Mum, dad and three kids in one bedroom apartment overcrowded? Your thoughts?

[Leah5678]

Just out of curiosity but what with the current high prices of buying a house and renting and the long council waiting lists. How crowded is your home (number of bedrooms, children etc)

I know the average mumsnetter is wealthier than the average person but I also know a lot of you lovely ladies on here do a lot of work helping the less fortunate. Do you find overcrowding like three children in a one bed to be quite common or is it rare?

Ps I do not have three children so no personal attacks lol

I live in a 2 bed apart with my 3 kids and husband. Getting a bigger home is just unaffordable for me.

Wouldn’t have a child full stop if I had only one room and zero scope for more space in the future. I would find it very stressful and the lack of space would make me depressed.

Yeah wondering the same really, 2 smaller kids in one room is no problem but get to the tweens and up and I imagine it gets quite hard on them.

I’d stick to one kid in these circumstances, why make life harder for everyone in the existing family, if you can’t house yourselves adequately now adding 2 more kids is hardly going to help is it.

@Leah5678 if you can’t afford more space you can’t afford additional children. Intentionally creating children you can’t accommodate properly is truly shitty parenting.
Finding yourself in that situation through relationship breakdown, health issues, etc etc is one thing. Doing it on purpose is quite something else.

We have one child because we can adequately support one child. We didn’t spawn more than we could pay for.

@SleepingStandingUp what are you talking about? I said this is how I grew up - where the ‘middle class wisdom’ coming from?

It does make me wonder how couples managed to create more babies when they live in cramped conditions and even share a bedroom with children 😳

The most crowded family I know rent a 2 bed flat and have a 3 and 5 year old of opposite sexes in one room, parents in the other. The reason it feels cramped is that the entire kitchen and living area is one small room and they have no dining table.

It's all very well saying adults can sleep in the living room but what about all their stuff? Clothes/shoes/non-bathroom toiletries for 2 parents need a home.

I’m not sure anything PP said was passive aggressive. Perhaps calm down as this is a discussion forum.

The annoying but true answer is people have more money, or move to cheaper areas, or both. Please don’t have more children in this situation, it’s really bloody hard on the kids, having been one. They don’t all need their own room but they do need some space and privacy.

How's anyone going to know?

Same way they did in the “old days”

Our cottage used to be 2 houses, one room upstairs and downstairs in each house and a shared hovel. There was a family of 10 in one side, we have a record of that. I don’t imagine that was unusual then, along with high infant mortality and widespread disease. Not something to emulate anyway.

I know a family of five...mum/dad, two primary age kids and a teenager who live in a two bed flat. And the second bedroom is a tiny box room. That's the most overcrowded situation I personally know of.

OP if you moved to my village you'd get a house immediately because it's in a remote area of Scotland.

I realise that being able to apply to such an area would mean you'd be restricted over employment though.

Work more, move to higher paid employment, do opposite shifts, it’s not hard to work out.
If you can’t afford more children then you shouldn’t have them. 8

When they bring their friends home on a play date.

We're in a 2 bedroom house with our 3 children ( 3 1/2 years, 2 years and 9 weeks old).

Our loft has stair access and I currently use it as an office, as I wfh.

In future, we're planning to do a 2 bedroom loft extension.

Work full time.

I see on another thread you say you earn 9k plus UC top ups. Ft nat min wage is 22k, so there's that.

You do realise that only applies to council housing and it not at all related to private rent or owning your own property.

We had 2 in a 2 bed house until DD was 10 and that was our limit. Might have been ok if we had had 2 girls but we had a boy and a girl. We put off moving as needed me in a full-time job to get a larger mortgage. It was ok and I had to be inventive with storage. It's not that uncommon locally due to high housing costs.

I was in the same bedroom as my parents until I was 10.

My DB was born when I was 9.

We did have another room, but it was so damp and impossible to heat it was only usable in the summer months.

I truly think having the kids them getting the house will be the wrong way round. When applying for mortgages or rentals they look at affordability and how many dependents you have, so the more children the harder it will be to get approved. Plus you won’t be saving as quick with another mouth to feed either

It sounds utterly miserable for everyone concerned. What happens when you have a teen and a tween sharing a room? Or a teen, a tween and a toddler? Nobody is going to be happy or get a decent night's sleep.

In terms of affordability, people either earn more or live in a cheaper area - or both. We bought a house in DH's rural, isolated home town as we couldn't afford anywhere else.

How old are you op? Can you focus on getting a bigger place and then think about another child?

I always shared with one or both of my siblings growing up. I would say 2 kids sharing a double room is fine, as long as same sex when a bit older. Sharing a single room, 3+ kids to a room, or both sexes sharing past the age of about 6 or 7 isn’t.

I would suggest you either move somewhere cheaper or refrain from adding more children to your family.

No, it's not usual for three children to be in the bedroom while parents sleep in the living room. They probably won't be bullied for it but it can't be an enjoyable way to live. Nobody will have any space to retreat to.

We have five bedrooms and there are three of us (soon to be four). We are in a normal sized house for the area but we have more space than we currently need. Our top floor is used as guest accommodation only. We'll use it once DS is a bit older, though, so he can have his own space upstairs. Guest can sleep in the summer house then. (This makes it sound more posh than it is... 😂)

You can’t afford more children. Don’t have them.