Parents sleeping in living room so child can have own room

[PlantsAndStuff]

Will try to keep it brief but can clarify/answer questions if needed.
we have 4 children dd15, dd13, ds11, ds7. live in a 3 bed house private rent, 3rd room is box and not ideal but the boys share this with bunk beds, DH and I have one of the double rooms and the girls share the other.

Dd 13 is on the pathway for ASD diagnosis, gets overwhelmed easily, likes things neat and tidy, needs her own space, noise, mess and smells overwhelm her. but she is a high functioning, intelligent, kind girl. BUT her sister is naturally messy, a bit lazy and her putting dirty washing and food packets back into cupboards, drawers etc can make the room smell. she leaves things lying around etc.

We have had countless discussions about this but she is a teenager. DD13 just really struggles to manage this and they often argue.

a couple of weeks ago dd took an overdose after an argument with a friend at school, argument with dad, and an argument with DD15. She really does struggle without having her own place that is just hers.

There is no option to move house, and as we private rent cant split a room and due to the shape cant really divide them using curtain/storage boxes etc

If it was down to me i would sleep downstairs and let the girls have a room each. this would also benefit the boys as they wouldnt have to share box room.

DH is adamant that we cant do this. he says its not right that we dont have a room of our own when the kids can share and it just is completely unacceptable. I see where he is coming from, but it wouldnt be forever and im just so aware that dd13 is struggling and im scared of a repeat of her overdose.

any advice or opinions welcome

Thank you x

Do you have gas or electric cooker op? You know you'd need to have the gas capped in any room someone sleeps in? Same for the living room

Depends on your 15 year old but I would imagine she had quite a lot on her plate sharing with a suicidal autistic younger sibling. Sometimes teens' rooms are messy because they can't manage or get overwhelmed (we have other autistic DC, my eldest is not diagnosed but she gets very distressed by being utterly unable to keep her room looking anything other than a bomb site). Obviously you know your DD1 best but you might get a better outcome going in very gently and giving a lot of scaffolding with her than laying down the law.

If you were to move downstairs, you'd be spending time every single morning and night converting the room. How about mentally taking that time and investing it in helping the 2 of them make that bedroom work? Not forever. Try to find ways to give them space from each other, eg you have a TV/games console in your room and in the evening it's used as a bolt hole for whoever needs it, or there's a rota. Divide the spaces in your house up by time and give people privacy that way rather than everyone having their own space 24/7.

How patronising.

Heaven forbid they've had a change of circumstances since having a 4th child! It's too late to send one back now!

It sounds tough. I don't think you and DH moving to the living room is the solution. That will just cause more stress which I'm sure neither of you need right now.

Can you get DD13 a more enclosed bed. Like a bunk bed with a curtain across the lower one so she can block out the view of her sister while she's in it and the top she can use as "her" space. I'm trying to think what would have helped me as an ASD girl at that age. That cosy den feeling would have helped me relax.

Meanwhile, you or DH can do weekly room checks to make DD15 sort out any crap she has left around.

Thank you x

You have no idea if OP has fallen on hard time, shit happens. Op could have lived in a mansion when her kids were young, illness and or redundancy could have have resulted in having to sell everything or repossession. Op and her husband could have been living very comfortably overseas, but had to return because of elderly parents needing help, you have absolutely no idea why op is her current position.

Op we live in a very small cottage, it's a nightmare on many levels, but we're lucky in having a really good sized garden. Last year we put in a garden shed, (it's more summer house really) but it's properly insulted and wired and now dd whose autistic 'lives' there, she absolutely loves it. So if this is an option I'd go go for this, dd loves the fact she can have her friends to stay over (she doesn't have many friends as her autism really impacts her social and sensory areas the greatest) but her friends are similar to her and quite quirky, and I think they love having that bit of freedom and independence. It also means she doesn't have to cope with kitchen smells (she really hated any cooking smells wafting up through the rafters), she also struggled if I had the radio on in the kitchen and the TV was going in the living room, it was just hearing overload (I struggled with understanding this because she'd play her music so LOUD!) so the cabin in the garden has resolved all of these issues.

That's lovely for your daughter 🥰 I will done some research x

Doing this is a really good idea. You could have it as your bedroom though and a living room of sorts during the day. Alternatively you dual purpose the largest bedroom and have that as your room.

You could also use a curtain between the furniture as an entrance and tack the curtains along the full length of the kallax. An alternative to the kallax would be an office divider. These come in 1600 wide x 1800 high.

Also have a look at this link for a nifty way to divide a room into 2. If you’re serious about staying in the house for a while, the investment could be worth it. Idk how handy you and your dh are. You could make a real bedroom with this in the living room rather than adding a sleeper above. If you needed to attach it to the wall, you would need permission from the landlord. There probably is a way to make it without that. How amenable is the landlord?

https://www.dezeen.com/2015/04/19/plywood-partitions-rooms-within-rooms-barcelona-apartments-2-dwellings-tamarit-st-carles-enrich-gimenez/

Otherwise, I also think the bed in the kitchen could work until your kids are older and able to sleep in a caravan outside. Your dd could study in your bedroom, be on FaceTime to friends etc in your room and nap during the day as teens sometimes do. I imagine she’d like sleepovers occasionally so you and your dh could give her your room for that time etc.

I would be going all out to make this work tbh. Your 15 yo is probably really stressed too. She also needs her space rather than to be worrying about how her behaviour could be negatively impacting her 13 yo sister.

Having 4 children is a luxury. Simple as that.

Kids need a bedroom as their space - you really don’t as you spend leisure time in the living room. I think it’s a good idea and I would do it, so long as you can keep some storage space. Alternatively, could you get a garden studio built? Then DD could use that as her space and literally just use share room to sleep, doesn’t ease things for the boys though.

Your downstairs layout means that it won't be practical for you and DH to move down there. It's totally normal for siblings to share rooms and only on MN do people insist that teens cannot possibly share. Maybe you could let dd13 hang out in your bedroom (or build an outdoor shed) during the day so she has somewhere to retreat to if she wants some peace. But then she always returns to hers and her sister's bedroom to sleep in. There's also clever ways to partition rooms if you look online.

Op this sounds exactly like my sister and I at that age. I have adhd and she is waiting to be assessed for adhd and asd.

Respectfully I think your husband is right. Both of your daughters will presumably have relationships or live with other people when they are older and will need to learn to deal with some irritation from others. I was always very messy but I needed to try and manage it to help my sister. Equally she needed to learn not to have meltdowns if things weren't exactly to her liking. They will both cope for another couple of years and it will help them long term.

I do object to the people talking about punishing your elder daughter. If she has adhd it won't be as easy to just 'stop being messy' and if you really push it you'll end up with two extremely upset and stressed children. They both need to be reaching middle ground with a little help on managing feelings / organisation from you.

If it works for you - then you should do it. It doesn't really matter what floor your bedroom is located on. Once you shut the door it could be anywhere.

Dh and I moved downstairs. 3 kids in a 3 bedroom semi was never going to work for us. We moved into the back room downstairs. The front room was our living room and the kitchen was big enough for a table so we didn't need or use the back room for anything much.
It worked well. I liked being on the ground floor, it was nice having a bedroom on a separate floor to the kids.

We've just moved house and me and DH still don't have the en-suite master bedroom Our last remaining DC at home has that - we are up 3 flights of stairs in the loft. I have no idea why - I think we just like our own space away from the other bedrooms.

I have two children with asd , who were sharing a room last year as we only had a 2 bedroom house and I was trying to move to a 3 bedroom . My dd was really struggling sharing a room and was wearing ear defenders constantly . They were constantly arguing and was causing her to have meltdowns . My husband and I decided to sleep downstairs in the living room and give dc their own rooms . We bought a decent sofa bed from dfs which came with a proper bed mattress . I can say it was the best decision we made as it really did help . She stopped wearing ear defenders especially when going to sleep . luckily a few months later we moved to a 3 bedroom house . I would do it if she’s finding it hard to share

Oh deary me...and yawn...

I really feel for you OP and well done for considering all the suggestions (even the dafter ones).

Definitely explore Council and Housing Association properties. Other houses to rent in your budget might have a more adaptable layout - living room more separate, no fitted wardrobes, huge cupboard understairs, loft space, garage etc. Rethinking who shares rooms might also work, as you or DH currently sleeps with your youngest anyway - one DD with you, DH and boys together and other DD in the boxroom. Finally, do you have any family close by with space for (probably) DD15 to move in?

It's important that you and DH are together on this because your family don't need more stress

Good post @Justanything86 .

I think you can do a lot of good just by showing them that you are taking whatever steps you reasonably can. They need to know their feelings matter to you, and they need to feel they are being listened to and treated fairly. If a bedroom each is possible then great, but it's often not going to be for kids in bigger families and there's no harm done as long as they know it's "can't" rather than "won't" on your part. See if any of them have any good ideas. Something like an extra TV and Netflix, or noise cancelling headphones, can really help.

I wouldn't go too mad on extra furniture - really you want as little as possible, to leave as much space as you can for all the people. A bed with a few cushions works perfectly well as a sofa for a couple of hours.

If you did @Tiredtoday0 suggestion with the kallax as a room divider - you could get creative with Ikea LOTS mirrors as a backing - they fit the exact space and can be held in place with some L shape brackets in each section- the side which has the least light could benefit or to make a bit of both sides seem larger you could have the storage for one side at the top and the other side at the bottom or half one side top to bottom and half opening in the other "room" side and use the mirrors as backing on the sides which don't get opened

Storage beds can also be handy for space saving in a small room - personally I'd be tempted to do another ikea hack and make bed frames over drawers or kallax again- 2 drawers with a bed frame and some supports added pushed against the wall

You could add individual lights each side also for zoning their spaces

This is what I’d do!

I agree with your DH. Unless there is no choice, patents should have their own bedroom.

You can't have the boy sharing with his sister past ten

Don't put the 15 y with the 11y

There doesn’t seem to be an alternate rooming combination that will solve all of your problems, so why not tackle the easier to solve issues first. Get on your oldest DD constantly to pick up after herself, and you and your DH can be vigilant about going into their room a few times a day to check for any food, dirty laundry, etc. that needs cleaning out. Play the role as cleaner, as unappealing as that may be for a 15 year old. Buy younger DD a de-odorizing ozone spray or a scented spray to help mask any unpleasant odors. If older DD needs more storage solutions, buy them.

It might involve more work for everyone, but if it can keep everyone in proper bedrooms, it’ll be worth the effort.

A insulated and wired garden room costs in the thousands. Not really practical in a rental you could be asked to leave and surely if OP had that money she could rent a more appropriate property

Of course you should do that. She tried to kill herself? Wtf is dad thinking.