What bed should I get for DC room?

[lisboa80]

An interior design / parenting question!

We are renting a small home, hoping / planning to stay a handful more years and likely move to a larger place just before secondary school years commence. Only child is currently 4. He is sleeping on a converted toddler bed, around 140 length. I'd love to get a large adult bed for him but his room is teeny tiny. One factor is that I'd like to be able to lie down next to him if / when he's sick, and also sit next to him on his bed to read bedtime stories. The current bed is too small and weak to allow this!

We can comfortably fit a 180cm length "shorter" single, which is the best we will have to cope with until he's possibly aged 7/8/9 who knows. Hopefully that would allow me to sit with him sometimes.

Questions I have are:

• he currently rolls out if his toddler bed most nights but it's very low down and he sorts himself out. At this age is it worth getting a side rail for a normal height bed or are we just teaching him to stop rolling off the bed? If so, how?

• should I be clever and think long term about the type of bed to buy as he is starting school this year? Eg one with a desk? Or one with a rollout bed for a friend? He's never had a sleepover yet but I imagine they start in primary do they? Or is this a waste?

• aesthetically a simple bedstead with empty space underneath would look nicest as the room is small so I don't want it to look cluttered.

Any ideas / what did you do with your DC if space was tight?

Our youngest slept in a toddler bed until aged 6, then we got her a SMÅSTAD loft bed from IKEA. We had to set it up with the wardrobe opening up under the bed, as the room is so small that the bed fills the width of the room from wall to wall! This really doesn't tick your box of wanting to sit down on the bed, of course. Our child's toddler bed was perfectly strong enough for a grown-up to perch on the edge to read a story or comfort a sick child, though. Is yours really so weak that this is impossible?

Making maximum use of the space under the bed was the only way we could see of fitting everything into her little bedroom, so I was slightly surprised you said on the one hand that your child's room was 'teeny tiny' but on the other that you were thinking of using a bedstead with empty space underneath. In my experience spaces under beds always end up being used for storage - more so in small bedrooms - and it's better to plan for this than to end up with a muddle of boxes and junk under there.

Yes you could be right about storage @CasperGutman . At present we are able to fit in a giant chest of drawers which contains everything and all his toys are kept downstairs bar a few. The bed is really weak and cracks whenever my husband sits down on it! So we definitely need a proper bed, just a smaller size as the wall length is only 180cm.