Sleeping arrangements

[Lmichelle84]

Hi everyone. We currently have 3 children. 2 boys ages 13 & 11 who currently share a room. Our 8 year old daughter has her own room which is quite small.
We have just found out we are expecting baby no:4. I'm worried about the sleeping arrangements, if this baby is a girl is there too big a gap for the girls to share a room? If it's a boy we might have to convert the loft for the older boys and the baby go in their room.
How have you all managed with small houses, moving isn't really an option at the moment. Do your children with bigger age gaps share?

Thanks for any reassurance 🙏🙂

I would wait until baby is here given it will be in with you for at least 6 months, probably longer. Then decide whether you are in a position to move or do a loft conversion. In the longer term you will probably have to do at least one of those things anyway.

I'd keep the baby in with you for the first year or two. With that big an age gap it doesn't really matter which sex shares with the toddler so if there's room for two in your DD's room that might be an option. But it's not ideal sharing with a big age gap. A loft conversion sounds a good plan in the longer term. They often end up a bit smaller than you're expecting if you add any insulation, especially for taller people, so I'd probably consider moving your DD to the loft and putting the baby in her room.

Hi thanks for the reply. Yes we plan to keep baby with us for atleast the first year. The attic space is quite narrow but long. I'm just stressing so much about these little things and it's making me doubt my decision to have another baby 😓.
I've never actually thought about putting my daughter in the attic, maybe in a couple of years when a little older it will be something she wants.x

I have two boys 10 and 8 who sure a room, two girls 6 and 1 who share and I've recently moved into the box room. Before this daughter had the box room and me and baby shared.

I have 4 children
4bedroom house
1st DD aged 17 has her own room
2nd DD aged 14 has her own room
3rd & 4th aged 12 DD & DS aged 7 shares the room

Also, remember that in 5 years there’s every possibility your 13 year old will be off to uni and you just regig the rooms then anyway. So this is a time limited problem!

As a 12/13 /14 year old I shared with my baby brother, rather than share with my sister (who was 2 years older, and we hated each other at the time).

It was mostly fine, although I remember my friend staying the night and said she wanted to put a pillow over his head as he cried so much - I didn’t even notice, when you’re not the one who has to get up to deal with it you tune it out.

But I do also remember being very very upset at times at the loss of my bedroom - focus for my teenage moodiness.

We used to regularly swap round rooms and who shared with who (probably less easy today when children tend to have a personally decorated room?).

Depends on personalities of all the children too, how they use their rooms (homework after the toddler has gone to bed? Noisy gaming?), and how good a sleeper the baby/toddler is.