If you live in a 3 bedroom property with 2 DC

[Squashedinabox]

What is your total usable floor area (in m^2 if you know)?

Do you have provision for guests? Would you give each DC a room and equip one (the largest) with the possibility to sleep two and put the child in with sibling when you have visitors? Or not bother to cater for visitors on the basis that they are the DC's bedrooms and it's not fair to move one out for other people.

[Mandy21]

3dcs in 3 bed house, but its 113sqm so slightly bigger than average.

We have 1 room (quite large), 2 dcs in bunk beds in 1 room, 3rd dc in large single.

Single bed in 3rd dc's room has pop up trundle underneath, so converts to double bed. Visitors usually go in there. 3rd dc then goes on another trundle with the other dcs.

If we have another family to stay, they go in our room - couple in our room, their children on blow up mattresses / readybeds. We have the converted double, 3rd dc goes in with other 2dcs.

[Twilight23]

We have 2dc in a 3 bed. 3rd bedroom is a small room. Dc2 is a baby and shares with us and will do until we move. Dc1 has the small room and 2nd bedroom is being used by a family member. We have family from overseas staying for 6 months of the year.

We thought of placing dc1 in 2nd bedroom but when family stay most of their things would end up being stored in dc1s space. At least if she stays in small room, this is her space.

We want to move to a 4 bed house with a study, utility room, 2 reception rooms and a drive. Not asking for much am I?

[TooMuchRain]

Definitely no to 80 year old camping out!!! I would think short term and have the kids share, creating a spare room that could also be playroom for setting out games that take up space when you don't have visitors. You can get some really good sofa beds that have sturdy frames

[thenamestheyareachanging]

I'd definitely give the 80 year old our room!!

[thenamestheyareachanging]

3dc in a 3 bed house here. We have one room obviously, then the other two are children's rooms. we have a bed settee downstairs for visitors, and if it's a really special visitor we vacate our room for them and sleep on the bed settee ourselves.

[Orlea]

What about a fold-up camp bed, either for your DC or for guests? I remember being decanted onto one in my parents' room when I was little to free up my bedroom for guests, and see no problem with kids being moved for short-term visitors. It was always a bit of an adventure for me to sleep somewhere else!

We recently bought a 'double' camp bed when we had more guests coming than we had beds (including air mattresses for the younger ones). Apparently it was really comfortable... bit but I didn't want to press our polite guests too hard for a different answer! It is more like 1.5 than double width, still big enough for two slim adults for a night or two, but probably not much longer than that. It folds up to less than a foot deep, so whilst it's not the prettiest thing to have standing in the corner of a room, it's not too intrusive, and you can get covers for them.

[sleepyhead]

An 80+ yr old is unlikely to be able to get up from a mattress on the floor unaided.

You would need to give up your own bed for an 80+ year old if you don't think it would be fair for your dcs to do so.

Having said that, sofa beds can be really comfortable. Ours was under 200 from IKEA and my parents really liked it (both late 60s). We deliberately didn't offer them our bed because our mattress is appalling and my mum has a dodgy back.

I don't think it's a problem for guests to sleep in the main living area occasionally although it would be tough if it was for more than a night or so, and it does mean that they have to be the last to bed, first up.

[MrsTaraPlumbing]

You have to think about what works for your family and your guests in your home.
If you haven't much space investigate local B&Bs and perhaps you have friends who live near by who might accommodate your guests?

[Bramshott]

DD1's room is large and has a sofa-bed in, on the understanding that she will move out / share if we have guests.

In practise we do a mixture of things - if either DM or DMIL come alone, they will usually share with DD1. If DP or DPIL come together then we manhandle the sofabed (it's a foam one) downstairs into the dining room which is more private and next to the downstairs shower. If a family come then they have to have DD1's room and DD1 sleeps on the floor in DD2's room (this doesn't happen that often).

[AnnabelleLee]

Is it unreasonable to have a 80+ year old to sleep on a mattress on the floor?

Er, yes, obviously. do you really have to ask?

We have a small single room spare for visitors, couples always get our own room. You don't invite guests and then put them on the floor!

[hyperspacebug]

Currently 97 sq m - 3 bed house.
Ds (5yo) sleeps in his bunk bed
DS(2.5yo) still sleeps with us, will move to his own bed when ready

Guests - nice sofa bed in the living room (living room is separate from kitchen and dining room, so nothing like some open plans I've seen)

[Nocomet]

DD2 has a double bed in the biggest room, she gets thrown out into DD1's smaller room for visitors.

DD1 has a high sleeper and you can giggle a mattress into the floor space.

DD2 does get the hump, but we don't have house guest more than 2-3 times a year and they rarely stay more than 2 nights.

[RufusTheReindeer]

We have a four bed with three children (so same difference)

Couple guests have my room , the boys share and my DH and I have ds1s room

A single guest would have one of the boys rooms and the boys would share

We have guests about once a month so not too often

[Squashedinabox]

There are no extra rooms, 3 bedrooms and then one open hall/living/dining room area.

[Squashedinabox]

DH has suggested putting the DC in together and making a spare room. I'm not keen on this as the 2 DC have totally different sleeping patterns. Yes, they would love it, and if they would sleep the same then I would consider it but DC1 is a nightmare to get to sleep, wakes very early, DC2 is a dream - just put in bed and leave - usually sleeps later so I don't think its fair. He also pointed out, that it's fine now they are small, but later it's really not on to expect them to give up their rooms. Actually, I agree with this. And one is a girl, one a boy so long term sharing is not possible.

Is it unreasonable to expect an 80+ year old to sleep on a mattress on the floor?

I'd like to be able to invite over a friend from the UK and it seems very rude not to be able to offer somewhere to sleep! It's interesting reading all the options people use. Bunk beds ruled out in one DC room and the intended parents bedroom though as the ceiling slopes down so one wall is 1m.

[RuddyDuck]

We technically have a 4 bedroom house, but the smallest bedroom is very small and we use it as a study. Dc each have their own room. If their friends stay over then they sleep on the bedroom floor on fold out mattresses.

We do have 2 reception rooms though. One used to be the dcs playroom but since they became teens they live in their bedrooms and the room is fairly unused. We bought the best quality sofa bed we could, plus put a single bed in there which is dressed up with cushions etc to make it like a sofa. So if we have one adult guest they can choose the single bed or sofa bed, and if it's a couple they have the sofa bed.

Most of our visitors are family. When one set of relatives visits, they opt to stay at a nearby b&b, because they hate not having their own bathroom.

[Willow33]

Growing up, we gave our beds up for guests and when we went to stay at other people's houses, they gave their beds up for us but am not from a European background.
However I have now adopted the more inhospitable way of giving guests the sofa bed ;-)

[Fridayschild]

DC share the biggest room. The third bedroom is a study with a sofa bed, fine for one adult, a bit too small for two. But I am the only adult normally so I can move in there if I need to.

Dcs room is enormous. We cOuld get about eight children in there sleeping on the floor if we wanted too.

[ShoeWhore]

Not sure on sq m.

But have 3 dcs, 4 bedrooms. 2 dcs currently share, although this may change when they are older (for now they love it and are much nearer to us, so it works well)

Spare room has a double bed, so visiting couples or families with one baby sleep in there. When bigger families come to stay ds1 moves into his brothers' room and we put visiting children to sleep in his room. The dcs find all this loads of fun!

[Mrsladybirdface]

We're in a 3 bedroom bungalow with 2 DCs. DC1 has the biggest bedroom as it was originally the lounge. We have just just purchased this second hand (just waiting for new mattress to arrive)

triple bunk beds

It was so we can have guests and also because we're always bed swapping because of the DCs and I was fed up of ending up squished in a single bed!

[CrazyOldCatLady]

Ours is 92 square metres.

We don't accommodate visitors. DH and I have a double bed, DD has a toddler bed and DS is still in a cot. The only other place to sleep would be the couch and it's not comfy enough for sleeping.

We're moving the kids into Ikea Kura beds at Christmas which will give us some scope for sleepovers in the future.

[Doyouthinktheysaurus]

We have 3 bedrooms, both DS has their own room, one is more of a box!

Visitors aren't a problem, no one wants to stay

I think if we did entertain regularly, we would get a sofa bed in the lounge. Our kitchen/ diner is a very large and open plan with a sofa in, so we only normally use the lounge during the evening anyway.

I would hate to have people staying though, I'd have to clean, and talk to them

[thinking101]

We have three bedrooms.

My DM is the only one who comes to stay, shee sleep in our double bed and we sleep on sofas. She has health issues that just mean its more comfy for her to be in the bed.

Im sorry I dont know the floor space. But I feel we are bursting out of our house. I feel it it stresses me out, which I feel guilty for as it is nice, modest and in quite a good area, newish build. I moan about it.

So we dont have anyone else to stay becasue we dont have space. We have had kids sleep on blow on two occasions, but I'm never doing sleepovers again anyway

[sleepyhead]

We've recently moved to a 3 bed flat. Overall sqm is 72 and the bedrooms are all ok sized doubles (leaving the kitchen and livingroom both smaller than I'd like, but it was worth it for the extra bedroom).

We wanted 3 beds as there's a 6 year age gap between ds1 and ds2 so it would be harder for them to share happily when ds1's a teenager.

Currently ds2 has the slightly larger room (down to my mistake when getting the movers to put furniture into rooms and we couldn't be bothered changing it) and we put a sofa bed in there for when my parents etc stay over. Ds2 sleeps in a travel cot in ds1's room when there' guests.

Ds1 is still in an IKEA junior size bed so when ds2 moves out of his cot the plan is to move him into ds1's room (and bed), and to give ds1 the bigger room with a loft bed. There will be room for the sofa bed under the loft bed so that he can use it for sleepovers, and when guests stay he'll sleep on the floor in ds2's room.

We all shared one bedroom in our last flat though, so I think we're a lot less fussy about personal space than most people. Plus we don't have that many visitors so it's not like the dcs are being turfed out of their rooms every weekend by any means.

[Fairylea]

We have no room for visitors. But that's ok because we never ask anyone to stay :) (antisocial bastards).

We have two bedrooms on one side of the central staircase and one on the other. We gave our eldest dd the largest bedroom in the house next to the other bedroom which is now toddler sons room and we have the medium bedroom. We like not being right next to the kids as we don't have to worry about making any noise and waking them up.