Should we sleep separately so children can have separate rooms?

[hibyebye]

We have a 3 bedroom house and one little boy who is 2 who has a single bedroom.
Also 2 step daughters who are 7 and 9 who have a large double bedroom to share when they stay.
We also have a double bedroom which is ours.

At home the girls have a bedroom each and are used to their own space and don’t always get along, one is autistic and prone to meltdown and for this reason their mum has said when they are with us 2 nights a week she wants them to have their own bedrooms.
She suggested either out 2 year old sleep in with us or we buy a sofa bed and give one of the girls our room.

She is very angry that we had our son as she says they would have a room each if we didn’t have him but actually we bought this home with a view to the girls having a double room to share and a spare room for a child we could have.

However the autistic child has a tendency to hit the older sister when they argue and this why they need to be separated when this happens which we do intervene and keep them apart until a meltdown ends, maybe 10/15 minutes.
AIBU to think we shouldn’t have to uproot our toddler into our room twice a week or completely re-do our lounge furniture to accommodate a sofa bed just so they can have a room each?

I admit a room each would work better but we had no idea she would be unkind to her sister and I’d rather work on that behaviour than accommodate it.

Think their mum is massively overstepping just because she can. Who knows what she would do if the shoe was on the other foot! Outrageous for you to not have a child of your own so two sisters don't have to share a room. Obvs if you could easily afford to move that would be different. If you can find a solution that would be ideal but no way should a 2yr old be uprooted either, people seem to be forgetting how how delicate toddler sleep is and the massive impact that can have on the parents wellbeing. Nor should older sister have her sleep disturbed by toddlers sleep routine. No doubt they would wake the other with different sleep schedules. A divider or one sibling in the living room would be the ideal solution. Ex shouldn't be dictating what goes on between you & your husband either. Good luck OP.

Room divider for 2DDs. It’s two days a week.

You don’t want to accommodate violence, you want to mitigate it (duh) with as little drama as possible.

Good for you but not relevant to the thread.

I think both you and your partner (of whom we hear so little...) are unreasonable - for letting the DSDs' mother meddle, and for not proactively working on a better solution for your older child who is getting hit by her younger sister. Kids aren't owed their own bedroom, but they deserve a safe space in every home.

Son and eldest daughter share, autistic child gets the box room with the view to have a loft conversion as soon as you can afford.

Of course it is. If you are the eldest child you get used to the fact that siblings come alone and you have to share everything.

I think if this is a long term home then I’d look at a room divider. A decent double will make two cosy singles. There’s lots of Pinterest ideas. I divided a room which was easy in a way as had two windows. Cost about £1200 to put up stud wall, plaster and alter electrics for lights. Put in a wall mounted electric heater for the one with no radiator.

I shared with my sister growing up till we were adults with no issues. My boys (2 years apart) can not share if they aren’t fighting they are messing around. Hence room division, some kids just don’t share well

Mum doesn't get a say what happens in your house unless either of her girls is actually unsafe at your house. Having said that making an autistic kid prone to meltdowns and another kid share seems unfair to both of them.

Urgh, the audacity of some people. Their mother, that is. No, don't move bedrooms or give up your bedroom. Perfectly reasonable to expect two girls of similar age to share. If they can't get on, look at a way of dividing their room up.

I thought their mum was being precious until you said the older girl was regularly being hit. No child should have to put up with physical abuse and so they need their own rooms or they shouldn't be staying over at your shared home.

Could he have them at his parents until you can fix it, if they have the space?

Can you read? You seem to have completely missed a vital component in all of this.

This.

The ex does have a right to dictate that her daughter is safe from violence at her dad's home. She can't specify how to achieve that, but clearly it must be achieved.

Mum of ND kids here. Autism doesn't give the 7 year old a free pass to hurt her sister.
What support have her parents sought in managing this behaviour?
I've worked with lots of ASD children and this behaviour needs to be stopped. As she gets older ASD will be no defence in a court of law, she absolutely cannot be allowed to physically attack her sister or anyone else.

Totally unrealistic to expect you to give up your room. Absolutely batshit suggestion!

I don't think it was a poor initial plan (unless you the younger sibling hit her sister in melt downs when you made it), but it's clearly not working for the girls now so you need to find a way to give them their own space. For a two year old, unless there are sleep issues, I think having him in with you two nights a week is a far superior idea to having one sister be the victim of violence on a frequent or semi-frequent basis. You and DH on sleeper bed is a possibility, I guess, but I think you need to be looking towards a longer term solution with 4 bedrooms, not 3.

Frankly OP, I'd be so infuriated by your DH's EX laying down the law that I'd be rather inclined to suggest that it's her responsibility to sort out the autistic daughter's aggression before she starts pontificating about you changing the sleeping arrangements in your own home or commenting on your perfectly reasonable desire to have your own child

The only modification I'd consider making would be to partition the girl's' room in whichever way that could be most easily accommodated. Alternatively, I'd suggest that the girl's' stayed separately until the violence stops.

You are selfish to have a third child when you already have one with special needs who needs her own space and room. You knew this before you had a third child. Don’t have more children than you can afford to house.
I think you should get a sofa bed for the living room.

Why are you letting off the child's father?

Parents get biggest room, son who is there 24/7 gets the next room - especially as he’s young and presumably has lots of toys. Older kids don’t need a lot of space so make smallest room really nice with TV etc and take the girls one at a time to give everyone a bit of respite from the arguing.

This is a really tricky one tbh. My twin boys are both autistic. One is severely so (DS1), and with profound learning disabilities. They initially shared a room until they were about 3 when DS1 would hit DS2, take his covers, and once smeared faeces on him. Clearly this wasn't fair on DS1, but as we lived in a 2 bed flat, my only option was to give up my room and sleep in the living room. They are both 12 now and we have a 3 bed house. DS1 doesn't cope very well with other children, and needs his own space to retreat to when he gets overwhelmed and disregulated.

Was their father aware of this when it was decided they would share a room at your house? If so, how was he planning on dealing with it? Did he really think it was a good idea?

That being said, his ex was out of order to pretty much say you shouldn't have had your son and to make the demands she has. I do understand her concerns, as one of her daughters is regularly being hurt by her sister and it seems that her father isn't taking any steps to prevent it.

I don't think it would be fair to turf your son out of his room. Personally i would give up my room for the 2 nights the girls stayed, but I do understand that this is something that many people wouldn't contemplate, and that's fair enough.

I don't think having one girl sleep on a sofa bed downstairs is a solution either. Assuming they go to bed much earlier than you do, it would mean you would lose the use of that room in the evenings. Plus, and I don't know if this is all children or just mine, but mine would hate to be downstairs alone in the middle of the night. And which girl do you pick? Can the autistic girl be trusted to be alone downstairs in the middle of the night? It isn't her own space either which would make her feel disregulated. If her sister sleeps downstairs on the sofa bed instead of in a comfy bed in a nice bedroom, it will feel like she's being punished because her sister hits her. If you alternate, it will probably cause the autistic girl to become disregulated by things changing.

Is it possible to divide the girl's room? That seems like the only thing that would make sense. But it would need to be properly divided to stop DSD attacking her sister.

Don't have either girl sharing with your son. It's not fair on him. Clearly autistic DSD can't share with him, and other DSD will again feel like it's unfair and she's being punished.

As for some of the total shit some commenters are spouting on here, I would like to add:

No, my sons don't need a separate house. DS1 will attack DS2, or try to, but DS2 can either escape up to his room to safety, but generally I intervene first because I can see when it's about to happen. In the middle of the night when I was asleep in my room and they were in their room, I couldn't see what was going on to be able to prevent it.

Holidays aren't really something we can easily do. We occasionally have a caravan holiday, and yes, I do have to pay for the boys to have their own rooms. A hotel is not an option for us. But for other holidays, they still need to have their own rooms.

I don't know if it will be the same for DSD, but DS1 is becoming more aggressive as puberty kicks in. So don't think it's something she may grow out of soon.

So while I don't think you need to necessarily follow what their mum has suggested, you do have to do something. "Addressing the behaviour" takes time, and DSD will continue to get hurt during this time, and it isn't fair on her to not take immediate action.

(I suspect their mum won't like the idea of one girl going over at a time as it means she loses her childfree time!)

Half these comments have clearly never had an autistic child. And quite frankly why didn't your dh KNOW they had and needed separate rooms before you even bought a not enough house. Absolutely agree with the Mum and autistic child needs there own space to go off for alone time and privacy to keep cool and stress down...

The autistic child can share with you.

I’d have the 2 year old in with you.

My son is 3.5 but he happily decamps to our room if we have lots of people stay. He has a junior Z bed which he loves, we just put it up next to our bed and it’s a little adventure for him. He sleeps really well in it, and loves being with us. You could do this for a few years until you have a more permanent solution. A stud wall in the girls’ bedroom, etc. this could easily be taken down when they don’t need the rooms anymore.

For 5 nights a week there would be two spare bedrooms....this is madness.