Do I get the girls to share and have a spare room or does dd2 get her own tiny room???

[Bigmouthstrikesagain]

Dd2 is 18m (nearly) and currently in 'the family bed' with me and dh. This arrangement needs to change and I am having a mini dilemma about whether to move her to her own room or in with her sis.

We have a 4 bed house but it has been extended to add the 4th room so suffers from odd sized rooms. So ds is in a smallish room, dd1 is in a large room (which used to be the master bedroom), and there is a tiny bedroom which is a good spare (my mother stays regularly and as she lives far away she needs to stay over night).

Sooo is it fairer to get the girls to share a large room or to have their own rooms regardless of the difference? I am torn, as originally I thought they should share, but memories of sharing with my sister keep creeping back (and they aren't all good)!

Any opinions on this? Dd1 is nearly 4 and although not the most doting of sisters she is okay with her baby sis but I am not sure how well she will take to sharing...

Have you asked DD1 if she would like to share? will she get to have the top bunk for example? (possibly very exciting for 4 year old), get to choose new decorations etc?

Does DD2 sleep through or will she wake her big sis up regularly?

My 4yr old and 8mth old boys are sharing a large attic room and we have a spare room full of junk. At the moment they don't mind and ds2 ends up in bed with me every night anyway. We toyed with the idea of ds2 having the small room but tbh we have nowhere else to put all the crap

I would put them in together for now and if they hate sharing as they get older then you have the spare room as an option.

ours girls share a small bedroom (with bunks) and have the larger double as a playroom, works well for us. As they sleep in their bedroom but have loads of space to play in.

I have spoken a bit to dd1 and true to her form, she reacts according to her mood at the time and that changes like the wind

Dd2 does wake in the night and will probably be very disruptive initially, until she has settled.

There are already two beds in the room dd1 has a new cabin bed and dd2 will have dd1s old bed (where ever she ends up!).

We were all set to put dd (nearly 4) in weird loft room and ds (18mths) in box room, but dd was adamant she wanted to share, though she does dote on him - and so they have the biggest room. That we decorated to become their 'rainbow room'. Works well. Am sure they will have separate rooms soon enough - enjoy the space now!

(actually, if they're anything like ours, they'll be back in your bed soon enough )

FWIW I've moved our baby (21months) in with her big sister (3.5) in the past month or so and it's been great. Ok, so dd2 was perfectly sleeping all night in her cot and is now in a big bed like dd1 which was not the plan, but they love sharing.

We don't have a choice, sadly, as have 3 bedrooms and 3 kids! But sharing's been great so far.

I am tending towards the option of sharing unless or until there is a problem but dh always looks at me like I am being cruel for making them share. But then as an only child he had no experience of sharing!

Thank you for your replies - tbh I think I am being extremely optimistic about how successfully dd2 will transition from family bed to her own bed and possibly because I know she will protest I should have her in her own room.

my 2 DDs share at the moment and we have a spare room and a playroom (nursery/smallish bedroom is the playroom).
They are now just 6 and 4.5
this has worked well for the last 18 months, we put them together when DD2 turned 3 and still wasn't sleeping through the night, putting her in with DD1 solved this issue, as when she woke in the night and saw DD1 sleeping she would go back to sleep herself.
However, now DD1 is less and less tired at bedtime and wants to read, stay awake later than DD2 who is ready to crash at 7pm.
we are now thinking of splitting them again.

why not keep them separate and have a spare bed in DD1's room? (like a pull out bed underneath the main bed) and give DD2 a small double bed (4'6") then when anyone needs to stay she goes in with DD1. Would that work?

We moved ds to his own big bed the month after we moved in here (so he was 16mths?). He was fine - no problems at all! I still stay with him til he is asleep (as I did when he was in ours. Though he has been falling asleep while i potter in last month or so)

He was staying asleep all night, then pootling in at 5am. Has been a bit more erratic recently . No issues with sharing IMO.

anyway, I think your dd might be v excited about a new bed, especially if it is like dd's (we put ds in dd's bed i think the first couple of nights- it was a bit all-over-the-place as we'd just moved).

'like your older dd's' I mean...

Ours sleep through each other waking mostly (til it gets to 4am then eek).

Hmmm thank you - food for thought - of course if I back down now and go along with Dhs preference he will never let me forget it! Gah

Adair does the bed have a rail (for your 16mo) the one we have is a extendable bed from ikea I don't want to add a rail so she still has the option of getting up and coming to me if she wants to (rather than staying and screaming or hurting herself trying to vault rail!).

I'm with amidaiwish - unless you'll have visitors for weeks on end I'd go for a bedroom for each kid but with a truckle bed that makes sleep-overs really easy.

Yup, it has siderails (like the Ikea ones). He is a very wriggly baby so often I go in and he is horizontal with his foot under it , but learnt v quickly (as did dd at same age) to go to the bottom of the bed to wriggle off -the rail only goes so far. He does vault it now at 19mths!

Dd never used to come to us though, just stayed in bed and cried - ds will just get up happily and I wake up with him standing at side of bed/climbing on me.