Room sharing not working out…

[LongLostSleep]

Hi,

Looking for some advice on bedroom sharing in blended families and how we could perhaps do things differently to maintain a positive family dynamic whilst also making best use of our space…

I have a 6 year old daughter from my previous marriage who lives with us two thirds of the time, including almost all school days. My partner has two daughters, 9 and 12, from his previous marriage. They spend every other weekend and half of school holidays with us.

We have a 1 year old daughter together.

For context, we live in a 5 bed house which has the master bedroom, another large bedroom & a small ish bedroom on the first floor, with two very large bedrooms on the top floor. The current room set up is:

We are in the master bedroom
The first floor large bedroom is the guest bedroom
The small ish room is DD1’s, although she’s still mostly in with us (terrible sleeper!)

On the top floor, my DD6 shares a room with partner’s DD9, and partner’s DD12 has the other room.

We both work from home, so my partner has the study downstairs, and we have recently made a little office ‘corner’ in the spare room for when I return to work in a few weeks time.

The issue we have is with DD6 and SD9 sharing a bedroom. When we moved into this house we decided to put the two girls in together as my parents would regularly stay over to provide childcare and other help, so we wanted a spare room. DD6 and SD9 are very similar in terms of interests, and we thought it would be nice for them to share…. For several reasons. However, it has been a bit of a rocky road so far. SD9 has on several occasions been caught stealing from DD6, and has done several ‘sneaky’ things such as hide DD6’s pocket money/precious belonging etc. This has led to difficulty trusting SD9 on my part, and questions about jealousy/insecurity etc all of which we are trying to address with compassion and understanding.

SD12 is starting to want her own space so we felt a room to herself was appropriate, despite it only being used a few nights a fortnight.

DD6 naturally has a lot more ‘stuff’ here due to schooling, hobbies etc all taking place from here, and SD9 and SD12 regularly take things from this house back to their ‘main’ home with mum. Something else we have been trying to address but it’s very difficult for several reasons. This also means SD12’s room (which is huge) is often feeling very empty and disused so to speak.

Anyway, there’s a lot more to it than that, but I am curious to know….

How would you lay rooms out in this house? Do you think a spare room is a waste of space? Do you think it’s right to have DD6 and SD9 sharing? Their relationship is good, I’d say, but there are definite undertones of jealousy and possibly even resentment building on SD9’s part.

Thanks in advance!! Xx

.... with perhaps a pull down bed, or decent sofa bed (not a crappy one they're awful!

The easiest solution is that the actual sisters should share. just moving in together does not make the 6 and 9 yo sisters. That relationship rakes time to develop.

do You or your partner take a lot of calls or is your work quiet? Would it be realistic to share an office? If so, move the rooms around so the two of you share and everyone gets their own bedroom. Your shared office can host a bed of some kind. If not, then the siblings will just need to share.

The sisters share they are the same sex it's fine, stick a IKEA 5x5 kallax with boxes down the middle as a divider, if you chequer board the colour boxes the girls can have one colour each for their belongings.

The children who live their for the majority of the time have their own rooms.

Spare room and office stays as is and if the older girl is desperate to sleep in her a room on her own she can use it when GP not their and keep her belongings in the other room.

Could you give SD12 your 'spare' room but keep a double bed so GPs could stay when she's not there? or as others have said, perhaps you could divide the big room for both girls to share?

How often do you and DH both work at home? Are you happy having just a 'corner' while he has a whole room?

Using the spare room is a no brainier. I also wouldn't assume that the 6 year old doesn't annoy the f out of the 9 yo. The way it's written makes it sound like the issues lies squarely with your SD and her justifiable jealousy of seeing her own father spend more time with someone else's child than he does with her but 6 yo can really wind up a 9yo.

Wow, I didn’t expect so many replies - thank you everyone for your input, there’s a lot to digest & think about but I do appreciate everyone’s views & suggestions.

FWIW my ex husband was emotionally manipulative and abusive and to this day (almost 4 years on) I still struggle to put myself and my children first. I have this fear that either my DP or DSDs will resent me for putting 6yo DD first/prioritising her in the house over DSDs so wanted to try to be ‘generous’ towards 12yo DSD by suggesting she have her own room, and we felt we needed spare room at the time as GPs would stay several nights a week. DP often works away and I had quite bad postpartum depression after the birth of our baby.

I am well aware of my 6yo’s need for privacy however in our old house whenever DSDs were staying my 6yo would be in floods of tears at bedtime saying she wanted to share a bedroom with them both, she felt excluded etc etc. It broke my heart to see her so upset when she spent all week excited for their arrival - I began to dread bedtimes as she’s end up in such a state. She would regularly end up sleeping on her mattress in their (shared) room as and when DSDs were happy for her to do so. Whilst they aren’t sisters they’re blooming close & you wouldn’t know which of them were blood sisters to watch them playing together.

Anyway it was DD’s wish to share a room in the new house, and 9yo DSD was on board with the idea too as it meant she’d be in the bigger room. In hindsight it was probably a poor judgment call on our part but we thought we were doing the right thing at the time.

I’ll try to reply to as many individual comments as I can…

Neither I nor my daughter feel that her space is ‘invaded’ when her step sisters come. She loves her step sisters dearly and spends most of the week asking me how many sleeps until they’re coming. When they arrive, she’s like an excited puppy bouncing off the walls, and they’re all over the moon to see each other, running around and giggling. We honestly couldn’t wish for them to have a better relationship, other than the understandable jealousy/resentment I mentioned in my original post, which is to be expected & which we are doing our best to help all of the girls through.

DD would probably be devastated to no longer be sharing a room with DSD, but I feel it would be the best move in the long run, and would probably improve their relationship. I was simply unsure of the best way to go about this and have received some really helpful suggestions & insights.

DD has been the centre of my world for the past 6 years, she’s the reason I left my abusive marriage and fought so hard to give her the childhood she deserved. She is loved beyond words. Your comment re ‘pecking order’ felt a little unnecessary, but thanks for your input.

She's six.

You clear have not properly considered the impact of room sharing.

I remain unconvinced by your comment on that.

DD1 stays where she is
DD6 moves into the spare room. You can keep an eye on any pilfering but it also allows you to effectively "cut off" the top floor on weekends when it's not in use, turn down the heating a bit, not have to clean the bathroom and so on.

Then the two loft rooms. The sisters can either choose to share the biggest room at which point it's decorated etc with them in mind, wardrobes, desks, privacy design and the rest.
The other room is a study/guest room but may be impractical to work from there during school hols when teen music hits new levels and may not be to your taste.

Or they have a room each on the basis that they will be used [and decorated accordingly] as spare rooms when they are not there. This assumes the GP's are still regular and frequent guests.

I would try to have an open conversation with them. It's your and DH's house, it's not set in stone indefinitely, needs will change especially as they all get older. It may be more practical to have a bedroom as a tv room/den when they are all older depending on your ground floor layout. We have a loft room which is impractical for daily use but has become a great sleepover crash pad.

Or since I have just seen your update. Set up both loft rooms for 2 kids each. DD1 will move up there once she's out of a cot and fully potty trained. It's not a long term solution given you'll have two nearly full time at home but may make everyone feel fairly treated in the meantime.
Gives you a spare room and a study, plus a cot room for DD1/sick bay for others in due course.

@RedToothBrush I 100% agree that we didn’t properly consider the impact of room sharing; we’re not perfect parents (is anyone?!) and I’m still trying to figure out this whole stepparent/blended family set up. We’re learning as we go - is that such a crime? 😃 my family is everything to me, but just because I love my children & my step children it doesn’t mean I make all the right decisions all the time!

I'd put your DD6 in the big (current guest) room. DD1 in the small room (in a few years time you can swap things around if it's too small

DSD can have one room each upstairs but when guests come they share and guests sleep in the other.

The DSD will have to accept that their room is tastefully decorated so its guest appropriate but as they are really only there for any length of time during holidays that shouldn't be a problem.

You can have tasteful bed linen that is also appropriate for young girls. Like plain white. You could have lovely scatter cushions and a throw that you add when guests come.

I'd put the youngest in the guest room and let her share with you or even with one of her siblings when the room is needed for guests. She might even find it fun. Then the others can have their own rooms.

Why not ask the girls what they want to do?

Divide the massive room to create individual spaces for SC1&SC2 using offset bunks like this. Let DD(6) have her own room for now but when the baby is old enough do the same in the other large bedroom so that all children have a small private space. The guest room shouldn't be one of the largest rooms when there's 4 kids needing space. If that's a problem then the thing to sacrifice would be having a dedicated study. Lots of people have to deal with the study space being a corner of a dining room or the master bedroom, it's totally feasible.

Ridiculous to keep a spare room in these circumstances. Give each child their own room. One child can either come in with you, or share with their siblings when grandparents stay.

Give yourself a corner 'office' in some other downstairs room. Or your own room for that matter. Or invest in an outbuilding.

I wouldn't beat yourself up. My kids happily shared for years and lasted about 2 weeks of lockdown before we cracked with all the bickering and moved them into separate rooms.

Things change, the handy thing [and luckily for you] is to have the space to flex and to not have decorated in such a way that you can't move stuff around as they change. It will change again when your oldest DSD is doing GSCE's for example, or someone decides that they want to learn the drums....

I do think that you will always have the dynamic where a child who isn't there the majority of the time will feel a bit of an invader coming home to a room which has been inhabited by someone else more or less all the time. Things will have been moved, routines will need adjusting and so on. So it might be better for the DSD to share especially if they have their own space at home with their mum. Then the room can be to all intents and purposes closed and locked away from small hands who want to play with their stuff when they are not there.

You sound lovely OP and have been amazing to find the strength to leave your abusive ex and form a new happy family for yourself and your DD6. Well done you.

When my cousins were small they moved to a house with one big room on the top floor. My aunt and uncle got builders to put in an actual proper wall and new door so it was split into two proper bedrooms. One room was smaller than the other but that was fine. This meant my cousins all had their own rooms. I thought this was really clever!

Is this a possibility with DD12's huge room? Actually properly dividing it into two with a real wall and doors. No child needs a huge room. A single bed, wardrobe and desk will suffice.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

This. But if they need to stay a lot then the two SDs share when they stay.