AIBU about bedrooms?

[Bedroomdebate]

NC but regular poster

I have a dilemma but am very prepared to be told I am being unreasonable.

Me and DH have a 4 year old DD together and DH has a 13 year old DS from previous marriage. DSS has autism not wholly relevant but for context.

We co parent really well with DH EX ( we are all very amicable ) and DSS lives with us 50% of the time. I adore DSS and when he's here I parent him like my own.

So my dilemma. We live in a very standard 3 bed mid terrace. We can't extend so this is our house for the foreseeable as we can't move either .

We have 2 double rooms and 1 box room. DSS has the largest of the rooms and DD has the box room which was fine if she was still a baby but is now starting to cause us some issues.

DD has large toys like dolls houses and sets she can't fit in due to her room ( and no where else for them to go) and also would like her friends to come over to play in her room and In contrast DSS here half time only wants to play his tv / console or tablet and use his bed or desk area .

Now IF ( and appreciate this is a huge if) they were both my biological children I would ask DSS if he would consider changing rooms so Dd could play with toys as she would get more out of the space and could have friends to play in her room BUT DH won't consider this idea at all.

I can't work out if I'm being massively unreasonable in considering a room switch so child who is always here can have bigger room to play with toys.

DSS has a lovely large bedroom at his mums house to.

Every time I try to mention with DH he shuts the conversation down.

Thoughts fellow step parents ? Am I being mean even thinking about this .

For further context house is jointly mine and DH we brought it a year before DD arrived .

We would absolutely do this if we do decide to do it !

The autism is a huge point! We are incredibly lucky that DSS autism has never been impacted by change! But it's a huge consideration .

I'm going to have a think on all of these replies !

Moving the wall is something to look into! We couldn't do it ourselves. We are not DIY competent.

I did want to stress again thou. If both were my children I would have swapped them by now on the pure basis that one does not use the space of their room and one does. And by using it I mean the enjoyment they get out of their room as opposed to the time they spend there

could you sell it to him? I.e new decorations, high sleeper bed with room for a gaming chair etc?
I would do this too. But ultimately if he didn't want to I wouldn't push it, especially since with autism he might find the change hard? Not quite the same but we had our two younger boys sharing when there were two empty rooms that were their older brothers' (both at uni at the time and only home rarely). I felt it was important for their rooms to stay as was until they bought their own places (20 years gap between them), as that was 'home' to them. It is a tricky balance!

If SS doesn't want to move how about a higher bed for your daughter with a place underneath to play? Toy kitchen in your kitchen?

Could you have a conversation with dss along the lines of "we've got a problem, dd can't fit her toys in her room. I wonder what we could do?"

And if you get super lucky he might suggest a swap.

Or you could ask if he minds her keeping one of her bigger toys in his room.

Or is he too smart and would see right through those sorts of conversations straight away?

Your kids is four when he moves out she can have the bigger room. If she has so many fucking toys that they can't fit in a room you should consider that before kicking this kid out of his room.
Sorry but although I don't know what you look like I have this mental image of you pacing up and down, jabbing furiously at your phone while muttering under your breath!

NB just another point that you might not have considered. He will need a double bed at some point (ours was 14 and 6ft 2 so he has just gone into a double) so if you do go to the trouble of redecorating you'll probably find this problem rears up again pretty quickly.

Sounds sensible. My dsis gave her boy (15) the smallest bedroom for the same reason. Her dd (8) has doll houses, baby pram etc. my nephew doesn't care and has been asked if he would want to swap in a year or two as niece loses interest in toys but he doesn't want to.

I would get quotes for moving walls to create 2 more equally sized rooms for the children.

I would then sit with DH & DSS and have a conversation about all possible solutions.

It might be that if DSS moves into smaller room , there may be money available to get new furniture and improve his gaming setup.

Makes sense. Two kids can chop and change over the years if need be.

One family I know the youngest has bigger room for her 3 to 10 year old years as older one didnt have toys anymore. Then youngest went to box room when all needed was a bed and wanted to watch telly most of their chill time. Allowing the older one to have space with her boyfriend when she was I'm her later teens. Then older went to uni so younger went back into big room and again space with friends/boyfriend to stay over. It's just needs at the time. Not to mention resident child should have more space. The DSS has space at his mums to spread his stuff out.

I think I’d keep him in the bigger room until he finishes school and then swap. Maybe agree that you can keep a big box of toys in his room or something.

errrr (bit rude btw) it's something to consider, that's all. We don't know how big your box room is or her's, or how big the family are.

My eldest was actually 6'4 by 15, all in two years of growth, and no he wouldn't fit in a single unless I folded him up. But also, even if he did fit, it might not be the best use of space to have a 6 foot something teen boy squished into a box room while the tween next door gets all the space.

And that's before we talk about girlfriends sleeping over. Or boyfriends.

But yeah, sorry for my totally negative post

I’d def switch the rooms. You can help make it work for DSS by getting some gaming equipment or letting him paint it however he likes etc etc.

😆

The rooms should be swapped, or the walls changed if you can stretch to that. The obvious solution is that they switch and DSS gets to decorate his new room. It's worrying that your DH shuts down rather than considering his DD.

Ask him - see what response you get.

What goes on in his mums house is irrelevant am sick to death of people making this an excuse for doing something to the Step child. It is what goes on in this house with this family - the rest is irrelevant. If both families applied the only here 50% rule, so oft used to justify actions on this forum then then DSC would be fucked in both households but at least it would be equal prioritisation of their needs being less than their siblings.

If having the big room is important to him and he is swapped then will be easy to see what the result will be

In reality, sometimes it is only practical to consider the fact that they have two households. If the best case scenario can't be met and both children can't have a large room to store their things, then the fact that one of them has another bedroom to store many of those things is relevant. The other child doesn't have that option. People are very idealistic on here but in real life people often do have to consider the practicalities.

I don't like the idea of using the other parents house as storage personally. Depends on the relationship but it seems a bit presumptuous to me to give DSS a box room on the basis that he can store his hockey sticks etc at his mum's house.

If I was the other parent that would annoy me. Space is expensive where I live and I would feel I was being asked to subsidise the other family.

I’m with your DH. It’s not right to take a 13year olds bedroom away from them so that it can be given to a sibling.

The youngest child will know no different, so even if they are in a less convenient space, it is of not detriment to them at all. The oldest child is very unlikely to agree happily to having his room taken away so there will be difficult feelings and emotions mixed in with that however perfectly you handle the situation. You’re basically taking two children who are happy with the way things are and causing a shit storm for the sake of space for a dolls house.

But prioritising DSS could negatively affect your DD. Why is he more important? Go with what's most practical, her with biggest room. He has two ffs.

My small dc never played with their toys alone in their room - they always wanted to play downstairs near us. So I'd just look to make good storage choices dow

Downstairs and have her room for sleep, lots of books and soft toys etc.

I grew up the youngest of 3, meaning I always had the box room. It's tough really!

Do remember that with such a big age gap, dss is likely to be around less/university before the dd is old enough to complain that she wants his room

To me it sounds like the difficulty isn't so much the rooms, the swapping or the decorating. It's getting your dh to discuss it. I understand why he doesn't want to make his ds feel like he is losing out. But I don't understand why he is nor prepared to have the conversation about it.

There's a risk in these situations that the family dynamics end up with dss being 'his' child and dd becoming 'your' child, and the whole situation becoming adversarial with you both defending 'your' child. When in reality dd belongs to both of you, and dss is a member of the family as a whole. So this is a family situation to solve.

Maybe you can try a pp tactic, not on dss but on dh. Come at it as a challenge to solve, not a situation where you know the answer, because he's clearly resistant to your answer. 'We need to talk about the storage situation for dd's toys, and space for her to play. Her room as is, is too small for the toys she has. What is the solution?' And give him the challenge to solve.

Be prepared to listen to and consider his suggestions, he might come up with something that works, that isnt swapping rooms, but push him to have the discussion on solving the problem. If he won't even have the discussion, then you have a bigger problem than toy storage on your hands and you need to be able to resolve that first, because this won't be the last time this kind of issue comes up between the two kids.

Good point from PPs
, DSS will be off to university when DD is approaching her teens, I'd make the swap then.

Could you ask DSS if he would mind swapping rooms OR allowing your DD to keep her dolls house in his room. That way you’re giving him options and he’s more likely to want to move