3rd storey house - baby separate floor

[Whiterose123]

Hi, I live in a 3 storey house where the master bedroom is on the top floor and we have two bedrooms on the second. We have decorated the larger room downstairs and turned it into a nursery with the idea that he will need the bigger room when he grows and the smaller box room is used as an office.

We decorated the larger room with the intention that the baby will sleep in that room eventually, he is only 3 months old so he's still in our room for now. I know at some point I will need to get him to sleep in that room but now he's here I'm very nervous about him sleeping on the second floor. I can't imagine him being down there when he's so little and the thought of him when he's a little older climbing out and walking around with the stairs and furniture is making me want to move house. I cannot move house currently through, does any one else have a house like this and when did you move your baby into their own room/any tips advice?

We will have baby monitors on loud I'm sure and will probably get a baby gate. Another thing to mention is that we have a dog and he currently sleeps on the ground floor, there is a baby gate on the ground floor so he cannot get upstairs but this also worries me, I've just become one big worrier and thinking of all the different scenarios/situations.

I wouldn’t want a small child sleeping on a different floor , I think for me the cut off would be 7/8 maybe .

Hi we had a child sleeping on the floor down, probably about a year old. No problems at all, had a baby monitor although could easily hear him through the floors anyway but he is still loud at 16!! Always checked fire alarms every month. Bit of an effort getting up on a chilly night but not an issue for us. Kids older now and I have found the house so much better than a normal one with everyone on one floor , we can go to bed at different times without disturbing anyone 😊.

I am nervous about moving them out, I mean it won't be any time soon with them being so young but I'm thinking of my friends child who is 1 and they still seem so/too young?

Hopefully someone in/who has been in the same situation can offer some advice on what they have done or how it went.

I would suggest you plan to be on the same flooring otherwise you will spend a lot of time going up and down for potentially a long time yet.

We lived in a similar house when DD was a baby. We decided to leave the master bedroom to be a guest room/office and used one of the rooms on the same floor as dd's room. If we had stayed there long term, the plan was for DD to have the master rather than us - I was very anxious about the fact that should someone break in, they would get to her first if we were on the top floor.

Could you sleep in the other bedroom on baby's floor until he's a bit bigger? If it's a box room, you might have to use it just for sleeping and leave your clothes, cosmetics etc in the master bedroom upstairs!

Wherever you sleep, I'd suggest baby gates to stop him going up or downstairs during the night (ie gates on his landing so he can't access either staircase). Alternatively you could fit a baby gate across his bedroom doorway.

When he's in a bed rather than a cot, you may find he sometimes wants to climb into bed with you during the night, eg if he has a bad dream. As you probably won't want a toddler climbing the stairs to your room on his own while you're asleep, you'll have to come to some arrangement with him where he speaks to you via the baby monitor and you come down to get him, if necessary. You might want to put a small double bed in his room when he's big enough for a bed, so you can get in with him.

I'm nervous about someone breaking in too but I think the dog would (hopefully) scare them off.

In hindsight I'm thinking I should have kept the room on the second floor as a guest room and slept in there so we were all on the second floor but it's just not possible anymore. He might end up being in our room for a long time but then I also don't want to make it difficult for him to sleep without us there. Going up and down the stairs isn't an issue for me, it's more the safety part!

In truth, it’s not much further away than across the landing if you were on the same floor. I think the baby gate is a good plan, so he can’t go wandering. I would also leave both his and your bedroom doors open at night until he’s older rather than just relying on the monitor.

We moved into a house where we slept on the 2nd floor and the dc slept on the first floor when youngest was about 18months.
Never been any issues.

If you were concerned when they are no longer in a cot, then you can put a stairgate on their bedroom door - though the top of the stairs is better once they are no longer wearing a nappy.

Your little one is still very small and your hormones are still very strong at the moment. Honestly, little ones grow very quickly.

I am having this exact same issue! 23 weeks with our second. DS is 6 and currently sleeps on same floor as us. Don't want either children downstairs whilst we are on the top floor in master bedroom. I would like to move for this reason however DH doesn't seem to agree/understand.

Cannot understand how any parents are willing to take the risks here of being on separate floors from young children. Toddlers often want to climb into parents beds overnight and if you Google Mumsnet how old before your child stopped getting into bed with you every night you'll find so many threads with parents of 6-10 year olds doing this. That's without thinking about illness too quiet to hear through floors, fire risk, falls and intruders.

We have a 3 bed but one room is a loft conversion. DH worked up top in loft room/spare room, we had our bedroom next to baby on the middle floor. All good. Then we had baby 2.

We decided to split the loft room in half with a simple stud wall to make two rooms: a smaller bedroom for eldest DC and a separate office. The eldest DC moved into the loft bedroom aged 3 (single bed), and the baby moved into the middle bedroom next to ours aged 6months (in a cot).

We only have and use one baby monitor in the middle bedroom. We never bothered with stairgates at all on any of our stairs (steep, non-standard, and we also have a mezzanine floor so extra steps up to and down from that). The only time eldest ever gets out of bed is is in he morning when they come downstairs into us.

We keep the doors slightly ajar/open so we can hear if eldest calls out or needs us (on the top floor). We don't actually need the monitor on for the baby because we can hear them easily regardless.

We don't intend to stay in this house long term but the simple stud wall makes it work for us right now and will also be easy for next owners to remove, if they so choose.

We've never had any problems with eldest DC on a different floor. I was anxious at first for sure though! And I will go up and check on them every night - which I used to do before they were up there though tbf! The eldest loves that their room is next to DH WFH office and it definitely gives them a sense of pridento be up there!

My house has 3 floors, all of our neighbours have their little ones on a different floor (mine were adults when I moved here) I've not heard of any issues.

I converted mine as I hated having the kids on a different floor to me. Just couldn’t sleep properly at night, nightmares of them getting stolen. Which is ridiculous but it was on my mind. I also worried about them being teenagers and sneaking out without my knowledge. Maybe I am just one of life’s worriers. We put a dividing wall in the top floor master so it’s now 2 kids rooms with a shared bathroom. We (grownups) have the middle floor basically with our bedroom, bathroom and spare room / office / dressing room. Then downstairs as normal.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and advice. I'm sure it's a lifetime of worry about him from here!

Hoping I know what to do when I reach that point, for now he is next to us in his snuzpod. Although time is already going so quickly, I need to have a real sit down and think.

There are children that live in the houses surrounding us too, so we can't be alone in this situation.