Nursery for new baby, takes away bedroom for DSS

[Biffasum11]

Hi All,

Just need some advice from those that have maybe been in my shoes. Me and my husband have been married 3 years and are now expecting our first baby together. My husband has a dauggter with another woman who is almost 7. I have been in DSD life since she was two. We live in a three bed semi and saved to buy it. Currently we have our master bedroom , our spare room that is my dressing room/ DSD room when she's here. She's is here once a month for the weekend due to distance. Her mum moved 300 miles away when she was 1 year old. Our third bedroom is a box room and is now an office due to me working from home. We only have a small lounge dinner and very small kitchen so I needed a dedicated work space. Now my baby arrival is fairly soon. I would love a nursery I have always envisioned a lovely space with a rocking chair and a cot with all their little bits. Realistically we do need the spare room space for the baby as our living space would be too small and cluttered to keep everything there. But this would mean DSD has no room at ours and would need to sleep on a blowup bed or on the sofa. I do feel awful but at the same time I would love to have a decorated nursery. We can't move right now as would mean paying large sum for early repayment for our fixed rate. And just makes little sense to throw away thousands and we wouldn't get a four bed for what we could afford once we pay those charges. Plus when it's just us two house size is no issue. Should I feel like I'm just evil ? Husband seems fine to make me a nursery and doesn't seem to have any guilt so should I just enjoy it and not overhthink?

Sorry title says DSS was meant to be DSD was a typo

No you’re stepdaughter needs her own space.

Give her the office room. Let her choose paint colours and bedding and curtains to make it her own.

You have either a nursery or an office. Pick whichever one is more important and use the box room for that

Is there room for a cot and a bed in the spare room? Couldn't the baby share with her big sister once the baby is old enough to be away from you at night? Then for the weekend your DSD is here they could either share, or the baby comes back in with you. You can still decorate the room for the baby, but not having a bed seems to indicate there's not really a place for your DSD at her dad's house. It's hard to see how she wouldn't feel like the baby was replacing her if she loses her bed when it arrives.

Congratulations on your pregnancy.

Newborns tend to be in with their parents for the first few months but what’s the longer term plan for the children? Sleeping on a sofa is not an option, even occasionally. And it would be a dreadful signal to DSD.

Can they not share the room?

Does DSD come for holidays too or is it just 12 weekends a year?

Surely you can make a joint office/guest room that she can use? Just let her choose the bedding, a couple of draws for her stuff and a storage area for her favorite toys? Then a desk you can use?

I need my office for work long term if I'm honest, will be fine for my maternity but once I'm back I'd have to reclaim the space after 6 months ... a deck with my monitors and chair. A bed wont fit in there too.

yabu she needs her own room , you don't need an office and dressing room

Pretty sure if you move house you don't need to pay an early repayment fee, you just switch your mortgage to the new property.

But anyway, you have 3 bedrooms, I think it's unfair to make a child sleep on the sofa in this situation. Move your office downstairs or put a small bed in the office room along with a small desk.

You can’t take away her room at the time she’s getting a half-sister and give her no dedicated space at yours

Can she not be in the box room? With or without your office stuff?

What will happen if your step daughter moves in with you in the future? Sleeping on the couch is what a very occasional guest does, it will make her feel so pushed out and replaced by the new baby.

Baby goes into box room, then get a garden room home office for when you return to work. Space for WFH won't be an issue when you're off on mat leave anyway, and that's a plenty of time to get something sorted in the garden.

Your DH is being a right knob for not seeing how displacing DSD and not giving her her own space in your home could make her feel.

I am currently pregnant and have a DSS as much as we would love a nursery I would never do that to DSS he will keep his room and the baby will be in with us until we move in a year or two it's his space and I would never take that from him

You'll have to set up office space for yourself elsewhere and give each child a room each.

Are the children the same sex? If so they can have bunk beds and share when they're older.

Yes I think you will need to move your office space to your bedroom or downstairs. Could you create an outdoor office space for yourself?

Or, put your office in your 'dressing room and use the box room for the nursery. Then add a single bed into the new office room.

Yabu.

So at the minute you have your room, your dressing room and your office. Dsd has to bunk in the dressing room and now your baby is coming along she gets bumped all together?

Move your clothes into your room.
Put dsd in the boxroom.
Baby and your office share the bigger room as you will either be on mat leave and not need the office or working and baby will be in childcare/with dad.

I would also stop thinking of it as the spare room/your dressing room. It’s your step daughters room. Perhaps she could share with the baby. If you do push her out I’d prepare for the fact that she probably won’t want to visit for much longer as she gets older.

While it's nice to have a nursery you don't really need one for a newborn imo, baby will be sleeping in your room first so that'll give you a few more months to think about it

I'd forget about it for now and keep baby in your room for the first year or even two. You can still decorate a lovely nursery area in your room.

Why can't you have a high sleeper in the box too with your desk underneath? They do ones specifically for this

OP, when you were fantasizing about decorating the nursery, that fantasy probably did not include your partner having another child.

Unfortunately, as adults we are called upon to deal with reality and that often means forgoing or modifying the fantasy.

You will have not 1 but 2 children calling your house home. It should be a home in which they both have adequate spacing and neither is made to feel like a visitor or guest.

Perhaps , you can decorate the room in a manner that is appropriate for both a new born and a slightly older sibling. There are many unisex type accents and decorations available for purchase.

Youll have to make the office an office/dressing room then, and get the kids to share once baby is older. We decorated 2 walls of our spare room for DSS and 2 walls for DD, it worked fine, they kind of had half each. You can't take DSD's bed away, that's shitty. Put yourself in her shoes.

Long term plan is buy a 4 bed the moment we can. But will realistically be 2 years away I'd say. The third room is tiny, it would be a struggle to get a bed in there and draws without a desk. I have quite a bit of equipment with my job.