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

Either:

A. Two 4 yos together, DD7 with DSD 10, DS9 with DSS6, or

B. DS4 with DS9, DSD 4 with Dss6 and DD7 with DSD 10

I think plan B slightly has the edge, as in this version you get two pairs from the same family, and different sex siblings of 4 and 6 sharing is just as fine as different sex children from different families both 4 sharing.

And good luck. Sharing rooms isn't a disaster. And moving in to become a blended family will be hard work, but could be the best of a few imperfect options for these children.

DSD 10 and DD7
DS9 and DSS 6
DS4 and and DD4

Do the 2 sets of kids want to share with non siblings?

You can easily build a plaster board wall of the rooms are big enough to split.

Yes. Posts stay up. Unless there's a valid reason to remove them.

I would get a room divider for each of the three biggest bedrooms. Then I would measure space.

You and your husband get the smallest remaining room.

DS4 and DSD4 get the two smallest converted bedrooms.

DSS6 and DD7 get the next largest and the biggest converted room goes to DSS10 and DS9
gets second largest once converted.

I'd go for those fake walls, which won't cut out sound but will offer privacy.

Is there any way that the eldest can get their own room? They will be doing homework on a regular basis in the next few years and studying at the dinner table isn't ideal in such a large family.

Op, please don’t call yourself dumb. You’re not. You’re asking for advice in what sounds like a pretty complex family situation. The judgement on here is brutal at times.

Two older girls and Two older sons together, and the 4 year olds taking the biggest kids bedroom and splitting it. Someone I saw on the internet got some ikea shelving which had canvas boxes which slotted in. This served as storage and a partition wall. This will help be a temporary measure until you get the attic sorted.

Then as they get older, have the older children have their own room each (the smaller rooms) and the other two youngest boys and two youngest girls in the bigger bedrooms sharing.

This would appear to be the most straightforward/easiest option. Age ranges aren't too significant that one child is significantly disadvantaged.

I agree with the near-consensus to put the 4 yr olds together and then considering whether the older ones would do better paired as siblings for a bit or know each other well enough to pair girls/boys rooms.

Partitioning the rooms for the older ones is really important I think. It's not just the 6 yr old who needs privacy / control, the 10 yr old girl will need her privacy pretty soon, so coming up with a good system to divide two rooms will help them all as well as giving you flexibility to rearrange if necessary. I like the bunk beds as dividers option if it works in your spaces, and may allow you to fit desk spaces in more easily?

MN makes me laugh, the ages sharing is fine, if you lived in a council house none of these ages would be entitled to their own room, and you would only be entitled to 4 beds anyway, they are step siblings not strangers so sharing a room is fine.

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

As you're already married, I don't think you mean this do you? The situation is only ideal for you and your husband and from a financial pov.

Depends how they get on. I'd say two 4 year olds in the smallest room and then split the rest by sex and give them the biggest rooms but try put in a divider so they're as seperate as possible. Could you convert another area of the house into a quiet area if it gets a bit much?

I'm sure you're really nice n all, but I feel sorry for your children. They may like each other now but they're all far too young to appreciate how that may change when you're all shoe-horned in together. There will be nowhere any of them can reliably escape to. It sounds suffocating. It matters not that they're excited by it now: they've not experienced the reality.

In their shoes, I'd prefer to share with my own sibling than be forced to share private space all the time with someone I neither know nor love very well. The latter could cause many kids anxiety.

No one needs a big house to live in. I shared with 2 siblings in one room growing up. At another time one of my siblings shared a room with my mum and that just had to work. In other cultures many family members sleep in the same room. What isn’t typical is expecting young non related children to sleep in the same space unless it’s boarding school or foster care. Prioritise the kids and let families share and you and your new DH just have to make do with whatever sleeping arrangement suits them best. It won’t feel like “their bedroom” if they have to share it with another child they don’t know. It will feel like a safer sleeping space if they share with their own siblings.

That is a puzzle.

I wouldn’t want to mix sibling groups to start. They shouldn’t have to share with people who aren’t established relationships. Also if some of the kids are recovering from abuse, it’s really not a good idea to put them in with the other kids. I might say it’s ok to mix the 4yo if they get along well.

I would want to have the child with ASD have his own room so he has a real space to decompress from such a busy house. Asking a sibling to leave the room isn’t the same. If he is feeling overwhelmed, he shouldn’t have to negotiate for time and space. A full day at school and then a house of 6 kids is going to make even many non-ASD people overwhelmed. (For me or my child, well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be volunteering to move either of us into this situation. )

9 and 10 are really too old to share with the opposite sex.

you can’t meet the above criteria with 3 bedrooms. It’s not possible.

I guess I would go with sibling groups to start and mix sex. The 3rd bedroom either goes to child with ASD or to the 2 youngest. You have to decide way which gets the house calmer. Then work on finding a better solution as fast as possible.

Your three DC in the largest bedroom, divided so boys one side in bunks and DD the other.
DSDs together
DSS in smallest room

Could you convert one of the en-suites into a bedroom for the child that needs calm?

It depends how much you’re going to force the two sets of siblings together.

Just because you and you DP have a relationship doesn’t mean your respective children do. Be very careful about forcing the different siblings to become a “family.” In my experience (as a child in a similar situation) it was bloody bloody awful.

Are they going to just sleep in their rooms or do they play in them? Is the eldest about to start secondary?

How organised are you / they?

Depending on the answers I'd be tempted to do a boys room and a girls room with a study space / play room with times for the children so the one who needs to decompress gets the time after school for an hour or however long.

It's not fair to expected unrelated children to share rooms long-term, especially not if they're opposite sexes.

You don't have the space for six unrelated children right now, so you need to keep the situation as it is until you can afford a larger home with appropriate living space.

If they were all full biological siblings it would be different as you could split by gender but that's not fair when they're not related.

The psychologist is an idiot ..What makes s/he think a blended house with all those step siblings and stepmother being forced on them is going to be a house full of love?

Christ what a mess