Dear Rookie Moms readers,
Hey, you guys! We need some help with this letter. Actually it was a comment on our post 2 in a room (or not). Please read and share your best advice for squeezing three little kids in one room (or not!) in the comments. We thank you and Amanda thanks you!
ohdeedoh solution to many kids in one room
We live in a 2 bedroom house and my 2 kids, 3 year old daughter and 15 month old son have always shared a room. He was 2 months old and sleeping through the night so we decided to try and have him sleep in the same room as his sister. I couldn’t believe how well my daughter adjusted! She is a very sound sleeper and still sleeps through his crying. The odd night he still wakes up.
Our problem now is we are expecting the unplanned 3rd child. LOL. We are not sure if we should set up a crib in our room or try to make room in the kids’ room. My 2 kids get along great and play a lot in their room. If I were to put a crib in there, they would lose a lot of space.
We are firm believers on the kids sleeping in their own room once they sleep through the night, but due to lack of space we are not sure what to do. We have thought about a bunk bed but I am worried that my daughter is to young for the top bunk. She will be 4 months shy of 4 years old when the baby arrives. She also has a nice twin bed with drawers under it so I didn’t have to take up room with a large dresser.
Not too sure what to do and would love some input!
~ Amanda
Christine from the Aums Blog shared these pictures of squeezing her four little ones (age 1 to 6) in a single room with room to play in the loft. She says they used “custom made Japanese futons for our 4 kids. We’ve tried beds and mattresses before… but this is what works for now. They picked their own colors, blankets, pillows…They are 6, 5, 3, and 1″!
Christine's real-life solution, the futons
The children's lofted playspace
The always fabulous ohdeedoh.com makes it look oh-so-easy and chic to squeeze four in a room this minimalist solution (shown up top). Wish I had the wall space to entertain that idea!
Do you fit three or more little kids in one room? If so, how?
My 5 year old and 3 month old have their own rooms right now, but if we ever add a 3rd baby to the mix, the older two will share a bunk bed. I never had to share a room with my brother, but I knew lots of kids who shared rooms when we were growing up and none ever seemed to mind.
I’m afraid I don’t have experience with 3 or even 2 in a room…yet. We’re about to put our boys together (#3 is arriving any day), but I’m nervous about the top bunk since my 5yo tosses and turns like crazy. My friend recommended this Ikea bunk for those who move to a bunk a bit younger because it’s not high: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10123996
There’s also a tent that you can buy with it to make it more secure. Best of luck to you with the baby and this big decision!
My 3 daughters share a room and they’re 8, 6 and 4 years old. We used to have bunk beds, but that can easily lead to injuries with playing around and such. So we switched to trundle beds and are ecstatic! To help with the clothing storage issue we put up some Wal-Mart shelves in the closet instead of having a dresser (which are also risky with little ones) as well as some over-the-door hanging shelves. This has worked extremely well for our family. We plan on adding a 4th child next year and this baby will have a crib set up in our room until it’s about 9mos then we’ll move the older 2 girls into their own room and the younger 2 will share a room.
I would personally use bunk beds in order to save the play area. We bought bunk beds when #2 was born with the intention of when we have a 3rd child the oldest 2 would share. I think a 4 year old should be able to handle bunk beds if there is a rail.
We’ve considered having our two kiddos (3 and 1) share a room, but they have their own rooms right now. If we have another, they’ll probably end up sharing.
Growing up, my sister and I always shared a room with bunkbeds, and my three brother shared a room with a bunk bed that had a trundle bed beneath. Sure, you don’t want kids getting hurt – but we toppled off the top bunk numerous times and we were fine! Kids love to climb, and I’ll bet your almost-4-year-old would love being on the top bunk.
PS – My sister-in-law has six boys who share two bedrooms!
Most bunk bed systems say no top bunk until your LO is 6 years old. I don’t have any other suggestions, we only have one child. But I don’t think the convenience is worth the safety risk.
@Tanna-Rae I’d love to see pictures of this configuration.
@Amy, my friends have that Ikea bunk with a boy/girl who share a room and the younger child sleeps on a mattress on the floor underneath the bunk. The older one has the tent thing over it and loves it. They were about 3.5 and 5 when they moved into the bunks.
we were 3 to a tiny room when we were little (3 years between us all). We had bunkbeds and my older sisters traded places sleeping on a mat on the floor (space between bed and wall = big enough for 1 sleeping bag). Needless to say, the bedroom was pretty much only for sleeping – playing was done elsewhere. As a side note, my friend has a 4 yr old who has her own bunk style bed (desk and stuff under instead of a second bed) and she does just fine climbing to the top. I know all 4 year olds are different, but you should go to a furniture store and see how she does and how it makes you feel.
This is a beautiful, super-cool, minimalist, and inexpensive solution. When I ran accross this bedroom, it almost made me want to have more children!
http://thebumpercrop.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/three-boys-one-room/
I currently have three little boys sharing a room. ages 2, 3,5. Started off with a crib and bunkbeds till my baby started climbing out of his bed to sleep with his middle brother in the bottom bunk. I have not had a problem with any of the kids falling out of the top bunk. my problem is getting them to stay in their own bed.
I am still working on this problem as I have a girl age 5, and two boys 3 and 1, in one bedroom. We have a bunk bed which we’ve had few problems with (oddly enough it’s the 3 year old on the bottom bunk I’m having trouble with). We had the baby in our room for 4 months, and since it was winter put him in a pack n’ play in the walk in closet (that’s all that fit in there) and had a wonderful winter! I didn’t think it would be cool enough for him to be there in the summer, so he is now sharing the room with the other two. It seems to be working out with staggered bedtimes.
I am a mom of six kids ranging from 10yrs to 4months. At this point in our lives we can’t afford a larger house so we are forced to make due with a two bedroom…very very small house. All six of the kids are in one room. Because the room is soooo small we couldn’t fit more than one bunk bed in the room. We have one twin size bunk bed, one home made bunk bed that fits crib mattresses and one double-stacked crib. The crib was a super find at a garage sale. It actually looks like two jail cells one on top of the other, but it works! We have a wooden pull out drawer under one bunk, and a small dresser for my older son. The other kids have cubby holes for their clothes. My husband divided the closet into cubby holes so they would have room for all of their clothes. There is no room for toys in the room so my husband made a large wooden toy box that we have in the living room. Its not the cutest setup but its what we could afford and make work!
Maybe if I can get the kids to clean their room I will get some pictures of the setup. All though after looking at the loft play area setup we might go ahead and decide to do that. I’ll have to talk to my husband and see if he would be willing to build it.
Not sure about your climate, Laura, but another idea you might try is one I saw at my husband’s friends place in Kuala Lumpur, which is of course tropical. He built a false floor about a foot off the true one, with ventilation holes where it met the doorway, and then just laid down wall to wall mattresses. It is about 8 by 10, and anywhere up to 6 or 7 people sleep in it at night. By day, the mattresses get rolled up and shoved against one wall. Or, as when I was there last with our three kids, all the kids (including others of their’s) used the mattresses as a big trampoline and spent most of the day bouncing around in there – their very own padded cell!
Update!!! We finally finished the kids room, and its amazing. We ended up gutting the closet with the cubby holes. Instead we made a custom triple bunk bed in the closet, and then on the same wall as the closet we have another triple bunk bed. We then made a standing shelf with space for each child’s clothes. The room seems three times bigger without all of the bunk beds and cribs. I love it. Now if I could only keep the room clean!
Hopefully these pictures show up, if not I will try again. But this is the messy room that we finished! We had to fit all six of our kids in one room and on one wall so we converted a small closet into a triple bunk with a little cubby bunk on the top, and the left side the bigger kids sleep in custom sized bunk beds. I had to buy the foam to make the mattresses but it wasn’t to horrible. I used a 50% off coupon at Joann’s to get the foam to make the mattresses.
It doesn’t look like the pictures worked so here are some direct links to the pics:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a374/laurarperez/IMG_2264.jpg
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a374/laurarperez/IMG_2266.jpg
Laura, those custom bunk beds look cool. Can I ask what the height of the room is? Wondering if we could fit a triple stacker in my boys’ room.
The ceiling is 7ft 8in tall. The bunks are small and thin width wise. But its perfect for kids. The big kids bunks measure 67*28 and 5inches thick. The little kids is 55*24 and 3inches thick. I custom made the mattresses with foam I bought at Joann’s and then I sewed up a mattress cover for them. One mattress is on the floor on each side of the bunks, and then we just put the middle bunk in the middle of the vertical space that we had to work with. The hardest part of this was finding the studs in the wall. We wanted to make sure we didn’t wake up to squashed kids!
I have only 2 kids right now, with the 3rd on the way. I have a boy and girl now and they each have their own room, but when this baby gets here 2 kids will be sharing a room (planning to group either boys together or girls together, depending on what gender baby 3 is). BUT, on the bunk bed comments — My son has a bunk bed in his room, and has for a year, because my niece stays a lot. He won’t be 5 until June. So he’s been sleeping on the top bunk since he was 3 1/2. I was really concerned because he tosses and turns a LOT (more like he falls asleep with his head on his pillow, then ends up horizontal or upside down in his bed). But he does fine, great even. We just have this bunk bed from walmart, that has a rail along the edge. As long as you make sure to buy a mattress that is made FOR bunk beds, so that it is lower than the rail, it shouldn’t be a problem. Also making sure the child is old enough to climb up and down on his or her own, and knows not to stand on the top bunk. That depends on the child of course. Hope that helps!
Now my issue that I’m facing, is how to fit the “belongings” of an infant into the bedroom of a toddler (my daughter will be 2 1/2 when the baby is here) or bedroom of a 5 1/2 year old. The kids’ rooms are not that big as it is, and I’ve worked hard on the organization that we’ve finally worked out in there. Now I’m looking at starting over, and making not only another person fit in there (sleeping arrangements) but also, at least for a while, a crib, changing table, and probably even a rocker. Not sure how to work that one out. Putting all those things into our bedroom isn’t going to cut it either. As it is, our bedroom doubles as an office AND homeschool space. They should make a version of a bunk bed, but a lot shorter/lower, and it should be toddler bed and crib combined. HAHA.
@bridgette I’m facing the same problem, due in July with my third. I will have a 21 month old son and 3.5 year old daughter at the time. We are going to put the two oldest together. That way we can still have the traditional nursery….rocker, changing table, baby stuff. Plus, the baby probably won’t be sleeping through the night and I wouldn’t want to wake the other kiddos. This way the toddlers can have all of their play things in one room, and They are also on more similar sleep schedules.
We are thinking of doing the pbk loft bed for our daughter so there is room for our sons toddler bed, and she can have her kitchen underneath the loft. We can just do bedding that coordinates well for both boys and girls.
When the third is out of the baby phase then we will probably move them into either the “boys” or “girls” room depending on what we have. Hope that helps. Congratulations
We have three ages 3, 2, and 7 months in one TINY bedroom. A friend custom built bunking toddler beds for us. They take a crib sized mattress and the top bunk is only 3 feet off the floor. Now they all fit and our 3 year old can be on top.
I have 3 boys sharing a room and just now googled a way to use the space more effectively for them… I love the pics and ideas. My youngest son was 3 when he went happily into a bunk. I wont put the next son into one as he seems to fall out of his bed alot, so he’s on the bottom bunk and my 11yr old is on a mattress on the floor. With my youngest son now almost 6yrs, I fold a blanket and put it under the mattress on the outside of his bunk (it has no rails)…this gives the mattress a little bit of a slant to the side and he doesn’t roll off… and he has never fallen out of the bunk.
Hi,
I am moving into a small house my 4 boys will share a 3mt by 6mt room, (we are in australia sorry about measurements) their ages are 13, 10, 3.5 and 2…
I want some ideas that provide a bit of “ME” space but also keep them in the same room.
http://clotheslinetinyhomes.com/blog-2/, there is a loft bed with storage under here, but i am not sure about the head height you need to be comfortable…
Any ideas would be appreciated…
Here is a loft bed idea that I totally love: http://www.thehandmadehome.net/2011/08/how-to-build-a-loft/
You could make it whatever size you need, and you could either have storage underneath or bottom bunks underneath depending how many kids you have in the room. In the one in the blog, they used a twin mattress and a toddler mattress, and that just happened to fit perfect, but you could get creative to custom make a mattress for whatever size loft you made. I’m thinking out of foam (especially if you can get it secondhand, then it’s very affordable) or I found this tutorial for making pillow mattresses, http://southerndisposition.blogspot.com/2011/06/pillow-bed-tutorial.html, and I was thinking you could make them out of king size pillows and fill up the loft with that, it would be awesome. I already made one out of regular size pillows and it’s totally easy and comfortable.
we have a small room and we are three children we want to have three seperate beds but not superpose what can we do
we have a small room and we are three children we want to have three seperate beds but not superpose what can we do if anybody have an idea plz send me a message on this email:chien.chiot@live.com i will be verry happy if sombody send me picture
I am a single mother of two girls we live with my mother and grandmother… I feel i have too stay here to help with my mom and grandmother but me and two kids in the smallest room of a three bedroom singlewide is killing me right now I have my bed and a crib in my room my oldest daughter who is four sleeps with me my youngest is two and she sleeps in the crib I am scared to death that she is gonna hurt herself because she keeps climbing out! I also need to get my oldest one out of my bed and into her own! Any Ideas? I have hardly any room because our closet is full of clothes along with two dressers so it is a tight squeeze!
I share a room with two brothers and my little brother is getting to big for the top bunk i have a high loft and am bout to be to long and heavy for it and wecdont have the room for 3 twins and we are all almost to big for our beds
I know this website is for moms but im 14 my step brother is 14 and my little step brother is 11 or 12 forget he lies about his age to much
I would realy like to know what to do
I already talked to my mom and we dont have room for Murphy beds but i though it was the solution