Shared Kids Rooms

Bunk beds in kids rooms are the best! I remember my grandparents having 2 sets of bunk beds for us grandkids when we were growing up… and it was always so exciting to get the top bunk!

The collection of globes in Jordon’s kids room is wonderful :-)

http://www.thislifeisbelle.com

LOVE the shared rooms! Our girls do and though they fight sometimes, hearing their little convos before bed is too adorable. AND there are so many great decor options with two.

Our 3 kids (10 yr old son, and daughters ages 8 and 5) have all shared a room from the get-go and it has never been a problem. The light sleeper learned to not be a light sleeper, and the big kids use reading lights if they want to stay up later at bedtime. Our son is on the top bunk, which gives him more privacy. The kids are thick as thieves and play together all the time — in part, because we live on a farm (with few neighbors nearby), but also because they share a room. College dorm life will be a breeze!

These rooms are bright and inviting for kids!

http://www.pinchnot.com

Our boys have shared a room every since we moved to NY (you know how living spaces are here!). They have gone to sleep at different bed times their whole life–initially to give our older son a little bit of one-on-one time so he didn’t feel like his younger brother stole all the attention–but keeping them at different bed times was the saving grace of sharing a room! They’re now 11 and 13 and still share bunk beds because, well, we still live in NY and only have a 2-bedroom. They do, however, occupy the “master” bedroom; with our queen bed crammed into the small room.

Funny story, the other day I was on a phone call with my dad and I was talking about trying to buy something in Brooklyn.. and he mentioned that we probably need at least a 3-bedroom because the boys are getting older. Little does he know we’re only planning to look at 2 bedrooms, AND we’re possibly planning to have a baby in the near future. But I love our cozy living space and I feel like it’s kept us close as a family.

https://eemmllee.wordpress.com/

I shared a room with my sister until we were five and two. Then we moved and we got our own rooms. I have never looked back. My sister and I are way too different for that, and would not have enjoyed each other’s friends either. I wouldn’t make my kids share a room, if I could at all help it.
Side note: when my mom meet my dad, she made sure he was on board with making sure their future kids would have their own rooms. She has four siblings and had had to share. This was like a deal breaker for her!
I have always been grateful I have had a door to close behind me and be by myself for some peace and quiet, even as a kid.

Do IT!!! Em has twins, so they surely share a room and NIc has two only two years apart so she is surely thinking about it (her baby is only 6 weeks so she has some time). There is nothing more sweet than hearing your two loves chat, giggle and play while the door is closed. Such fun!

Our three boys have always shared a room (from the time the baby at the time became too big for the Moses basket beside our bed). Now, they are 16, 14, 12, and share the loft in our 665 square foot house. I still love listening to them talk to each other after dark up there. Tour here: http://www.assortmentblog.com/assortment/2014/01/becoming-home-a-loft-tour.html

I shared bunk beds with my older sister for most of our childhoods. We eventually took them apart and made them two separate beds at about high school age but by then the room sharing was a challenge. We were too different and fought like crazy all through our teens until she went away to college.

Our house was so small that we had no choice. I shared room with my sister until we were 35 and 31, when she moved with her boyfriend and I moved alone. The first nights felt so weird not to have anybody to talk to before sleep!

I shared a room with my younger sister till I was about 17. We fought and cried and argued and having to go back to the same room made us work things out. Till now (early thirties) and half a world a way we can’t ever stay mad at each other. And of course there are just the perks of sharing a room with your sister. We had two twin beds parallel to each other and we had pillow forts and blanket tents, and late nights watching sweet valley twins on our tv turned down low. My sister and I still say if we had kids, we would probably make them share a room since it worked so well for us.

My girls shared a room and a bed (well, it was two twins pushed together) for years. Even when a room opened it, they chose to turn into the GLR (girls living room) for a couple of years before making the break. They finally had their own rooms when my oldest turned 12. We all mourned the loss of the GLR, but they still had sleepovers from time to time.

We may be one of the few where a shared bedroom didn’t work out. Ha ha. We tried to put our 3.5 year old son and 2 year old daughter in the same room, but it didn’t work out. The two of them could never settle down at bedtime and our son needs his alone time and the space of his own room. Since we are lucky enough to have 3 bedrooms, we’re able to give him his space when he needs his quiet time away from everyone.

the contrasting wallpapers is such a great idea! creates two independent sections without having to build a wall between the two beds

hammyta.wordpress.com

We have bunk beds for our two boys (6 and 7) but I just wish we had bought a double mattress, thrown it on the floor, and called it a day. They now both sleep on the bottom twin bunk. No one wants the top bunk.

My sister has three kids. The two older ones (a boy and a girl) share a room. It’s funny because they were saying that soon the youngest one (who is a boy) is going to switch with Chloe and share the room with Jacob, but I have a feeling Chloe isn’t going to want her own room until she is older!! Should be interesting to see what happens!! Personally, I would’ve loved sharing a room with my sister growing up. But that might be because I was the youngest and always wanting to hang out with her! lol! xx yael

http://www.yaelsteren.com/blog/

Awww such good memories :) Yes, shared a room with my sister from when I was 6 years old (when my brother came along) until I was 16. I loved it.

tight quarters in city living means that sharing a room is the ONLY option, no matter the gender. we’ll find a way to make 2 bedrooms work somehow! my neighbors are a family of 3 in a studio, so surely I can make a family of 4 (or 5) work in a 2-bedroom :)

We have a 2 year old, and our second is on the way. My original plan was to let them have separate rooms until we have a third, but looking at this, I wonder if we should rethink that and put them in the same room earlier- around a year or so! That way I’d get my guest room back until we have a third further down the road…

My younger sister and I shared a room for years with bunkbeds, and then she crawled into my double bed with me almost every night for a while after we split up. It made me feel very grown up to be able to help her feel safe (and I secretly loved the company as well!) I love the idea of a a shared room for my own kids one day!

When my brother and I were 4 (me) and 6 (him) we moved into a house that was big enough for us to have our own rooms. When my mom announced the happy news my brother’s lip began to quiver and my mom asked him “Sweetie, do you think you need your sissy to protect you from something in your room?” His response “Yes.” Pause “Loneliness”. So we stuck together until we were teens and only separated then because of another move – we still spent all non-sleeping hours together in his room and out on the roof! Now I am expecting a third and moving the baby (1 year) into her brother’s (almost 3) room soon. I hope they love it as much as we did!

My girls (6 1/2 and 2 1/2) share a room- through necessity as we’ve 2 bedrooms. It’s hideous! I wish I could report lovely stories like other commenters. Don’t get me wrong, they like sharing, (mostly!) but bed time just doesn’t work for us and they wind each other up into the small hours. We put the little one to bed first and then my older daughter in our room and then move her. Oh how I dream of that third bedroom.. Literally, I have dreams where I find the door to the ‘missing’ room!

Our three kids (20 months, 3.5 years, 5 years) all share a small room off our kitchen. It just fits their three beds and they love it. They have a big playroom for everything but sleep and it really works well for us. When it was just our two boys, our eldest suddenly started waking up almost every night and coming to us. He wasn’t super upset like he had had a nightmare, just anxious. We moved him into his little brother’s nursery and the night wakings stopped (they were 3 and 17 months at the time). Our daughter has always been a pretty bad sleeper, but it has gotten miles better since we moved her in with her brothers. We’re moving to a house with five bedrooms in a couple of months, but the children all insist on sharing a room when we do! So I guess we’re going to have a playroom, a crafts room, a lego room…

http://www.minipiccolini.com

Hi Joanna,
This post came just in time!
My three older kids aged 6,4,2 all share a room (two girls and a little boy)
Now I want to move my baby (6 months old) from our room and i have been debating if to move them all together( four in a room..we will never sleep..) or switch things and separate the older kids for the two older kids in one room and the two younger in another.
I feel as though a strong bond between siblings happens when you share a room in the middle of the night..so I think I will risk it and put all four of them in one room until they will ask to separate.
Wish me luck!

My 3 yo son and 14 no daughter have shared a room since she was 4 months old. She goes to bed at about 6:45, and we do his bedtime routine outside their room then we quietly go in his room and I rock him in there for a few minutes before laying him down. She almost always sleeps right through it, and if she wakes just nurses back to sleep easily. He naps in our bed on the days he is not in preschool since their nap times aren’t identical. He has recently been coming to “help” me read to her before bed. Whichever one wakes second looks for the other one of he or she is not in the room. It’s pretty sweet. His bedtime was a little bumpy when we started and adjusted to a new routine since we had been reading books in his room for so long, but now he loves cuddling up in my bed to read and tell stories before bed. My house is an old Victorian in San Francisco, and it’s pretty small, so all of this happens in close proximity to everything else. Also, they rarely wake each other at night even when she was waking up every couple hours, and he almost always sleeps in later than her.

This has got me rethinking some things…

I’m due with my second girl in April and we’ve been getting the guest room ready for her, but maybe my girls would prefer to share?

I shared a room with my sister, who is about five years older than me. I don’t have much of a memory of it but my sister remembers it not-so-fondly. We’re fine now, but it seems like everyone here has very positive experiences of the whole thing.

I suppose the thing to do is just wait and see!

The first time I had a room of my own was when I moved away for grad school! I shared a room with my brother until Grade 8, spent 3 years with my younger sister, and then 1 year with my older sister. During my 4-year undergrad, I slept on the top bunk (a junior twin) while my younger sister took the bottom bunk (a double…). I don’t know how that happened :P

I shared a room, not only with my sister, but with with our brother as well. The three of us shared a room growing up essentially until I left for college – my sis is 4 years younger and my brother is 6 years younger. We bickered a lot, but we’re really close now that we’re all grown. I studied psychology in college and remembered looking at a few studies concerning siblings, family constellation, etc. and noticing that even statistics show that it’s better for social and personal development for siblings to share a room, especially if they are within a few years of each other. It builds emotional bonding to another human; it internally establishes a practice of balance between boundaries and respect of privacy of self and another; it fosters better problem solving and healthy confrontation skills. Overall it is better developmentally for siblings to share a room than it is for each child to have their own room, not to mention the lifelong friendship that is built within those walls :)

I have a 2 yr old and 3 yr old that have shared always and it’s great. They do nap in different places but sleep great at night. I love hearing them talk to each other when they get up in the am. :). I know have a 4 month old that I’m exited to throw in the in when he is older. Thanks for the shared rooms ideas. I’m always thinking….