Stepdaughter’s bedroom at Christmas

[Balletbabe]

My 14 year old stepdaughter has an en-suite bedroom at our house which she uses maybe two or three nights a month.. This room is sacrosanct and DH won’t entertain conversations about it.

Essentially she will not allow my mother to use it over Christmas even if she isn’t here.

My sister is with her in-laws.

We either put my daughter in with our youngest two, or bring baby back in with us. Either of these solutions would potentially lead to sleep regression for both the younger kids. Or we travel for just under an hour to my mother’s, taking kids away from their presents and she will then feel the need to host us.

We still have no idea if stepdaughter is even going to be here.

All DH will say is he wouldn’t want anyone in his room either and he is willing to collect her after presents and she could get Uber back.

But what about the step-daughter? She's family too and yet she's the one being turfed out of her bedroom for someone she's not even related to, while everyone else gets to stay put.

Says a lot about your marriage.

We lived in a 2 bed house and when my granny came to stay every 2nd weekend, we all moved about and no one's sleep 'regressed'. My own kids' sleep does not regress either when things change.

You do like to make incorrect assumptions, don't you?

I stay there occasionally because it's easier for my job sometimes and saves me a long journey on rural roads - if that's okay with you? 😂

When I was that age if my aunt came to stay I had to SHARE MY BEDROOM with her. She smoked in the house, criticised everything I did and asked me countless intrusive questions. There was never, however, any question about whether or not I would share a room with her.

I've also been the guest in this situation: forced to sleep on an upstairs landing because the daughter of the house didn't want someone she didn't know in her bedroom ALTHOUGH SHE WAS AWAY AT THE TIME.

YANBU and your stepdaughter needs to understand that the world doesn't revolve around her.

The most effective way to give them that security is to still treat them as if they are still very much valued. A nice welcome when they come in, consideration of what they might want to eat, a comfortable place to stay and relax in, listening if they have any reasonable requests or preferences, can I have a new mattress please, could we go swimming etc, could we have lasagne for dinner. DH making the effort to spend some one to one quality time with her. We have all been to places where we feel wanted and where we haven’t, it’s not rocket science.

I don’t see how letting her hugely inconvenience everyone else for the sake of it helps,
‘we’re doing this to show you how important you are’
it’s shows nothing of the sort, rather than this family could be fun and positive for you and you’re part of us, it reinforces the message that she’s an outsider so needs to be given special treatment

i don’t think I’d stay over in that situation @ChocolateCinderToffee clearly not a wanted guest to be treated thus!

I apologise. Ofc each child is different. I do know what a chaotic dad means though. It is hard, and you and your dd have my utmost sympathy in dealing with it.

Your husband is not giving you enough money, uness.he isn't earning much. Bloody hell, in Ireland we get 260 euro per child, per month from the government. 85 a week for a family of 5 to include extra curricular is impossible.

Thank you, I appreciate this acknowledgment.

Most people would think it's not acceptable to make a child sleep in the bath.

Yabu.

Make alternative sleeping arrangements for you DMum.

Your DH has set a clear boundary. You don't agree your DSD was given the best room. You know that room is off limits and are still making plans. Yabvu. You are testing this because of unfairness you feel. Let it go. There are other hills to die on.

My ds does not want people in his room, so no-one sleeps there. I don't go in there and knock, I don't go in. The others don't care.

You're being really nasty about a 14 year old. Why is that?

Oh not just this poster, the names and spewing spite many posters have vented about this child is fucking disturbing. Can’t think why unless they’re bitter 2nd wives hating the fact there’s evidence that their dh had a life before them and are cripplingly jealous of the children who exist a evidence of that.

No she’s being nasty about the dh which is appropriate given his ridiculous behaviour. Anyone who would let a child sleep on the floor when there’s a free room available is not a kind father or stepfather. He needs to show his dd that she’s part of the family by treating her the same way as the rest, not giving her such blatant special treatment at the expense of the other dc, his wife and wider family.

Rather than jealousy, I think it’s often a level of resentment that the child does not want to pay ball with their fantasy of everyone becoming a big happy new family.

It’s a refusal to grapple with the difficult reality that despite good intentions, a stepparent, step-siblings or even half-siblings can sometimes feel like an imposition and an intrusion to the stepchild. Many adults are unwilling to accept that although they are happy with a new partner, their kids are not.

I think YANBU if the room is empty. But YABU for sure if your SDD hasn't even decided if she's coming. She should feel welcome and have first dibs on her own room.

Because that is ridiculous, sleeping in the living room when there is another room available.

My question is:

If "blending" is so traumatic, so exacerbating of insecurities and issues, so difficult, so requiring of special accommodations, vast expense, and other problems, why on earth do so many parents force these situations onto their kids???

She is being nasty about the daughter. Who gets limited time with her father, who clearly loves her and wants her to feel welcome in his house. He spent 62k on an extension so that she could have her own space so clearly this is extremely important to him.

Then someone needs to ask her: "Are you coming for Christmas or not, and which days? because we expect a visitor and could use your room if you won't be there."

Fourteen-year-old children don't get to dictate household arrangements and how their parents receive guests.

(the husband is a whole separate problem.)

I think this is very insightful.

Most people weren't as entitled as they are now. I know of families where sleeping in the bath was the NORM, because households weren't able to provide a bedroom for all. Back in those glorious "you could support a home on one income days." No one ever scrutinizes just what those homes were like.

One of my grandparents was 9 kids and two parents in a two-up, two-down.

Of course they didn't have the luxury of a bath for someone to sleep in because the toilet was a small shack in the garden.

It’s a great question and as a single parent, I am extremely doubtful I would ever do it. The number of times it genuinely works out seems to be very low compared to the number of times it actually just results in stress and misery for some or all of the new members.

Given the financial and practical challenges of being a single parent, I suspect the lure of cost-sharing and the convenience of having a live-in partner exert an outsize influence over the adults involved. They think it will make life easier on themselves and that being able to afford to take overseas holidays again will make the kids happy, when in reality the kids want something very different from their home life.

But they don’t know the dsd room is available, sounds like op just hopes dsd isn’t coming. If it’s being He needs to show his dd that she’s part of the family by treating her the same way as the rest, then op will have to stop her dds doing anything with anyone unless the dsd is present and included won’t she, like she expects dsd and 3yo to not do anything without her dd?