For a 26 year old to share with a two year old (sibling)

[flowerygardens]

Dss is 26 and ds is 2

Our plan was for ds to have dss old bedroom, he moved out at 23 so we had a spare room and decided to ttc but he moved back home at 24 just before we knew we were expecting back into his old room.
Now there's no bedroom for ds who is in with us for now but would it be unreasonable to expect dss to share with his brother?
We have no idea how long he'll be back home but it sounds like he plans to stay forever now as he doesn't have a great paid job and was struggling to manage on his own.

It's only a 2 bed house and it's council so moving is only an option if we can find an exchange which is almost impossible.
Dp wants to provide him with a home for as long as he needs it but I also need my son to have a room and that was the intended bedroom when we planned to have a baby together in what was then the spare room but dss ended up moving out for such a short time that he still sees it as his room as it always has been.
It's not that I don't want dss there but I had my only child on the expectation that he will have a bedroom because at the time one was spare and understand dp position but feel dp is unreasonable saying he can share our room or we can sleep in the living room which is not how I planned to raise my child.
Dp has been a single parent to ds since he was very small and he doesn't have contact with his mother so I see that to them it's his room and only the age gap between the brothers that's making it difficult because they'd probably need bunk beds.
I honestly feel like everything has backfired and don't know how dss can ever move out now because his situation hasn't changed and he is very comfortable back at home.
I don't think dss would be happy but he has a home and we have to find a way to sleep everyone.

Doubt OP wants to partition anything in this 2 bed. She only mentioned a possible swap which she doubts can happen or can happen soon enough.

op seems focused on her ‘ruined’ plan to raise her son as she had planned/ wanted, and on reallocating Dss’ room to Ds.

Since when did adult children have an indefinite claim on their parents’ home?

Well I wouldn't do that, a 14 and 17 year old of the same sex are fully capable of sharing a room.

We have a three bed and three kids, two are sharing a room. I was brought up sharing a room.

but it sounds like this is where the 26 year old grew up, and @flowerygardens has moved in and had a child there?

Do you have a drive? Caravan on the drive for 26 year old? Or boys have a room each and you and partner sleep in living room? or toddler stays in with you for the next few years?

There are a lot of different parents from different backgrounds on here.

Some are rather well heeled and will think things like loft conversions grow on trees, others would happily martyr themselves by busting their middle aged backs on sofa beds for the sake of an actual, non-disabled adult with a job!

The reality I've seen IRL suggests that actually, adult children do sometimes have to move out.

There are many people having to live on minimum wage and finding ways of making it work so that can't be his reason for not moving out. He needs to, with support, be planning his own future. Min wage is crap, I'm not disputing that, but the reality is that it's what many have to live off. If that's his wage, it's his wage and he needs to learn to live off it.

Your DS will need a room before long so set a timescale, offer DSS support to find somewhere else to live and be open about the timescale.

Umm ... That works if each child had own room. If, as in many cases, siblings share, oldest leaves & then rest rearrange to get a bit more space, and so on, so it's maybe only the last to leave who have childhood rooms. Bit like OP is thinking.

@CammyChameleon We're bedsharers so suits us well (not with the teenagers!!) 😀
The two other bedrooms are singles.

You see. Now here is a clear case of 14 & 17 ds needing to share and 4 dd getting her own room.

but on MN this is alright as sons belong to mum so they need to keep their own rooms.

i am not wholly disagreeing though as it sounds like DH is the one who moved in if so, he should rightly share with dd or find a 4 bed house to house you all.

@Hello432 Again, why on earth is it my husband's responsibility to find a 4 bed for us all?!!! We privately rent, both work, married, share equal financial responsibility.

What age does your local authority say that your little one needs own room? a 26 sleeping in same room as a 2yr old who is not his parent i imagine will be a no go

It is totally unreasonable for a 26yo to share with a 2yo

Either you and DP or DSS need to sleep in the living room for now.

Check the guidelines on this page: england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/repairs/check_if_your_home_is_overcrowded_by_law
to see whether you are officially overcrowded - if the 2nd bedroom is under 4.65m² you may count as overcrowded and be eligible to apply for a larger property. Your family only count as 3.5 people until your DS reaches 10 years old, so you won't be legally overcrowded if both bedrooms and the living room are over 4.65m² and at least one of them is over 10.22m².

Save up for a good quality sofa bed (not the clickclack fold out kind. One with a proper actual mattress) and subdivide the largest bedroom to create a small wardrobe room/dressing room for whoever is going to use the living room for sleeping.
.

My old NDNs jammed a double that had storage into the smallest room of the house for themselves with no other furniture and gave the two sets of sharing siblings the double rooms .

I'd either do that or get bunk beds strong enough to hold adults in one of the singles for the teenagers.

You didn’t comment on other parts though!

my comment was to agree with you if he didn’t want your current set up and found you already properly housing yourself and your 2 sons.

you made it like DH is not dad to your sons- so sons always had their individual rooms?

you are welcome to clarify as opposed to causing more confusion.

Neither the op or her partner should feel responsible for a 26 year old able bodied adult when there's a 2 year old baby who needs to come first.
He won't be able to inherit the house so he needs to start thinking about where he's going to live as he's well into adulthood.
Is he even saving to move out or is it just comfortable at home?
Maybe it shouldn't be so comfortable?

Do you have a dining room ? Make that the older boys bedroom. A conservatory ? How about loft space ? Would that work?

And when your son is older, divide the largest room for them.

My friend shared a bedroom with her older brother divided with a giant wardrobe until she was in her teens.
Now I think they would have installed some kind of thin partition.

Its not the situation you wanted, but its a compromise

@Hello432 The teenagers are not his so not his financial responsiblity in the main. The most we can afford is a 3 bed private rental. Boys have always had their own rooms. We are bedsharers (through personal choice) with our 4 yo daughter.

Whilst I agree about pp making best of minimum wages, I struggle to understand why Dss must be the one forced to learn about living like that at his ripe age, given the Council had properly housed he and his dad. Easier for pp who grew up sharing to live like that than for someone at his age to accept to start living in hardship in his childhood home, esp in circumstances where he is being made to feel like he is being chased out of the house.

in all other circumstances, I would agree pp are making do with the little they have.

I love that you think council houses have dining rooms and conservatories!

Some might have dining rooms, back where I lived they renovated most of them to make a bigger lounge area, but those they hadn't were hot commodities on the house swap list so larger families could use it as a bedroom!

I would consider his moving out as having left and now he is back as a guest.
He can sleep on the sofa until he finds somewhere else or share with his sibling but give him a time scale.
It's not his bedroom anymore.
He moved out and you conceived because of that.

Given that it’s your child and not his, the child needs to be in your room. I had my child in with me until she was 18 months as we had a 1 bed. I would have had no issue having her in longer if necessary. However, I think given he’s 26 it’s also fair to say to give SS a deadline to move out (a long one, eg. by Christmas you need to be in your own place, given the difficulty in finding rentals that aren’t stupidly pricey and in awful conditions these days)

Like it or not, I think it massively changes the dynamic when it's a step-parent who moves in after you.

In a 'traditional' set-up, mum and dad would have got the house together (whether bought or rented, it doesn't make a difference) and established it as theirs, then the children would have come along later into that situation and, eventually, moved out and let the house revert back to their parents' ownership/control.

In this case, it was his and his dad's house, and now his dad has remarried, she has moved into THEIR house - so he has less privacy and less time with his dad, but no massive differences. Now, because of his dad's remarriage, that same newcomer woman has her eyes on his room in his home that he had long before she came along, for the new baby who has only come along because she came on the scene (of course, it was his dad's choice as well).

In a sense, he potentially has/had the worst of both worlds: growing up as an only child, which can be lonely and less fun (depending on the child and their personality, naturally); BUT one benefit of being an only is that you never need to worry about having to share and your room can always be yours whenever you come back to visit (or even need to move back in), unless your parent(s) move/downsize, of course.

Also, I know there's a widespread disdain on MN for anybody hoping to inherit when the time comes, but he may well see it that what would have been his inheritance will now instead go to his dad's (presumably significantly younger) new wife; then, she might subsequently decide to leave it all to her son and he gets nothing.

We have no idea how long he'll be back home but it sounds like he plans to stay forever now as he doesn't have a great paid job and was struggling to manage on his own.

The OP is making an assumption here, but this is the part that I don’t understand-why would anyone assume that their parents will provide them with a home forever? A person doesn’t turn into a lifelong provider once they become a parent, they still have their own wants and needs.

I’ll always been there for my children emotionally, but a lifelong financial support? I don’t think that’s realistic assuming they’re NT.

I mean at 26 he should be actively working towards moving out and building his own life not settling in with no inclination whatsoever of ever moving out.