Not enough space

[SJS1992]

I could really do with some advice, I have two girls (16&10) my partner has a boy and a girl.(9&7) We have another girl between us (2). We have my step kids 50% of the time but due to the time he starts work it doesn’t work out 50% overnight so we still pay a lot of maintenance. There mum won’t provide any clothes, uniform etc while they are here either . We are struggling for space. We’re in 3 bedroom rented house. 16 has own tiny box room. 2 is in our room still ( as soon as she doesn’t fit in her toddler bed she will need to go in with 10 because a single bed won’t fit in our room).
step kids have been in bunk bed and trundle in 10 room for the last few years but it isn’t big enough for 4 kids in there and my 10 is becoming very uncomfortable sharing with them. I’ve suggested they stay every other weekend ( he works every other weekend) and half terms etc but on blow up bed in lounge but I feel awful for suggesting it and it hasn’t really gone down well. Also my daughters don’t sleep at their dads for their own reasons not mine so this is my girls full time home.

Live separately OP. And do not put a toddler girl in with an older boy ridiculous suggestion from a PP.

Why should the mum provide clothes? He’s the DAD with responsibility as well, no? Maybe you should give up your room and sleep on a blow up bed? You both decided to live together knowing how many kids you have, this isn’t a surprise. What a way to make the kids feel not wanted than have to stay on a blow up bed.

I suggest a decent sofa bed in the lounge that you and DP sleep on when the DC are all at your house. Upstairs I suggest two singles that can zip together to make a double. You can get "small singles" that make a king size rather than standard singles that would make a super king-size double.
Not ideal but is a better option than inflatable beds, that will just make the DC feel unwelcome.

This.

You and DP on sofa bed in lounge, and then assess what’s biggest room and divide two non-box rooms up accordingly in relation to ages and genders of the four younger children.

OP I understand why you suggested your DP children changing to EOW given that he works anyway so they don’t really see each other during that time. And yes if you’re still paying a lot of maintenance despite being 50/50 then no reason mum can’t have them more.
Alternatively, you do the necessary to make it fully 50/50 (by the sound of it that’s a matter of 1 night or an extra few hours) and stop paying maintenance, then use the spare money to put towards renting a bigger house suitable for all of you.
Your DP needs to consider the reality here instead of just throwing money at his ex and expecting you to suck up extra childcare & living in a cramped house. If he’s so against the children being there less, he can deal with adjusting the finances so you can afford to move and be comfortable, rather than being annoyed at you for trying to find other solutions.

While you’re living there, I do think that if they were to stay over less, you absolutely would need to let them have your room and you and DP sleep downstairs, otherwise it will make them feel so sidelined in favour of your own children.

Overall, the best thing you can do is buy a sofa bed or blow up bed for you and DP to sleep on for now, and let all the children have the bedrooms. It’s a rubbish situation but the best solution until you can move to a bigger house.

You mention that your 10 year old is becoming uncomfortable sharing with your partners 9 & 7 year old. Thats understandable.
But no mention of how the 9 & 7 year old feel about their sleeping arrangements. You refer to the room the 3 share as the 10 year old's room despite them all sharing for a few years.
Its very unfair that to fix this problem , you are thinking of the 9 & 7 year old being on a blow up bed in the sitting room.
How would this even be managed? Are they to wait until everyone is finished using the room in the evening, before they go to bed? Or has everyone to stop using the room at say 8pm when the 7 year old goes to bed?

I agree with previous posters.
Its very unfair that your 2 older children are allowed to stay at your home full time and you ask for your partners children's time to be reduced to every 2nd weekend.
Also either your partner & his 9 & 7 year olds sleep in 1 bedroom & you & your 10 & 2 year old sleep in 2nd bedroom. With the 16 year old remaining in boxroom.

Or you buy a sofa bed for the sitting room that your partner & you use. With his children in your old room & your 2 year in with the 10 year old. Your partner & you can sleep in your room when his 2 aren't there. I would suggest a double bed with a single bunk bed above it

Yet another utterly selfish pair of pricks, thinking of themselves and not the children they already had then making the wise decision to bring another into the shit show 😆

1st of all it's not their mums responsibility to provide anything for the kids at the dad's house thats 100% the dad's responsibility.
2nd if he doesn't do 50% of overnights he doesn't have his dc 50% of the time.
3rd the solution to not having enough space isn't having his dc less.
What you need to do is move out of your room and sleep in the sitting room which frees up an extra bedroom, the 16 year old keeps her room the 10 year old shares with her stepsister and the 7 year old shares with the toddler.
If your DSS is 9 then he gets the single room your older two share a room and then the 7 year old shares with the toddler.
I think you need to give your head a wobble and stop blaming mum for your and your dhs poor planning on his ex, also if your dh drops down to everywhere weekend his cms will go up

1. chOld maintenance doesn’t agree with that we’ve asked them
2. he works to early and their mum doesn’t want me to help. I’ve helped in the past while she went on holiday without them and it caused a row
3. im not suggesting we have them less just not overnight during the school week. They will still come over just not sleep.

there is no need to be nasty. You don’t know the whole story just the basics. My head doesn’t need wobbling thanks

Thank you and thank you for understanding

Why cant you move house? I’m not surprised it’s not gone down well, it’s completely unacceptable to ask them to reduce over nights or anything else really because their dad has replaced them with other kids. Prioritise moving house and embrace the chaos until then.

So you think it is acceptable to tell your stepchildren that they should now just be daytime guests of their dad during the week because your own children take priority in terms of space? Unbelievably selfish.

Yeah, and the basics are that you’re got more children than you can house…

Assuming that you're talking to me yes your dh is responsible for all clothes and nesscaries for his dc at his house. Whether you help by getting his dc to school or not is nothing to do with their mum when you're on his time.
Yes you are suggesting that you have them less by only letting them stay over every other weekend.
What you are now adding to your op after getting massive amounts of pushback on dropping to EoW is having them for dinner half the week and sending them home to sleep at mums is eveb worse as its othering them especially when combined with them sleeping in the sitting room.
Yes you do need to give your head a wobble and I'm not being nasty just honest.
Oh you do realise that your dh is paying less cms because he gets a break for living with your older 2 dc aswell as your joint child, and that the cms only consider overnights so he'd be down to 48 per year so his cms would increase

That’s hilarious. You cannot get the child maintenance service to comment on anything at all.
But they would direct you to their website which gives you a list of all the helpful things that your child maintenance contributes towards
It’s nice if parents can share clothes and toothbrushes etc. And depending on the co parenting relationship some do.
So it says a lot about yours that you don’t

You and dh buy a sofa bed and sleep downstairs and then everyone has a room. Why did you have more kids when you didnt have the space to house them all before? Yabu big time.

Ludicrous to claim the CMS has told you the mother should pay for all clothes out of maintenance. That just would never have happened.

Where does the 16 yo have a place to study? In GCSE years?

Is there a plan to improve work hours/job so that you'll be able to move to a bigger place at some point in the future? If you're stuck where you are, is there space to have something like this rollaway bed in the lounge:

https://www.rollbed.co/?utm_source=ig&utmmedium=social&utmcontent=linkinbio&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMjU2MjgxMDQwNTU4AAGn5AeB88Uvfi72zi3aWbqkKyk6E1EOsIWuDdrd6O2at6sqrd0KKiSIdncnIDwaemvhIL0dOqCKuI5IL17wkqtA

Whilst the above beds aren't in production yet, maybe you could ask a skilled carpenter if they could make something similar? Or, as someone else suggested, you and DH sleep on a sofabed or blow up mattress in the lounge?

Nobody’s gonna do all that work to a rental property.
The landlord probably wouldn’t allow it in the first place
As for a skilled carpenter, it would probably be cheaper to move houses

Why do people do this to their children? You should have stayed living separately and not had another child. Poor kids.

There mum won’t provide any clothes, uniform etc while they are here either .

Why would she?!

I admit this touches a nerve - I am just over two years past splitting up with my ex, and I still get regular texts expecting me to provide clothing, usually at short notice. It is so bloody tedious. Your partner is still expecting wifework from his ex. He needs to sort out clothing and uniform for his children when he has them.

im not suggesting we have them less just not overnight during the school week. They will still come over just not sleep

This isn’t a perfect solution but people do get a bit hung up about overnighting (how much does anyone benefit from togetherness when everyone is asleep?), so it might be worth considering?

it’s all very well saying ‘buy a bigger house’ or :’you shouldn’t have had baby no 5’ but neither sentiment is helpful. Also, if the DH is away a lot, why are the children visiting in his absence? This isn’t helping with the over crowding

Psychologically it can be very difficult for children if they aren't welcome to sleep at their parents' house most of the time - a home is a place you sleep in, and having to go over to dad's for a few hours before being sent back to mum's to sleep could also be logistically disruptive depending how far away the two parents live. Your adult perspective that no one talks to each other while sleeping is missing the point that for stepchildren, it could make them feel less wanted and less secure.

It doesn’t matter what the mum thinks when the kids are at yours (as people on here always say), if you and your boyfriend are ok with you helping, you help. Then it will be easier for you all