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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not switch DSS’ bedroom?

105 replies

Vastimir · 31/07/2025 21:05

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?

OP posts:
Hopingtobeaparent · 03/08/2025 07:10

willowpatternchina · 31/07/2025 23:35

He's actually pretty lucky to get a room to himself when his older sisters always have to share! Why on earth does your DH want to "discuss it as a family" when it's got nothing to do with the older girls and your younger DD can't discuss it in any meaningful way aged 3?

Exactly! Discussing as a family, just means ganging up on OP! This is not a decision for the children to be making.

BogRollBOGOF · 03/08/2025 07:24

DS moved into a box room (from sharing with sibling) at 9. It's so snug that we had to DIY a cabin bed because we couldn't physically manipulate a standard bedframe in the space. It meets his needs well into his teen years. He has space for a wardrobe, units under the bed for displaying models, and storing books, lego and nicknacks. Most of the time he's downstairs at his computer desk or warhammer table.

It meets his needs well.
It would not meet the needs of a 3 year old who is too young to safely use a cabin bed and has bulkier toys and will for at least the next 5 years.
DS is very quick to moan about any percieved injustice between him and his (full) brother, but the bedroom has never come up once, even though DS2 has remained in the double to himself.

OP your current set-up is very pragmatic at dividing the space avaliable to the meet needs of the children who live there.

Ignored124 · 03/08/2025 07:47

Mumsnet hates step parents , but yes your 3 year old old should keep her room .

SemperIdem · 03/08/2025 08:53

Grammarninja · 02/08/2025 21:10

Kids mostly just care about fairness. Ss sees this as unfair. I'd be looking at measuring the area of his bedroom at his mum's and then adding the area of his bedroom at his dad's. If it comes out as bigger than dd's, he should be satisfied. His upset is because he's not comparing like with like.
If he's old enough, this is also a good maths lesson.

This kind of indulgence causes issues imo. It is fine for children to be told no and that be the end of the discussion on occasion. This is one of those occasions.

latetothefisting · 03/08/2025 13:00

Grammarninja · 02/08/2025 21:10

Kids mostly just care about fairness. Ss sees this as unfair. I'd be looking at measuring the area of his bedroom at his mum's and then adding the area of his bedroom at his dad's. If it comes out as bigger than dd's, he should be satisfied. His upset is because he's not comparing like with like.
If he's old enough, this is also a good maths lesson.

what if it doesn't come up bigger? He should be learning that sometimes life isn't fair, end of discussion.

At the end of the day, if they were all full siblings, one of them would still need to be in the box room. There isn't an automatic entitlement for room size to be allocated in age order, he could still have ended up there, if anything it would still have been the fairest and most practical way of doing it as he had the best room in the last house.

It's not a level of extreme discrimination specific to children with divorced parents as one poster seems to be suggesting...

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