To ask for your tips for sleeping in the living room

[Fressia123]

Posting here for traffic... Baby sleeps through the night when he sleeps on his own in the box room. EOW and every Friday his big brother sleeps in that room so our 15mo comes back to our room. He wakes up at 2-3 and there's no way to get him to go back sleep. Any tips for how to sleep in the living room as that seems the obvious answer?

TBH he never had a plan. I think he thought finding a flexible 3 bed was a lot easier than he thought. The truth is that although they do exist they're too far away to easily commute.

He genuinely has no solution apart from this new idea of a glorified closer with no windows (which o find completely unacceptable).

The next level of house would require for us to earn around £15k more between us. In theory should be more manageable for me but I haven't had any luck.

When it's just the three of us the house is perfectly fine for us, if anything it feels a little too big!

Sounds like the solution is to carry on putting DSS in your bedroom and you and DH make do in the living room until DH realises that it doesn’t work, and starts to accept that a better way forward is needed.

Splitting a small bedroom for DSS off from the main living room sounds sensible. Putting a toddler in a windowless cupboard would be illegal.

put baby in travel cot in living room

go to bedroom for evening?

When the big brother comes to stay the weekend you should not be taking the baby out of its room to give to him! Babies need routine and to sleep in a familiar room,otherwise they'll wake up multiple times. The big brother is a visitor, therefore a blow up bed for the weekend, for him, no one else!

DSS stays in his room, there's no way he'd just move around when he's here.

I agree splitting the living room is the more workable solution, the cheapest and the one that wouldn't massively affect the house value .

The idea of creating a room from taking some our bedroom and the bathroom isn't bad either but it does need a window but it would be street facing so not sure it would be allowed.

DSS is not a visitor it's his house as much as the other DC, it would also be taking away his bedroom which in sure he'd find unacceptable and he'd never come back. I don't think anybody wants that to happen.

The big brother is a visitor

He really is not.

@Fressia123

TBH he never had a plan. I think he thought finding a flexible 3 bed was a lot easier than he thought. The truth is that although they do exist they're too far away to easily commute.

He genuinely has no solution apart from this new idea of a glorified closer with no windows (which o find completely unacceptable).

The next level of house would require for us to earn around £15k more between us. In theory should be more manageable for me but I haven't had any luck.

When it's just the three of us the house is perfectly fine for us, if anything it feels a little too big!

Hang on so 3 of the 4 children are his but not yours? And he’s not finding a solution to housing them other than disrupting the baby’s sleep? And earning 15k more should be manageable for you? What’s he doing about that given he’s the one with 4 kids to house?

No, two are his, one is mine, one is ours. What else can he do apart from finding a second job? That's not life either. If working more was the solution I had the solution in my hands but we decided that that is no way to live.

I think it's also naivety he had never owned and had always been on tax Credits so he thought they'd help but we obviously don't get any help.

I believe they have one DC together (the toddler), DP has 2 older children and the OP has 1 older DD. So 2/4 are OP's and 3/4 are DP's.

Sorry cross post

Going back to the original question and as someone who slept in a living room for a couple of years remember that you spend a couple of hours a day sitting on the sofa and 8 hours a night lying on the bed.

Please spend and plan accordingly! Daybeds are a good call, can provide useful storage for your stuff and can then be used as a bed for your toddler when he is older.

I still get phantom pains in my back thinking about the sofa bed I used to sleep on. It was a lovely sofa but a horror show as a bed

No worries @NameChange30 it's actually kind of sweet that you remember me so well :)

@Fressia123

DSS is not a visitor it's his house as much as the other DC, it would also be taking away his bedroom which in sure he'd find unacceptable and he'd never come back. I don't think anybody wants that to happen.

Well said OP. Step children are not visitors!

If this is going to be a longer term thing how about a pull down bed like this
https://www.johnlewis.com/vispring-ceres-full-depth-upholstered-headboard-single-fsc-certified-chipboard/p4817107?sku=238443129&colour=Plush+Heather&sppc=2dx92700055675244219&tmad=c&tmcampid=2&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4PuO-oTu7gIVxLTtCh3nFAJ-EAQYBiABEgLaZvDD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Put up a screen so the sleeping area can be sectioned off?

Before you invest in new things for the lounge for you to sleep on, check that your baby will sleep through in your room if you're not there. Daft to spend £££ on changing the lounge only to find it is your room rather than sharing that is keeping your baby awake.

Isn't that just a headboard? But I agree a Murphy b d could work , but we still need to sit somewhere

If you're not going to create a 4th bedroom, I would full on turn the living room into a bedroom. Proper bed. A bedroom that happens to have a tv and where everyone is allowed to hang out in the day. It would be you bedroom.

Then toddler can have your room, or DSS can upgrade to a bigger room.

We've got a 4th bedroom now used as an office, but I insisted it also had a proper single bed in it. It gets used a lot.

Surely the answer has to be to find the youngest child his own space and not keep chucking him out of his room for others?

Yes the dss is entitled to his space but surely that should not be accommodated at the expense of an child who lives there permanently not getting his own space? If assume that is why he doesn't sleep!! What are you going to do once he is no longer in cot? He's going to grow up resenting the other kids showing up if it means he gets turfed out of his space every week.

I think the solutions (if no 4th bedroom is possible) is to sleep in the living room but share the bedroom with the baby in terms of storage.

I think you need a really good sofa bed.

Would it be impossible to build in to the loft?

No height in the loft for an extension unfortunately.

Can you draw a rough floor plan of the downstairs for us? If you can split the sitting room and make a snug/4th bedroom with a sofa bed or a day bed and a tv then that is the best answer I think. Big squidgy sofas and tv and your teenagers will love it!

@birdantfrog

Can you draw a rough floor plan of the downstairs for us? If you can split the sitting room and make a snug/4th bedroom with a sofa bed or a day bed and a tv then that is the best answer I think. Big squidgy sofas and tv and your teenagers will love it!

It's all been done on previous thread. All suggestions rejected by OP/DP. The latest was that OP was going to consult an architect I think? But maybe DP rejected that too.

The architects never called back /showed up or wanted to do it all online. We're not particularly about doing it that way, so we'll have to wait.