your girls.

Keep it as a guest room and have it as an office ‘suite’. If you’re working from home full tome you need the space.

And six year old me thanks you for your impartiality.

RevolutionRadio · 11/09/2020 08:26

If you're working from home I'd have it as an office so you don't need to go out the room everytime you need to use the toilet.

I wouldn't give it to one child over the other, especially not to a child who seems to think it'd be automatically hers.

CasuallyMasculine · 11/09/2020 08:26

@BitOfFun

Every bedroom in my house has an en suite and DD (5) only uses hers for the toilet. I think it would be wasted on the 6yo.

And here's me thinking I'm posh because I have a downstairs loo Grin

Mumsnet is indeed the perfect place for competitive toilet posting. Wouldn't be the same without it.

Oh some sanity at last!

I’m 60 next year and have never lived in a house with more than one bathroom, or even toilet. Our current bathroom is downstairs, as was the one in my parents’ house where I grew up.

We’re about to move to a house with one bathroom and a downstairs toilet. I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven Grin

ThePlantsitter · 11/09/2020 08:27

We have a guest room/office with an ensuite. There's a TV in the with the games console on it and very often the kids end up using it as an extra lounge/playroom. So actually it's the most used room in the house and the ensuite comes in very handy.

I'm with you about kids having ensuites - fine (but still weird) if there are enough to go around, but certainly not if not.

Lysianthus · 11/09/2020 08:27

Ensuite room for office and guests. Nice for guests not having to use family bathroom. Easy for you because it won’t need constant cleaning. Girls learn there’s a difference between need and want.

Wexone · 11/09/2020 08:27

How often do you have guest stay over night ? Is it once a month or like once every 6 months ? En suites get smelly if not used all the time and need to be cleaned even when not being used. When we were buikding our house, my parnter wnated to put in a second en suite, i refused aparat from the extra expense of plumbing tiling etc we only have guests once a year (an we ahve no children) so the main bathroom is fine for them to use and we have our own ensuite. If its like once a year i would give it to your daughter and used it as a learning for responsibilty to keep it clean and then your younger has full use of the main bathroom - also learning when she older to clean it.

tinkywinkyshandbag · 11/09/2020 08:27

YANBU a guest room/home office with its own bathroom sounds fabulous. Don't let a 9 year old dictate what happens and I agree it would be unfair on dd2. Maybe let them choose some nice accessories/colour scheme for the family bathroom to personalise it a bit.

emmathedilemma · 11/09/2020 08:27

I think it's nicer for guests to have an en suite than a 9 year old, and if both girls can't have one then it's fairer that neither has it.

Thecobwebsarewinning · 11/09/2020 08:27

We had a similar situation when DDs were 14 & 11 and made the 2nd en-suite room the guest room for similar reasons to you. Unbeknownst to me the second child made the en-suite ‘Her’ bathroom using it when DH and I were out or safely ensconced downstairs. Sadly it never occurred to her to clean it. Luckily I went in to check it a few days before a visitor was due and so was able to arrange for a plumber to come out and scrape out and replace all the mouldy grout and sealant.

After that she had to share the main bathroom with her big sister and from the fuss she made you would have thought she was being sent down the mines! However nowadays the spare room bathroom is always visitor ready.

GetThatHelmetOn · 11/09/2020 08:29

I don’t think it would be fair that one girl has an en-suite and the other hasn’t? Giving up on this would smack of unfairness and entitlement because normally the kid with more “privileges” behaves as if they were some way above other siblings (and they are, otherwise they wouldn’t have got the extra privileges in the first place)

To those saying you need to use every room in your house, you don’t. The second en-suite was a “bonus” not a “need”, I would rather have it for visits rather than creating a divide between my kids and an extra bathroom for me to clean.

Saracen · 11/09/2020 08:30

To me the fact the big bedroom has an ensuite isn't too relevant. I think the point is that it's big, so it's needed for a home office since you and DH both WFH. When the kids are older it might also be a good quiet study space they could share with you, i.e. a room with a couple of desks which can be used by whoever needs it in the moment.

The kids are going to have the downstairs playroom, so neither of them needs a big bedroom.

movingonup20 · 11/09/2020 08:32

Guest room, the kids get to choose the decor of "their" bathroom

YummyJamDoughnut · 11/09/2020 08:33

I've never understood the 'oldest gets the best of everything' attitude. I was the youngest of 2 growing up and my sister got first choice of absolutely everything (from major things like bedrooms to minor things like food, clothes, days out etc.) i was left with whatever she didn't want. TBF I think ive turned into the nicer adult for it (she still has tantrums when she doesn't get her way at 40 years old) but it felt pretty shit growing up

Yes. My sister started hobbies, I had to join them rather than do what I wanted as "it's too much to take you to two places". She choose the secondary school I then had to attend. (choice of two in walking distance of house, at the time the county policy was siblings automatically got a place in the same school). I was badly bullied at the school and wished so hard that she'd chosen school B three years before. Etc etc.
I was tall and thin, while she was short and round, though, so no hand me downs for long here, thank goodness.

weaselish · 11/09/2020 08:39

I agree with you - both us and the kids share the main bathroom. We've got a loft conversion with an en-suite which is now my office (normally where my mum stays when she visits). My 10 year old keeps going on she wants that room but it's a no from me - not fair on her sister, not fair on my mum who stays a lot (normally) and appreciates an en-suite. It gives her much more privacy when staying.

ancientgran · 11/09/2020 08:42

When my DD was looking at student accommodation the student showing us round said, "If you have an ensuite you have to clean it yourself, if you have a shared bathroom the cleaners do it and you pay less rent and more money for yourself." DD decided she didn't need an ensuite.

I realise your DD won't be paying rent but cleaning her own bathroom to a decent standard could be an issue.

Personally I wouldn't give it to the 9 year old but I'm a younger sister and definitely got very fed up of my sister getting the biggest, the best and never the hand me downs so maybe at nearly 70 I'm still influenced by that.

ancientgran · 11/09/2020 08:47

@CasuallyMasculine I'm also in my 60s. I was born in a house where the toilet was at the top of the shared backyard. When we bought this house the previous owner said she was selling as it was just her and her husband and there are three toilets, downstairs, bathroom and ensuite, and she resented having to clean more toilets than there were people in the house. Nearly 30 years later with all children grown up I'm seeing her point.

AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken · 11/09/2020 08:48

YANBU at all but I’d probably offer the bedroom with the en suite to them both if they’re willing to share or neither if they’re not.

gurglebelly · 11/09/2020 08:51

I find all the cries of 'she won't be 9 forever, and she'll want her privacy as she gets older' really weird for two reasons 1) everyone wants privacy (including her younger sister) 2) that's what doors are for.

Stick to your guns OP