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

Really???

Doesn’t happen around here, are you in a very high cost area?

We are young young btw and my partners working a good job for his age with a lot of potential for promotion. It's unlikely that it would be a case of opposite sex teenagers sharing one bedroom. We'd probably be able to save and move out way before that, I just don't want to miss the boat with fertility

I mean, we (my friends and I) grew up like this so for us this current obsession that it's wrong somehow to live like that, that everyone MUST have a room to themslevs and loads of space and it's morally wrong to say otherwise is so bizarre. SOmetimes you just have to live with what you can afford due to the life decisions made, it's nothing new.

OK now I feel I can weigh in :)

My sister has 4 kids (yay twin nieces!) & two bedrooms. They let older teen have one bedroom, they stayed in the living room & 3 kids had the 2nd room. My genius BIL has since built in one of those wall beds in the 2nd room so now they are all in there, with eldest in his own space. Rental property, really quite nice, both work their arses off but property owners round here would rather airbnb than have tenants.

The kids are all incredible, sister & BIL do a great job. Housework is hard, though, they have to really keep on top of it all. She is now reaching her limit after about 7yrs.

Me! Small 3 bed bungalow. Originally -

Rm 1 - eldest
Rm 2 - mid & smallest
Rm 3 - me & DH

Then Ds2 & DS3 needed their own space so we moved into one end of the living room (among all my houseplants 😍) for over a year. Eldest moved out, we moved into his old room.

My belief is that you can make any space work if you really want to when you have to. Is it ideal? Not really. Is it very MN? Oh dear god no, you should be mortgage free by the time you even think about children & able to afford a nanny!

Having more DC than you have bedrooms is unfair, everyone deserves their own space once they're past the child part of childhood where they actively may want to share.
If you can't house them adequately, it's cruel and selfish to have them.
My partners ex lives in a 2 bed, yet decided to have 2 more kids with another guy, who are both the opposite sex to partners child, who is 8, so now they have 2 year old and 3 month old siblings. Not sure if both youngers are still in mums room or if they now have to share their room with 2 year old, but it's definitely not fair.

We're in an expensive area and I have come across parents who sleep in the living room, I don't think that's unusual (certainly in London/ surrounding areas) however I do think squeezing 3 kids into one room as well is too much, sorry. Two might be OK but I think 3 is going too far. I wouldn't worry about the age gap as much

Many many years ago - late 80's / early 90's I worked for a local authority in London, and I know then that the living room was counted as suitable for/as sleeping accommodation and that would be told to families asking for social housing / saying they were overcrowded in a one bed flat - whether it was a private rental or a social housing rental.

That's an utterly mad plan. Bullying for sharing a room would be the least of your and their problems. Kids fight! They need space for their mental health. It would be properly miserable for a 7-9 year old to be stuck in a room with a baby and a toddler. What if one of them has SEN?

Well of course, I wanted 4 kids when I met my DH but then we had one, then another and have stopped there due to wanting to give our existing children a great quality of life over my desire for a big family.

I have to say, three kids in one room sounds pretty miserable for them (especially for the 6 year old who will be nearer 9/10 by the time the third one comes along) and I think you need to be putting your existing child first in this case.

If this is really important to you, you need to be thinking of relocating to a cheaper area to get on the property ladder. My brother did it from London to the midlands and got a mortgage on his London salary before taking a lower paid role. He has no regrets and two gorgeous boys now with their own rooms.

Surely you wouldn't keep on having more kids after the first, if you can't afford to upsize from a one bed flat?

My belief is that you can make any space work if you really want to when you have to. Is it ideal? Not really. Is it very MN? Oh dear god no, you should be mortgage free by the time you even think about children & able to afford a nanny!

That's all very well @Caerulea but you had 3 bedrooms for 5 people and the OP wants to have 5 people in a ONE bed. A third of the bedrooms you had (and thought you were crowded).

Of course you can make any space work. Google 'coffin apartments' and you'll see that people can live like battery hens if they need to. But is that really what we want for our children?

I don’t know anyone with 3 kids in a 1 bed apartment. It’s not just the bedroom issue, it’s the fact that there isn’t enough living space. If you’re sleeping in the lounge, where would the kids play, chill out, have peace and quiet to do their homework etc?
I know quite a few people who had their first baby while living in a one bed flat (London), but all of them moved before having a second child.
I have 3 children and they have a bedroom each. Personally I wouldn’t have had any children that I didn’t have a bedroom for; I’d have hated sharing as a child so wouldn’t have wanted to make my children share. That’s my personal decision though and not a judgement on others.

I know a family with 3 dc in 1 bed flat. 2 boys, 1 girl all share a room. They have built-in high bunk beds, and a shelf each. The parents sleep in the lounge.
Would i recommend it? Not at all. The family is lovely and kids polite and happy, but they are always, always playing outside and in other peoples houses. Because they've got no room! I also think they hear too many grown up private things, since its such close quarters.
For this family its definitely that the parents prefer the area itself over a bigger place. Parents are very involved in the community, but moving just few miles out they could get more space for the same money. Its not fair on the kids. Thats my honest opinion.

We’ve got 5 double bedrooms and 2 DDs (ages 6 & 8)

They choose to sleep in the same bed about 5 nights out of 7. They find it comforting I think and sleep better together. They also play together in the morning and wake us up later than the days they sleep in their own rooms.

I didn't say I was overcrowded, I'm not an idiot & know we're lucky to have the space to shift about inside what is a small bungalow. However - OP asked about using the living room as their space, which I've done & my sister (who is overcrowded) has also done.

There's some kind of irony about your name & the slightly sneering tone towards less than MN-ideal living. If the kids are loved, they will be OK.

My girls often chose to sleep in the same room at that age too, despite having their own rooms. Now they’re 10 and 8 they prefer to have their own rooms/space (well the 8 year old would still share but the 10 year old wants some privacy). It changes quickly when they start getting closer to puberty, IME.

slightly sneering tone towards less than MN-ideal living

Everyone loves the Tone Police #BeKind

And no, love is definitely not enough. Take it from a former SW.

@MrsTerryPratchett

Totally fair enough on the SW front. I always feel these kind of debates fly very close to suggesting only certain types of people should have children, whether it's income, status, how big their house is etc. As someone who grew up with sheets at the windows rather than curtains I do firmly think that those things matter far far less than the desire to make your children feel safe & loved.

I'm sure, in your previous work, you're dealing with the most broken & lost in society. Hardly likely to be reaching out on MN.

If you are young then buy a place first and also think about getting married before children if you are planning to not be in work or staying in part time work.

Being brutally honest if you were my DD I would tell you that you are doing things in a way that can harm you in the future. Get married, buy house, have kids, that order. People spout their beliefs about how it doesn’t really matter etc but it really does when the shit hits the fan. See it on mumsnet loads.

Too late for that @Noicant, OP has 1 child already.