Parents’ experiences of children sleeping downstairs in a dormer bungalow

[Charlmar]

Hi everyone,

We’re viewing a dormer/chalet bungalow tomorrow and I’d love to hear from anyone who has lived in one with young children.

The layout is two bedrooms downstairs, a bathroom downstairs, and one large bedroom upstairs. We have a 2-year-old daughter and would likely have her downstairs, with us in the upstairs bedroom. We may also have another baby in the future.

My main concern is that the children would be on a different floor to us at night. I know lots of families have loft conversions, dormer bungalows and townhouses, but I’m struggling to picture how it works in practice.

Do your children sleep on a different floor to you? How old were they when you started doing this? Did it worry you initially? Did you get used to it quickly?

The house also has an open staircase, which looks lovely, but I’m wondering whether carrying a newborn up and down during those first few months would become annoying or whether it’s something you don’t really think about after a while.

Would love to hear real-life experiences, both positive and negative.

TIA :)

@Charlmar The open staircase quite possibly doesn’t meet current building regulations on fire safety. Stairs should be enclosed ideally and have risers and safety railings and spindles. I’d not be happy about just treads, if that’s what it is.

Regarding sleeping, there are issues if 2 year old is going to make their way up the stairs to you. Open stairs are notoriously difficult to shut off. Or you sleep downstairs too.

No way. I wouldn't do it. There's a reason dormer bungalows are so hard to sell, they don't work well for most people.

Also, my parents' house has an open staircase and OMG. It's not the newborn days you have to worry about, it's the crawling, walking, climbing age. It's amazing how much trouble toddlers can get into.

I have bad sleepers so sleeping on a different floor would be brutal and to be honest i wouldn't want to be far away from them. Especially in times when they are ill / have sickness bugs etc.

Only other issue I could forsee though is kids being in bed on the same floor as you being up and about late evening, watching tv, tidying, doing dishes etc. Id worry about the noise waking them up and feel bit on edge about that.

Practically speaking you could put stair gate on the beedroom doors and use monitors though if it was your dream house as I cant imagine it would be an issue forever.

I wouldn’t have my children on the floor below me until the were at least sensible teens. I’d be worried about burglars, fires or them getting up in the night and having an accident that I can’t hear.

No it would put me completely off! I think it only works from teens upwards.

We had a dormer bungalow and the children slept on a different floor.
But the difference was that they slept on the floor above us and we were fine with that.
I wouldn't have been ok with them sleeping on the floor below but I'm not sure why.

We’re looking to move and we live in an area where a lot of houses have two bedrooms upstairs and the master on the main floor. I absolutely refuse to buy a house with this layout as I hate the idea of being on a different floor to my kids (and they are 8 and 10!) However lots of people in our area do have this arrangement so they must sleep OK at night.

We’ve just spent £10k replacing a 1970s open staircase-they’re death traps

They meet building regs as long as they met the regs at the time of installation

DD has slept above us in the loft conversion since she was 4 and a half. She was old enough to safely navigate stairs (you can’t ever fully trust a stair-gate because they can be climbed), old enough to take herself to the loo and back as needed, a rock solid sleeper and she passed our room on her way downstairs so she couldn’t rummage through the kitchen snack drawer undetected and we were between her and a potential break in.

No way would I have a 2YO on a different floor and I wouldn’t feel comfortable with the kids downstairs whilst we were upstairs until IDK when but I’m not sure I’d be ok with it now at 8 and 5.

For now I’d occupy the 2 downstairs bedrooms and have upstairs as a spare. Longer term I’d look at reconfiguring to have x2 big kid rooms upstairs and a master suite downstairs.

I wouldn’t have my kids downstairs whilst we were upstairs. I’d be worried for security and fire safety. I also wouldn’t have the open stairs.

Yes also you have to redo the open stairs. I’d be more worried about the eldest than you carrying a baby because they’re going to be risky well past the point when it’s reasonable to have stairs gates / close supervision like into the primary school years.

When my DC were young we lived in a dormer bungalow with us downstairs and the DC upstairs. I never felt comfortable with it and in the end we moved house. At one point, we were all crammed upstairs in two small bedrooms as I wasn’t happy with them being on a different floor.

@midwalkerLots of London houses have this layout. Many town houses are built to gain space with a small footprint. They do work but they don’t have open tread stairs or bedrooms on the ground floor which people don’t seem to like - although it’s safer in a fire!

Thank you everyone, I have cancelled the viewing! Safety comes first.