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Room arrangements - curiosity

LAMomma's picture

Submitted by LAMomma on Mon, 09/21/2015 - 4:26pm

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General Discussion

I'm just curious what the norm would be in the situation and what other people think and feel.

We currently have a small 3 bedroom home that we own. We have 3 girls and 1 boy between us. We have a twin/twin bunk bed in the boy's room and a twin/twin bunk bed with a trundle for the girl's room. The bedrooms are super small/compact so the beds plus a dresser and a toy box pretty much takes up the entire room with little floor space and there is no floor space when the trundle is pulled out.

We're both young and have talked about it previously. I want more kids. I'd ideally like another 1-2. Our current children are all young (SD3, DS3, SD6, and DD8) so if we do have more kids, they'll still be in the house. My kids are the only ones who live here full time (DS3 and DD8) and his come every other weekend for overnights besides holidays.

Given our current situation.. How do you handle bedding and all that when more kids come into the picture? If we have a boy it's not a big deal but if we have a girl, it'll be hectic as we can't exactly fit another bed in there. Do the kids who live here full time have priority or do we just keep on the whole this is YOUR BED, YOUR SPACE, to his daughter's even though they only use it 4 days a month?

Glassslipper's picture

Submitted by Glassslipper on Mon, 09/21/2015 - 5:08pm

I think it would be a good idea to buy a bigger house before another baby if it were me.
DH has 2 and I have 2, we bought a 4 bedroom home. The girls each got their own room and the boys shared till we could have the bedrooms built in the exposed/walkout basement.
Now each child has their own room.
I think if you can afford another child, you should maybe save the "baby" money for a year or two and put it towards a down payment on a bigger home.

MamaDuck's picture

Submitted by MamaDuck on Mon, 09/21/2015 - 5:23pm

It's important to provide PT kids with their own bed and space when possible and one of the worst things you could do, is take away 'their space' to make room for new baby.

Bigger home or build an extension on to current home.

LAMomma's picture

Submitted by LAMomma on Mon, 09/21/2015 - 5:33pm

We can't afford to upgrade houses right now or any time soon for that matter. I more or less inherited this house from my Mom.

I understand what you are all saying but at the same time I still can't justify spending double or triple on another mortgage because house prices went up, added utilities for a bigger house, etc.. All for 4 overnights a month. :/ We don't live in an area or have the means to get everyone their own rooms. The typical house is 3 bedrooms and a little bigger rooms than we currently have.

Indigo's picture

Submitted by Indigo on Mon, 09/21/2015 - 11:50pm

^^This^^

There are dozens of people on this forum who began a relationship/marriage with every other weekend visitation, then life happened and visitation crept up to every other week. A number of posters are full-time step-parents due to death, alcohol/drugs, jail, remarriage or NCP changing his/her mind. Recently in my life, the biodad to SGD-12 had stomach bypass surgery and we had to have a plan for SGD-12 coming full-time if anything happened. Plan on it and then you won't be shocked later.

Add more kids? I understand the desire to have an "ours" baby or three. But, seriously, in your situation --- you have got to be freakin' kidding me! That sounds like fantasy-thinking to me.

Since finances are why you are having trouble with your current mix of children, you need to seriously consider how a family of 6 - 9 people will manage all the bills. There are so many variables and unforeseen expenses. Consider if any child has a learning challenge which will require tutors and intervention, or someone has a catastrophic illness/accident ... or the child support increases, health insurance ... or if one of you lost your job ... I don't know how you could manage. Add extracurricular activities and heck, education costs !! Young kids are cheap, just wait ...

Disneyfan's picture

Submitted by Disneyfan on Tue, 09/22/2015 - 6:34am

If purchasing a larger home isn't an option, then you can't afford more kids. You can barely fit the 4 you have in your current home. Adding 1 or 2 more won't work. Well it will if you are willing to pile them into the various rooms. OR ensure that all of you bios have the two bedrooms are your step kids are forced to sleep on the sofa. Of course that may result in the SKs resenting you and your kids.

notasm3's picture

Submitted by notasm3 on Mon, 09/21/2015 - 6:35pm

I grew up in a house with 5 people, 2 BRs (plus a nook) and 1 bathroom. Our house was one of the larger ones as we had almost 1000 sq. ft. Many people only had 700 sq. ft. and had more children.

People make do. Learning to share is not a bad thing.

One time I complained that DH and I were living in a tiny condo with 900 sq ft and a friend from NY chastised me and said that whole families in NY live in less space.

Indigo's picture

Submitted by Indigo on Mon, 09/21/2015 - 11:35pm

And 3 girls share a room that then has no floor space. Heck, my chickens have square footage requirements, per hen.

SecondGeneration's picture

Submitted by SecondGeneration on Tue, 09/22/2015 - 3:15am

Im afraid I have to agree with what others have said, if you cannot physically do anything to change the current layout/space available then do not add another baby to this mix. Like you say, if you have a boy its not such a huge problem but if you have a girl it is a serious issue. You cannot control what gender you will have, and if you want 1-2 children you are potentially setting yourself up to have 4 bio children and 2 step kids, so 6 children in your household at various points in time.
Yes at the moment the visitation is only 4 nights a month, but does it remain the same in the holidays? We only have alternate weekends and a weekday during school term but come holidays its 50/50.

However to be able to make it work I would look into the options you have in the current house, how big is that attic? How much would it cost to convert the attic? How large is the master bedroom? How are the bedrooms situated? Do you have 3 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs or just 3 bedrooms up there? Is there the possibility to knock a wall down from the master bedroom and resize the rooms?
If you can convert the attic then you can have the master bedroom up there, and then your got 3 bedrooms available, you then have the choice, do you have your son and your daughter in their own room and the smaller room set up just for the SDs? Would that work? Then they still have their own space, their toys, etc. Or are you still wanting the girls to all share and the boy have his own room?

There are always solutions, your other option would be to take a loan out and extend the house. But if you cannot afford that loan then I would side with you are not in a financial position to think about having another child.
That in itself can be hard to deal with, you should be able to have another baby because YOU want to, not because you cant afford it because theres step children you have to think about, but that is the reality of step life.

We have a similar situation, except our house is a 2 bedroom house. Currently our room and SDstb5 room. We want a baby, what are we going to do? We are fortunate that our room is oversized so we can split it and make a good size single room and still have a good sized double. We want more than one child, so first it will be split our room, then have baby number 1, then we want to convert the attic but there will be no babies until those rooms are available.