for worrying about sleeping on different floor to DS's?

[kizzie]

Loft conversion was all my idea.

Means Twin Ds can have a bedroom each and still have a little spare room for family because they all live a long way away and regularly (frequently ) come to stay.

Soo - DH and I will have a bedroom and ensuite in loft.

Had all quotes etc and was just about to confirm with the company we have chosen.

But a few weeks ago we were burgled and Ive suddenly got nervous about it. What if someone got in during the night while we were all asleep? They would get to boys first before us.

Boys not tiny - they are 8 1/2 but do you think they are still too young to be on a floor on their own?

Anyone else had their loft done and feel ok sleeping upstairs?

Any thoughts ??

Thanks!!

Kizziex

our house has 3 floors. ds sleeps on the middle floor, dd, dp & i sleep on the top floor. i'm not super happy with it, but there's no way of changing the arrangement of bedrooms. ds does have a fire alarm (linked to house alarm) right outside his room. i worry more about intruders as his room is on the same floor as the front door. but i do think i'm being irrational....

Yes we have the velux window at floor height , to stop the children opening it we put a chest fo drawers across the opening when they were playing upstairs . We rarely have it open during the summer for the reason that it doesn't draw a their attention to it.

Another alternative was to put a child gate across it.

Another one of the building regs was to have fire doors and smnoke detectors on all floors.

I couldn't do it - my dd is 8. I would be more worried if she were in the loft as I think the fire risk is higher if you are on the top floor. However, as a child we moved to a gigantic house when I was 11 - I was 4 closed doors and at least 80 feet away from my parents in a timber framed house that creaked a lot at night. My 9 year old brother & I were terrified for about a year, but after that we were fine!!

We have a 3 storey house. When we moved in, DD then 11 slept on the ground floor; DS1 was 10 and slept on the middle floor and the rest of us on the top flkoor. Never been a problem.

I second what a lot of people have said about hearing them better. Dh's study is on the same floor as the childrens' bedrooms, yet if one of them calls out I hear them when I am up in our bedroom directly above both their rooms where as he doesn't from his study. Of course we can't hear them when they are 3 floors below our bedroom in the playroom but that is a once in a while sleep over.

Fire risks may be higher than on a ground floor , hwoever the whole point of beuidling regulations is to manahe these risks. Also as parents we have a responsibilty to teach our children about what to do in the case of a fire , again its all to do with managing the risk.

We have a loft conversion where we have our spare room and a study because I didn't want my DSs to be on a different floor to us. They were quite little when we had it done though (1 and 4). I don't think it would be quite the same issue now they are 4 and 7 but I can understand your concerns.

Tbh I have slept in the spare room occasionally (has an on-off habit of invading our bed before I have a chance to get in and but after DH has gone to sleep and doesn't notice him getting and I have nowhere else to go) and I think that because the loft room is over their bedrooms you can actually hear them better than you can when you are all same floor.

Have your lovely new bedroom and don't worry, they will cope just fine.

thankyou everyone. Reassuring to know that others have the same concerns - so im not completely mad . But also good to know that it works well for other families to be on different floors.

I know this will sound a bit dim - but it honestly never even entered my head as a concern when we first started thinking about it

There will be smoke alarms on all floors - linked to mains with battery back up in case of power cut.

And I think I'll just have to suck it and see if we feel comfortable up there - and if not then shuffle us all around.

Thanks again for all thoughts x

Well, I couldn't do it - for the same reason as you and my husband would also think this is irrational.

You you may be irrational/unreasonable but you're not alone.

Only read OP...

We are about to do this and our ds's are much younger (currently 21 months and 2 months although its not goign to be done for 6-8 months). We are going to have baby monitors so we would hear if anything happened like this.

I don't think you are unhreasonable for worrying about this but its probably over nothing. However if you can't stop worrying perhaps look at a different house layout - maybe make the loft conversion i nto 2 rooms for your ds's and knock 2 existing rooms together to make bedroom and ensuite for you

kizzie - we sleep in a downstairs bedroom near front door and dts (7mths) sleep in a double bedroom above ours and ds1 (nearly 4) sleeps across the hall from dts but can access back door from their level (built into a hill).