Do your kids share a room?

[C99]

Is it by choice or necessity? What criteria did you use for who would share the room - gender, age? What else do I need to know? Tell me your stories -- good and bad.

[kelly ann]

Our kids don't share a room and most likely will not. However, my brother and I shared a room when I was 3-7 years old with my brother (who was a year older than me). I am not sure why since my parents had a whole other room that we used as a playroom upstairs. I have no bad memories - especially considering my brother and I used to fight like cats and dogs. Even when we moved and we ended up with different rooms, the rooms were across the hall and we used to talk to each other from our beds at night.

I think one of the reasons why we shared a room was because the bedrooms in the house were so big. In our current house, the bedrooms would be so cramped with 2 twin beds and they are actually average-sized. I guess the newer houses these days don't have those over-sized bedrooms (with the expection of the master bedrooms).

[hez]

My sister and I shared a room. Early on it was by necessity (700ish square foot house). When my parents moved us to a 4 bedroom house (brother on the way), we continued to share and the 4th bedroom was Mom's sewing room.

I think it was an easy decision for them-- we were close in age (23 months apart) and same gender with an opposite gender 3rd child (3 years younger than my sister). It started out well-- we shared a lot of toys and books, and were each other's comfort when one woke up scared in the middle of the night. We still made visits to Mom & Dad's rooms when appropriate, but I think we made less than we could have.

When I was in middle school I decided there was no way I could be forced to live with my messy, gross, PITA little sister any longer, and kicked my mom out of her sewing room. I think my parents gave in to my request in the hopes that my sister and I would stop fighting so much. It helped a little, but it was when I was getting sick of my tagalong little sister (mostly guys in the neighborhood, hard for either of us to have close girlfriends nearby), so not sure if anything would have stopped the fighting.

I think the choice is like a lot them we make-- expect to make it multiple times as circumstances change & kids get older/more independent.

[thomma]

Ds and dd shared a room with us until they were 9 months old. Then we moved them into their room. They stayed there until they were 30 months old. Dd tends to get up in the middle of the night and "play". She sings and talks/laughs to herself...she's not quiet about it either. It was interfering with ds' sleep. She would wake him up and then he would wake the whole house up. He's not into the whole nighttime caberet act like dd is. :) After a month of lousy sleep for everyone, dh and I decided it was time to move ds into his own room. (Then it took another month to clean the room and get it ready...it was our "catch all" room.)

FWIW we had plans to keep them in the same room until they asked to be separated. They were fine with the separation. I, however, cried the first night we did it.

hth-
Kim
t&e 5/03

[newmomto3kids]

You already know this...but, Lily and Johnny share a room because they have asked to. They like falling asleep with eachother. We are trying to decide now, with our new one inching his way home, whether we keep them together, or room them according to gender.
For the time being, we will leave them together. Ideally, I would like for Lily and Grace to share a room, and for Johnny and Kenley to share a room. That leaves an extra guest room. This only works now that Grace is not a newborn. I wouldn't have tried to put Lily with a newborn, just for the sake of keeping the genders together.

[Ceepa]

We're waiting until DS and DD are a little older to see how their personalities mesh. Right now DD is only 10 months and she needs quiet for naps and bedtime.

My brother and I shared a room when we were little and I have very fond memories of those times.

-Ceepa

[emilyf]

Mine do. It's a fairly large room, we do have a 3rd bedroom in our house, but it's on a different level and dh uses it as his office. They have been fine with it so far, both are good sleepers. I'm not sure what our plans will be if we stay in this house-we may consider adding another room down the road, but i anticipate they will be in the same room for quite a while.
Emily mom of Charlie born 11/02 and Zoe born 9/05

[Dcclerk]

Yep. DS is 3 and DD is 1 1/2. They really like sleeping in the same room, although in our case, it is by necessity that they do it. We have a little 2 bd 1 ba home with a big playroom so we keep no toys in the bedroom, and that is just for sleeping, clothes storage, etc. DD sleeps much better at night when DS is in the room. In fact, the first thing she says whenever she wakes up is "Where Bubba? (what she calls DS)" DS really likes sharing a room, too. It makes sense to me since my DH doesn't sleep welll at all when I am not around, either. Even when DH and I went away for a week and they stayed at the grandparents' house, the kids did a lot better when they were sleeping in the same room, than when they tried to sleep in separate rooms.

DS can now sleep through anything. If DD wakes up and shreiks like a banshee, I don't even see him stir. It's all white noise to him, and he isn't bothered in the slightest. Similarly, the few times DS has awoken in the middle of the night, DD didn't move a muscle. Weirdly, they take naps in separate rooms (DS sleeps on our bed.) This has worked for us because it usually takes them both longer to wind down for naps than at night. I'm sure at some point we'll need to get them separate rooms, but honestly, I don't imagine that it will be any issue until they are in elementary school or so. I'm pretty sure that if we had more bedrooms, we wouldn't have put them together, but now that they are, I can't imagine separating them for a while. And, to do again, I wouldn't change a thing. :)

[teddy]

DD (3.5 yo) and DS (1.5 yo) share out of necessity - we only have 2 bedrooms upstairs. Their room is large with 2 closets, one for each.

When DD was still napping in the afternoon, I tried to have them sleep in their room but it wasn't working. So I had to have DD nap in my bed while DS stayed in his crib. They would go to bed at the same time at night.

Now that DD does not nap, but DS naps 3 hours in the afternoon, DD needs to go to sleep an hour earlier than DS. Also, DS is now in a toddler bed because he started climbing out of the crib. So I put DD to sleep first, then DS an hour later. He does not bother her and seems to go to sleep faster. When they'd go to bed at the same time, DS would constantly get up and look at DD, try to climb in her bed, give her books and toys in her bed, etc... and DD would be like, I'm tired! I'm trying to sleep! Leave me alone! Splitting up the bedtime is much easier for everyone involved.

Now that #3 is coming, I imagine there will be 3 kids in that room until DH and I feel comfortable enough giving up our room and moving downstairs to the guest room. I just don't know if I like the idea of young kids being upstairs all by themselves. We have a gate at the top of the stairs so no one would be able to come down. Our other option is to build an addition with a third bedroom upstairs - but we need to win the lotto first.

[babystuffbuff]

>>They like falling asleep with eachother.

My niece and nephew (ages 7 and 9) are this way. They share a room, and their two sisters, 11 years and 21 months old, each have their own room in a 4-bedroom house. I was kind of surprised when my sister-in-law set it up that way when they moved a year or so ago, but it works surprisingly well, and when you think about it, that arragement makes the most sense for them. It wouldn't work for my oldest, preteen niece to share a room with her 9-year-old brother, and she and the 7-year-old would definitely step on each other's toes too much, since their personalities can clash quite a bit. And I'm sure the 7-year-old wouldn't want to share her room with a toddler. :-)

My sister and I shared a room, by necessity, until we moved when she was five and I was nine. It worked pretty well, although we didn't know anything different, it was just the way life was. :-)

Sarah

Auntie to my seven munchkins, and thinking about TTC a munchkin of our own :)

[saschalicks]

Ours are sharing. They started just short of DS#2 being 3 months old. We did it out of necessity. I wish we had a bigger place, but we don't. I foresee them sharing until teen years b/c they are 17 mo apart and they are the same gender. It actually has worked out really well. DS#2 doesn't really cry as much during CIO. I don't know if it's b/c his brother is there or what. DS#1 talks to himself A LOT and it doesn't wake DS#2. I think they are just used to each other by now. I put DS#2 to bed before DS#1 and lately DS#1 has been screaming into DS#2's crib "Good Night Eli", when he's done with his bath. It's super cute.

[mary b]

Hi Caroline,

My girls share a room and have for over 2 1/2 years. We have a Cape Cod style house so 2 bedrooms up, 2 bedrooms down. We could have put them in their own rooms but then we would be on a different floor and we didn't want to do that.

Overall, it has been fine and now that they are older, it's great for both of them! It was a little tricky with naps and bedtimes when Lindsey was a baby but alot of that was our fault with running in there too much and worrying about Noelle waking up after a few times of rocking them both at 3AM.

We will keep this arrangement for a few more years until we are ready for them to be on a different level from us. We would do this regardless of gender. The room is a nice size and not too tight.

Mary
mom to Noelle and Lindsey