New house- where should DC sleep?

[LongLiveGoblingKing]

We are moving soon to a four bed house which has two bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms downstairs. We have two DC aged 2.5 and newborn.

Of course newborn will be in with us for the foreseeable. And in the future both boys will be upstairs/ will have their own floor which I hope they will find quite cool! We will sleep downstairs. The 4th room needs to be a WFH office.

Once newborn is ready to go into their own room, which configuration would you go with?

A) toddler downstairs and baby upstairs. Toddler gets out of bed and comes into our room a lot, so he can still do this, and I don't want him on the stairs when he's sleepy. It does mean we have to go upstairs for baby wakings.

B) baby sleeps downstairs because he will wake most often. We put baby gates upstairs and teach toddler not to leave his room at night and shout us if he wants us.

C) both boys go upstairs.

Any opinions welcome. Thanks!

I personally would put both upstairs. We lived in a house that had attic bedroom and the kids were up there and we were on the floor below and seemed to work ok, to be fair mine have never got out of bed tho (not something I’ve consciously taught them to do!).

I agree, both upstairs.

All of you upsty, boys share a room

All upstairs. Boys share a room until they’re both big enough to not need you in the night.

All of you should be upstairs or downstairs and they share a room when baby is big enough until your eldest is 5-6+ and can confidentally manage stairs. My friend’s toddler died after falling downstairs (and through a stairgate) so I would never, ever risk it with kids this age.

@Ozanj that is horrendous. Your poor friend.

All on the same floor with young children.

I would put them on the same floor as you until they were about 6 or so sharing a room.

Exact same configuration here OP
There were 3.5 years between our two and baby moved in with sibling at six months old so we were all on the same floor
Siblings were different gender so we split them up at 9 and 6 but up until then it worked really well and they missed each other when separated. I initially stressed about them having to share as I thought they’d disturb each other but they didn’t - they loved sharing

Agree all on the same floor until they are older.

As pp have said; boys share a room until they're old enough to not need you overnight. We have a similar situation; a 4 bed house and 4yr, 3yr and 3m boys. Ds1 and 2 share

Also all upstairs

Bedrooms upstairs. Adults in one, children in the other

Then downstairs you can have playroom in one bedroom and office in the other. Meaning upstairs bedroom can be kept for naps and other child still play when one is asleep etc. Toys downstairs more practical when small

I would also go for all upstairs for a few years. Kids usually like sharing a room when they are small anyway.

That said, I grew up in a house in which my brother and I slept upstairs and our parents were downstairs, and it was fine. I was always creeping downstairs in the night in my plastic-footed seventies sleepsuit; god knows how I didn’t slip on the carpet on our unusually steep stairs. No stair gates in those days either, and my father had removed all the spindles from the staircase as well, for reasons best known to him. Not ideal, looking back.

All upstairs!
Never have your young children sleeping deeper or higher in a house than you, in case a fire breaks out.
Toddlers aren't woken up by fire alarms so you need to be able to run past their rooms, picking them up out of bed, directly on your way to the front door to escape if a fire started in the night.
If it started upstairs you might not be able to reach them at all (especially with baby gates between you to faff with) and if it started downstairs you might not have time to go up, get them and then get back down and out with everybody before it got large enough to block your way out.

I agree with pp - boys share while they are small and you have the other downstairs bedroom. Make the fourth bedroom downstairs a playroom / guest room. I won’t have my small children sleeping on a different floor to me. I’m sure many people do it just fine and that’s grand for them but it’s not for me.

I agree with everyone else, it's what happened when we were kids - 2 beds upstairs with 3rd downstairs bedroom as playroom, we all shared (it was a big room), then my parents had to do an extension and we all moved about sharing, then smaller own rooms, then bigger as people left home/went to Uni etc. Quite a squash when all teenage but wasn't long till we started moving out.

We did B) - baby in room next to us and toddler upstairs. However our toddler DD was scared of the stairs/dark and had a monitor so she never tried coming downstairs, just called for us.

TBH by the time your newborn is ready for their own room, which will be several months, your DC1 will be a lot more competent on stairs.

I would put them both upstairs im not sure why you would even consider putting them down until much much older, kids can share a room especially ones so close in age

All upstairs. And then when they are old enough let the boys have their own rooms and you move downstairs.

You need to be on the same floor as both of them until they are about 4.

All on the same floor. We live in a 3 storey house with bedrooms on the top two floors. Currently the 6 year old and 3 year old share a room because I want us all on the same floor and this way, they have to pass our door to get to the stairs. Dc2 was walking before one and climbing out of her cot at around 17 months. Stairgates presented no issues either. I don't think I could relax if they were on a different floor at that stage.

Dc1 is moving to his own room down a floor in the next month or so and that's as a sensible 6 year old with a GPS watch that can call our mobiles in an emergency.

Arf at all these “they can share”. My DC have been terrible sleepers right up to primary school age. Them sharing a room would have been torture.

Why would you have a 4 bed house and only use two of the bedrooms? Makes no sense. Parents sleep on a different floor to their young DC up and down the country.

I don’t know anyone that sleeps on a different floor to their toddler tbh! If anything then I think the parents should sleep down and the kids upstairs

I agree with others. Both children need to be in a bedroom together, upstairs, with you in the bedroom next to them. Don't be on a different floor to your young child.