To not switch DSS’ bedroom?

[Vastimir]

I have SDs, 13 and 12, and SS 9. We also have DD3.

We have recently moved to a four bedroom house. Master bedroom with en suite, big attic conversion with curtain down the middle (SDs), medium-sized room (DD) and a box room (SS).

SC are with us every other weekend and half the holidays. On the vast majority of the holidays we actually go on holiday or to stay with family, so they’re only really at this house on weekends.

SS wants the bigger bedroom because he’s older than DD. DH wants to draw straws or discuss it as a family. AIBU to just say no?

As an experiment, to show him how it'll go, why don't you put all her toys in the living room and her clothes in your bedroom so he can see how it'll be?

Definitely your DD should have one of the bigger rooms, she lives there ALL the time and only has the one bedroom, unlike your step children who also have a second bedroom at their mums.

He wouldn’t care less if all the toys were in the living room and her clothes were in our bedroom! However it would make my, DH and DD’s lives much harder, all of the time.

Won't your DH be bothered? That's the point. Then DH won't be up for DSS swapping.

I can’t be bothered with the drama of trying it, moving everything, paying to redecorate two rooms, SS being thrilled then distraught when it has to be moved back. It’s stupid.

DH wants me to be bad cop, clearly, and I’m happy to be if it avoids all the drama.

DH is being utterly ridiculous

how did he think the rooms would be allocated when you agreed to make an offer on the house?

Nope, you are right and they are being rediculous. First of all, younger children have more toys and things so they need more space anyways. Second of all, why would being an older sibling make someone entitled to a better room than a younger sibling? Obviously in a nuclear family where you've stayed in one house you use the best rooms first and that's how younger ones end up with the smaller rooms, but this is moving into a new house. We moved a lot as a child, and the oldest child was not given the best room every time just because of being born first. Not to mention the fact that your daughter is there all the time and it would be massively annoying to have to store her things all over the house and her have less space just to appease him. Even if they were all your biological children, and all there full time, I'd still have set the rooms as you have because it makes the most sense that an older child can use a bed with storage underneath.

rooms shouldn’t be allocated based on seniority. It should be need. I agree he should stay in the smallest room. He has a cabin bead that mean he has plenty of space.

Everyone was clear on rooms. They've been decorated according to each child’s taste and choice.

SS has only decided he should have DD’s room since SDs room has been finished (we have had furniture built in and it looks really cool).

It’s probably relevant that, previously, we had a three bedroom house with three medium sized rooms. DD was in with us and SDs shared, so SS was the “lucky” one who had the most space whilst the rest of us were cramped. I think it’s just dawned on him that he’s not the luckiest anymore.

We also have a separate study downstairs, which is where I work from home, all homework and crafts and reading is done, the sofa bed for guests, SD’s piano. So we could make that SS’s bedroom but that’d mean losing out on a lot of living space.

Designate half of DDs room as a "playroom". So he could sleep 8n that room... but it would have all her toys etc in. And she could play in there 7am-7pm...

Why do you have them so little outside holidays?

Are you planning any more children?

It’d be a nightmare, she’d be breaking his Lego and eating his stored sweets. I can’t be bothered.

YANBU.

DD should absolutely get the bigger room when she’s there all the time. I’d be so frustrated having a cramped box room while a larger room sat empty for half the time.

Don’t be faffing with experiments and swaps - their rooms have been fairly allocated and decorated according to their tastes. SS will get over it and the more time he spends in his room, enjoying his space and cabin bed, the more it’ll feel like his and he won’t want another.

DD won’t care, so why not let the lad have the room? Your DD is three. She won’t spend any time in the room other than sleeping for quite a while.

We used to have them midweek too but their mum moved to the other side of town to live with her new boyfriend. SDs are now at secondary school close to their mum’s house and don’t want to have to get up early to commute. They tend to do what their mum suggests and this is her preference.

She’s three. She won’t be remotely frustrated.

She has a floor bed and when she sleeps badly, I go in with her. She has a dolls house, a train set and loads of play-sets which are played with after nursery every day, and I don’t want them in the communal areas. She also has considerably more clothes and books here than any of the SDs.

Your DD gets the bigger room, not only because she is there full time but also because of all her toys and things

SS gets the small room, if he has a cabin bed then I don’t see the issue

Not necessarily, but if we did, we’d have the baby in with us for the first year or so, then either extend or build a garden room to add another bedroom when I’d finished maternity leave.

Just because your daughter is 3 doesn’t mean she should have the box room. It’s her one and only home and the bedroom she’ll have for the rest of her childhood.

SS has two rooms in two houses. Why take up a larger room when he’s barely ever there.

I think dss is being a bit unreasonable (as is his right as a kid!) but DH is being v unfair to make you the bad guy or change the plan…

Why a family discussion? It’s not like the 3 year old can give a view!
So it’s a no, it’s not changing. Stop whingeing. End of.

whether sd or dd is irrelevant to this discussion. The person who spends the most time in the house gets the bigger room. I wouldn't be pussyfooting around a teenage boy who will probably spend less and less time with his non resident parent as he gets older and wants to spend more time with his friends.