How to allocate rooms ?

[Notsure838]

Hello, this is my first post apologise if I do this wrong please don’t hesitate to tell me and how to amend ! I wondered if I could have some advice on bedrooms and blended families. I have 3 children from a previous marriage as does my husband but now both sets of children live full time with us, we are struggling on how to determine who shares with who and I awould appreciate an outsiders perspective. Their ages are ( sorry of abbreviations are incorrect)

DS4
DD7
DS9

DSD4
DSS6
DDD10

thanks in advance

@Notsure838 @PurpleWisteria
so a person they have known their whole life, including being godfather to one, who presumably they called uncle…. Or just their first name is now being referred to as dad. How does that even work.

I will eat my shoe if this is either real or any psychologist in the world gave that advice.

@Notsure838 it does all seem very quick, married, moving in together, his kids having been through abuse, however, you appear to have got help from all the right people & the kids sound happy about it all. Sometimes it just right, even when fast.

id go for

2x 4yo
6&9 boys
7&10 girls

With their input on how they want their rooms, bunks/dividers, twin beds, shared separate book cases etc.

ds 6&9 I'd just do what you both think DS6 needs & make it as good for DS9 as you can.

I think it's great to remind them they can talk to you if there are any issues, but be careful not to over promise on being able to change things too much 'we'll see what we can do' rather than 'we'll change the arrangements. Because especially as they get older, there might not be too many other options.

I hope it all works out brilliantly for ALL if you!!

(were you not just a little concerned getting married quite quickly & making it a family with 6 kids?? What age are you two? I think when I was young this would have sounded brilliant, now I'm older (53) it just sounds exhausting 😂😂)

Sorry I don’t understand why calling them dad is wrong ? The eldest does not but the younger two do, I have not seen anything wrong with it as of yet but am now worried. Also I am sorry I am not trying to wind anyone up I appreciate it is a very unusual family situation but that is why I am asking for advice

I think given one needs his own space you need to use a room downstairs as your bedroom. This is way to cramped for unrelated children.

Are they going to all be living in your house at the same time? I.e are they not living with their other parents during the rest of the week? Do you have all of them all the time?

Oh sorry, just re-read and you said full-time...

i realise it is fast but we would realistically not be moving in all toghether for another 5 months so it will be almost 3 years for the and we got married 2 months ago but very low key no celebration just registers office and a meal out for us to try and maintain normality for the children

You’ve over-egged the pudding now! You

Would fit three beds in each room? A girls room, a boys room with three ikea high sleepers that have the desk and wardrobe included for storage and then one room to have their toys and a sensory calming area for the child with autism.

I disagree with the girls room/boys room concept because they are not brothers and sisters. They have never lived together before.

So 4 year old and 9 year old in one room
Other four year old and 10 year old in another room.

And the middle child from each family in their own room and you are going to have to give up your room.

Do any of them share a room at the moment?

I think I’d probably go for a girls room, boys room and play room. That ways it’s fair. Could you fit bunk beds plus another single bed in each room? If not then I’d do both 4 year olds, 2 girls and 2 boys. Would the 6 year old with autism cope with sharing if they had their own corner of the room?

How comes your children haven't met their dad ?

You need a bigger house.

You can't just shoehorn together step children.

Your three children are by the same previous marriage but they have never met their dad??

thank you all for your help and advice sorry I can’t reply to each one but I am reading all and am very grateful things I haven’t even considered sound like great ideas thank you !

I don’t want to go into detail why mine don’t know their dad sorry but there is two dads but please no judgement as some awful things happened with the first one

I would look at who gets on the best. Ideally oldest girls together and oldest boys together then the 2 little ones. But if any of the siblings would be more comfortable together than step siblings split it as your two oldest, his two oldest and the 4 year olds.

Have seen some great partitions using a bunk bed as room divider.

Bon appetit

Thank you for all your help and sorry for upsetting some people all the children are happy and i feel this is the best thing however I may be wrong and if we realise it is not benefitting any of the children me and my husband will change as we both have agreed and made clean they are our number one priority.

in regards to calling him dad only the younger do for this reason as my eldest already called h by his first name so would feel unnatural for them.

also slightly unrelated but do I now delete the post ? Or do I have to sort of deactivate it ?

You can't delete. If you need it removing use report button

Oh ok thank you so is it ok just to leave it up ? Sorry for being so dumb !

Hi @PurpleWisteria sorry I mean @Notsure838 …. This thread is just nonsense, if it’s not it’s about a family where the mum is unable to know what boundaries are or where to set them.

This is so sad. Absolutely no benefit to the children from this arrangement. You certainly should not be asking your children to share bedrooms with other children who they are not related to. This has a recipe for disaster written all over it. The fact that you are rushing into this with the idea that you can somehow undo the damage if it doesn’t work out is incredibly naïve.

Are you saying that your eldest children have a biological dad, then a stepfather from the relationship that produced your youngest children, and now have another stepfather that they are regarding as dad. Bloody hell Op.

1. do not make children share rooms with unrelated children.

2. create an individual space for DS with autism. Is there a large room where you could partition off even a small space big enough for a cabin bed?

This set up is going to have even more problems down the line when children get too old to share with a sibling of a different sex. If you think you'll magically have enough money to solve it then, why not just delay it until you have enough money to solve it at the outset.

Here are some affordable room dividers, OP
www.diy.com/ranges/building-ranges/alara

I'd use them to create a safe space for DSS6. I'd probably start with older siblings together, two four year olds together, but I wouldn't overdo the decorating - do it as a trial arrangement and see how they get on.