If anyone sleeps in their only living room, how do you make it work with a family?

[soldieringonandon]

We live in a 3 bed house, one double bedroom for myself and husband and one double bedroom for our sons 8 and 9 and one single bedroom for our daughter 11.
Our 8 year old son is making life very difficult for his older brother, he is SEN and on the waiting list for assessment for asd and adhd/odd he has very loud screaming meltdowns which result in door slamming, throwing and lashing out which are an everyday occurrence and becoming more frequent and more intense and his brother is uncomfortable sharing a room when this happens, he also deliberately goes out of his way to annoy or upset him.
The only way we can realistically separate them is to let one of the boys have our bedroom and sleep downstairs and get a sofa bed.
We have a small house and only one small living room, no dining room.
Moving isn’t an option because we are housing association and only qualify for a 3 bed.
We have thought of partitioning the room as it’s a double but there’s only one window and I’m not sure how that would work with the door plus there’s the fact he is defiant and I don’t think he’d stay on his side of the room anyway giving little space to his brother, they currently have bunk beds but during a meltdown he’ll pull the covers off his brothers bed and wreck his space and as it stands our elder son has nowhere to get away from him.

Does this sound like it could work, we’d have to keep our clothes in one of the rooms upstairs but I think the real problems would occur as they got older and wanted to use the living space after we were in bed. The living room is off the stairs and you do need to go through it to get to the kitchen.

I just wondered if anyone else had made it work as we can’t carry on like this.

I haven’t done this but wanted to respond to your post because it’s my understanding that if you have a child with Sen needs significant enough to get mid rate dla then you can apply for housing with their own room. So might be worth a google….

He goes to mainstream school that have a Sen team that support him and they gave written support for the gp to support his application for assessment which was accepted but he’s still on the waiting list so no diagnosis and we don’t get any dla.

DLA is theoretically based on need nor diagnosis, so it might be worth an application to see if you qualify. They accept all sorts of documentation as proof so you could definitely send them through the school documentation, Send plan etc.

I know someone who did this for 18 years in a one bed flat! Not ideal but they had no option.

Could you partition the sitting room? Even cut a corner off that would fit a double bed in?

Thank you, @NewUserName2244I didn’t know this so I had never looked into it.

Which room is the biggest? Would it work better to partition the lounge for instance and have your dd and ds share that, the lounge goes in a double bedroom, and your loud son goes in the single room?

You definitely don’t need a diagnosis for DLA. I get it for my daughter and we are 2 years into the wait for her assessment. It’s a massive application that takes you through all the additional support needs. Lots of advice online or just message me if you can’t find anything.

Reapply for DLA. My DS isn't officially diagnosed but we claim for him.

I've not heard anything about being entitled to a bigger house due to need but it would be worth looking
if you can properly separate the room what about your DD sharing with your older son and your younger son having his own room. Guess it depends on how the children would react but you can't really have the one family room as your permanent sleeping space.

For the short term could your daughter and 9 year old share the bigger room or your room? Or partition it for them? I’d also get an OT referral and ask them to assess your son for housing to see if you could qualify for an extra bedroom. Also worth perusing DLA claim as mentioned previously.

your idea of sleeping in the living room will also work but make sure you get a good quality sofa bed. Whichever child then gets the biggest room has to have your clothes stored there as well. I wouldn’t worry too much about long term and teenagers staying up later than you as that’s a long time away.

The living room is the same size as the double bedrooms so although it would fit a double bed and perhaps a chest of drawers and make a stand alone bedroom, it couldn’t be used as a living room too so my thoughts were a sofa bed that can be folded up and used as seating for the family in the day.
We currently only have one corner sofa and a tv as it’s really small and also a walkway to the kitchen but we do all use it as a living space.

A family member did this for a few years. Her husband is very handy so he build a pull-down bed that was attached to the wall and could be lifted up and down. Then he installed a curtain pole on the ceiling in front of it so curtains could be drawn over it during the day.

I’m not sure how practical that would be, but thought it worth a mention.

I wouldn't worry about teens staying up later at all, they'll barely come out of their rooms by then anyway and you could easily have a rule that they fetch any food and drink they need before you bed down. If they did want to hang out together, they could do it in one of their rooms.

Its pricey but can you get something similar to this (or cheaper version)? Much easier than converting a bed each night i expect. Such a tricky situation. I hope you are able to get moved at some point. Would an alternative be, if you split the largest room, for you daughter and oldest son to have the two sides and then your youngest to have the single self contained room?

As above, DLA is based on additional time and need rather than a diagnosis.

Speak to your local councillor or MP and see if there are any other grants or support that you can get to help you. Some councils offer a grant for an extension and although it’s a LA home, they might be agreeable.

Otherwise how about separating the current bedroom, as you suggested, but instead move your daughter in and your son goes into her bedroom. That will stop him going over the boundary and is a possible way to make it work for all three.

Definitely apply for DLA - it's a slightly depressing process, you need to answer every question as if you're answering it on their worst possible day - but previous posters are right, it's based on needs and not diagnosis. Cerebra have a really useful guide for filling in the application

https://cerebra.org.uk/download/disability-living-allowance-dla-guide/

And as for sleeping in the living room, a member of my team does this. She uses a sofa bed which is very quick and easy to fold out, the fitted sheet stays on the mattress when she folds it up, and she has a blanket box that the duvet and pillows go into during the day. Her girls are older teens but have a 'bedroom' time rather than a bedtime, so she's got a little privacy and peace later in the evenings. The only thing she's had to put extra thought into is storing clothes and dressing, especially at the weekends, as they only have one bathroom.

I would apply for a 4 bedroom house on the basis that your son’s SEN make sharing a room not viable. Or I’d partition the boys’ bedroom to be shared between your daughter and older son, so your younger son could have his own room.

I haven’t done it, BUT if it were me, I’d invest in a proper “Murphy bed”, one of those which folds down from the wall, as this is a longer term need and I would think long term a sofa bed will hurt your backs.

I’d also get one of these curtain rail sets from Ikea, which I’d use to zone it off at night, make it feel private/cosy/block any annoying light.

Look again at partitioning the room they are in currently there are some really clever ideas where you put a sheet of mdf on one side of the bottom bunk, and the other side of the top bunk so the bed itself forms the room partition, then use Perspex or a gap along the top to take advantage of the light from the window in both halves of the room. Kallax units from ikea can also be used and again, put a back on some and a front on others so each side has ‘built in storage’ but it effectively separates the rooms. Explore every possibility for splitting either your or the boys room first before sacrificing your living room. Another thing to consider, if you can effectively separate one room into 2, could that be for your eldest son and your daughter and move your son who needs his own space into your daughters small room. If the other 2 can be assured privacy but are likely to be more capable of respecting each others privacy then that might work better.

Can he not share your bedroom with you and DH so that you can have the living room functioning as a living room? Sleeping in the communal living room is only going to work in the short term given you will soon have three teenagers who will want to have friends around, stay up late etc.

Thank you that’s a great idea.

Some really good suggestions here already. I think I'd look to give your son who needs his own room the smallest bedroom. Move yourself and DH into the middle bedroom then partition the master for your son and daughter.

Why don’t you put your 8yr old in your DD’s room and then partition the double room so your older DS and DD can share it? Rooms can be robustly divided with everything from big Kallax units to stud walls even with only one window.

If they have bunk beds

You can place a curtain around the bottom bunk

I have done it (though it's not a bunk bed as such it's to make my 12 year olds desk below his bed more comfortable)

But it really changes the bed, it's something really simple to do and it makes the inside of the area so much nicer

You can buy them on Amazon for about £13 for 3 pieces so the whole bed area is covered

Might make it a bit more calming, but mainly it's easy to do