Family bedROOM??

[heartofjoy]

We have always coslept with our little ones for the first year or longer with the exception of our first. We have 4 children, now ages 6, 4, 2, and 6 mo. We will most likely have more. The 6,4,and 2 yo all sleep upstairs in 2 bedrooms. The 6 and 2 yo in one room, and the 4 yo across the hall in another. The 6 and 4 yo shared a room until about 6 months ago. They all sleep in separate beds. Dh and I and baby all sleep downstairs. We have a queen bed and a bassinet (pack and play) that gets used for naps and for about half the night.

I have been considering doing a family bed arrangement, but I need lots of space and no one touching me (except a sound asleep baby) to go to sleep. My 3 older children fall asleep much easier if I stay with them while they fall asleep. I like to lie down on the bed with them.

I would like to convert one of the room upstairs into just a bedroom. Put all of our beds in there, possibly even just mattresses on the floor, so that everyone can just sleep together. Then the other rooms, which currently have beds, would be freed up space for other things, like a music area or desk space. Dressers and personal items would be arranged in other room, so that this room would be only for sleeping. Nothing else.

Is this a good idea? Has anyone done this? What about personal space for the kids? Private space for dh and I? I cannot be intimate anywhere but a bed, so if all the beds are in one room....I am not sure how that would play out? Then, would the kids want to have their own sleeping space as they get older? I am thinking that they would start feeling uncomfortable with it around puberty. Then what? We don't have enough rooms (and we will probably have even more children) for them to move into "their own rooms" as they get older. So what do you guys think? Is this a stupid idea or should I just leave well enough alone?

I suggested it to dh last night and he gave me no reply....so I don't know what he thinks about it. If I had to guess for him, I would say that he probably would lean toward keeping the status quo. But not for any real reason other than it is the status quo. :shrug

[Irene]

I think it sounds like a lovely idea :) you can maybe put all the mattresses on the floor but one, and put one bed in the "dresser room" for romance sake, then move into the family bedroom when you're done?

I dont know about teen years, but what do other big families with small homes do? Im sure not everyone gets their own space!

[GodChick]

just wanrted to say this is what we do. wqe've only got two, though, and they are still little . . .though we plan on having more. i've always needed my space when sleeping, and my dd1 turned out to be the same way--so this really works well for us, becuase we are still right there and can nightime parent, but we also have our space. we have a bedroom/nursery room with beds for the kids too, anf they can play there or nap there if they want, and sometimes dd1 sleeps there at night. (sometimes she wants to sleep with her toys ;) ) but she usu. wants to sleep in the "big bedroom" with us. dd2 is still too little to choose where she sleeps (4 months) so she always sleeps in her bassinnette in our room or in our bed if she's not sleeping well in the bassinnette. (they both have their own beds in the family bedroom, but are welcome into our bed too.) it's really worked well for us--we all have our space, but the kids don't have to be off somewhere far from mom and dad. but i'm okay with having s*x somewhere other than our bed, so i'm not sure what i'd do about that. :shrug but just wanted to encourage you that the family bedroom can work very nicely. we love it. :tu

[Tex]

I vote 'yay'

Often larger families will have children sleep in a single room, usually divided by gender past a certain age, and have their play areas in other rooms.

What about bunk beds and trundle beds? Could you keep a 'guest' bedroom for the bed you need with your DH?

[Dana Joy]

sounds fun

[ArmsOfLove]

When I was a child this is what my parents did :) And it's what we have now. We slide a twin bed under our king every morning and pull it out every night :tu

What we have in our small house is a boys' room and a girls' room and there are beds in there that they can use when they have sleepovers or if they want to. Our oldest sleeps in his room sometimes and if he falls asleep in there we don't move him but he's welcome to join us.

[GodChick]

What we have in our small house is a boys' room and a girls' room and there are beds in there that they can use when they have sleepovers or if they want to. Our oldest sleeps in his room sometimes and if he falls asleep in there we don't move him but he's welcome to join us.

cool--that's what we're doing too--though we've only got girls so far! :-)

[BeckaBlue]

that's what we wanna do once we get a room big enough :tu
we did it for a lil while when we were inbetween homes and it was nice
much easier to get kids calmed down for bed too!!! :rockon

[heartofjoy]

Thanks for all the support and encouragement everyone! Now to get dh to agree.... :think Actually the hard part might be getting him to actually arrange all the furniture. He gets a little irritated with my wanting to rearrange and reorganize our house all the time! I am just always coming up with better ideas of where to put stuff!

I really like the trundle bed idea! We can't do bunks in the room I am thinking of using because the ceiling slopes inward....they won't fit. Now where to find trundle beds....

I like the guest room idea! I also like the boys bedroom and girls bedroom idea. That's kind of what we planned on doing anyway.

[UltraMother]

That's just like what we've always done. The main "bedROOM", with just the mattresses in it, and a nightstand for the alarm clock or whatever, and then we have a "dressing room", with all the dressers and mirror in there. We used this setup in a small rental house, and the mattresses (3 doubles pushed together) just barely fit in the biggest bedroom!

[jluvts]

I love co-sleeping with my son (almost 2!), but I know there will come a time when he doesn't want to sleep with us anymore. And I totally understand. There is NO WAY I would have slept with my parents every night after about 10 (probably even before then). I think for us, we'll probably have one big bedroom for all the kids and a playroom until they start needing boy/girl space, then we'll do a boy room and a girl room.

[joystrength]

All four of us pile into our KING at night. It works well for us. Our DCs are 21 mo and 3 1/2 years. Our biggest prob: Getting both kids to sleep at the same time in the same room. This week, it just won't work for us. We leave a closet light on for light, turn on the lullaby CD and try to sleep. The kids just keep giggling, etc. So, lately I've been taking the toddler out. DH and DS get DS to sleep and then I transport sleeping DD to the big bed. W

We have ours pushed up against the wall, adn DD sleeps next to the wall. Then me. Then DS and then on the outside is DH. We have "our" time in other places.

[ozmummy]

We have a "bedroom" where the whole family sleeps (us + dd 5.5, dd 2) and a "kids room" where their clothes and toys are. I am thinking of getting beds on stilts when the kids are older, wanting their own space. Then I would put a curtain around the bottom space of the stilt bed, and put maybe a small chest of drawers or desk or something, so that could be their own private space. The kids room is fairly big, and could probably fit 3 or 4 of those..plus we have another small room that could probably fit 2. Anyway that's my vague long term plan..