Name: ICHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-05T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-07T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Bourbonnais, IL

Tagged: sharing room, twins

This topic has 14 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 9 months ago by junkybird.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)

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August 5, 2011 at 12:18 pm
junkybird
Participant
Good Morning ladies!
I just announced that we were having twins this week, and we are already well underway planning for our two new bundles of girly joy 🙂 Unfortunately, this means that our older two, DS7 and DD3 are going to have to share the only other bedroom in the house. We thought about eventually putting all the girls together once they were older, but have decided that because of the bonds that twins likely share, we don’t want our son to feel “lonely.” You may or may not agree with our decision to put a boy/girl together, but it is what we have chosen for the moment 🙂
We are busy painting their “new” room blue and yellow and will probably let them each pick out a new bedroom sheet/comforter set for their beds. We have a twin over full bunk bed. We have one 5 shelf wooden shelf that is pretty large in the room and a set of four lockers (two over two) already in that room. And a regular sized closet. We have gotten matching white 6 drawer dressers from IKEA for each of them.
For the people that have boy/girl sharing a room, do you have any advice on how to give each their own space, or other organizing ideas? Color coded bins on the shelves? I’m not as concerned about my DD3 as I am my DS7 who has had his own room always. I know that he has things are “his” and doesn’t want DD3 messing with. How do you keep these things away, special drawers or chest?
Just trying to get ideas 🙂
Jenn
August 5, 2011 at 12:45 pm
4myboys
Participant
I honestly wouldn’t worry about your son feeling lonely if he has always had his own room. And as he gets older, he will definately want his own space away from his little sisters. I can understand this as a temporary solution if you are concerned about the babies keeping your daughter awake at night if they are in the same room or don’t have the space for two cribs and a twin sized bed in there at this point, but I can’t see it working for more than a year or so — especially with a 3 and 7 year old of opposite gendar.
Still, you know your children much better than I do — how well they get along and how tolerant your son is about his little sister possibly getting into his stuff.  How does your son feel about sharing with his little sister? You will definately need to find a way to give him some personal space. How large is the room? It sounds pretty full already. Does he have playmates over and do they play in his room?  Does he do school work in his room? Does he have collections that will need to be kept out of little hands? If he is taking the top bunk, can you put some shelves high enough that only he can reach them? Can you put locks on the lockers? You know yourself how resourceful little kids can be. Despite having a hook-and-eye on my bedroom door growing up to try to keep her out, it took no time for her to figure out how to pull over a stool and open the door any time she’d want in there. Bins and drawers will not be a deterant for your dd3 if she really wants to play with something.
Are there other options? If this was happening at my house, I would give the girls the largest bedroom and let my son have his own space.   But this isn’t my house or my family, and only you know the best solution at this point.
August 5, 2011 at 12:59 pm
JennNC
Participant
Agreeing with 4myboys… is there any other doable scenario? I would be concerned about this being a permanent solution. Things will be fairly stressful on the oldest sibling anyway when the babies arrive, and I would think that sharing with a preschool sister would perhaps increase rather than decrease stress.
Could the babies be in your room for the first 6 months or so? Maybe in small playpens rather than full sized cribs? I know several people who have done this with one baby but I don’t know if it would work for two.
But 4myboys is right, you’ll know what is best! Maybe a divider of some kind in the room?
August 5, 2011 at 1:02 pm
houseofchaos
Participant
Hi Jenn,
We have eight children in two not very large bedrooms, and personal space is a definite challenge. The largest bedroom has five girls and one three year old boy, and the tiny bedroom houses our thirteen year old son and eighteen month old boy. Don’t ask me where the new baby will sleep in January…. because I don’t know and am losing sleep over it!!
I would suggest a small special chest for special things (small so that the special things are really special). High shelves in a closet also work well for the things that really must be kept away. I would encourage you to be careful with this, however. It’s good for them to learn to share. Ours are happier for it.
Also, nothing replaces teaching good old respect for privacy. This is difficult at the beginning with small children, but pays off in the long run. They can learn more quickly than I thought that everything is not theirs   🙂
If you are sure you want them to share the room, I would encourage you to move them in well in advance of the babies’ arrival. Too many changes at once are never fun. As they get older, you can re-evaluate and put all the girls together if that seems best (in my opinion, likely it will by then). But I definitely understand you wanting the babies having their own room right now.
Blessings to you as you prepare for your growing family.
August 5, 2011 at 1:23 pm
Homeschooling6
Participant
We live in a three bedroom house and have three children in each bedroom. With five boys and one girl there is no way right now that my dd can have her own room, so currently at the age of 11yrs. old she is sharing with her two brothers.
At one time we had a larger house and she was able to have her own room. Hopefully in a year we can move to another larger house but for the past two years she has had to share.
Each child has ther own shelves to ‘decorate’ as they like. To put their books, papers etc. When all six kids shared a room for 9 months my dh bought containers that fit under their beds for each child.
Basically for us it’s lots of shelves. I can’t really think of anything majorly different we do.Just train the children to keep their hands off of other people’s things which is taught regardless 🙂
Blessings,
Linda<><
August 5, 2011 at 6:33 pm
junkybird
Participant
Thank you, thank you for each of your opinions and suggestions. I, too, think that in the future the girls will probably share a room together and DS will have his own room. One of the bedrooms is larger and will work fine for that. But, at least for the next year or two, won’t it work for the older two to share? I certainly hope so.
And, yes I agree, houseofchaos, we are moving them together in the next week or so. Last night they will still “talking” to each other at 10:30 pm and then woke up at 7am! They shared last night because we have the in-laws in town to help with all this re-arranging and painting 🙂 So, they will have to have some time to get used to this. I definitely don’t want to have to deal with them and new babies at one time!
Jenn
August 5, 2011 at 9:03 pm
TracyM
Member
At that age, I’d put the twins in one room and the other 2 in the other room until the twins were past the baby phase of waking up alot, etc. so they won’t disturb the other kids. Then put the 3 girls together. By then your older son will gladly have his own room probably. lol My son and daughter shared a room briefly when they were 6 and 2 I think, and it wasn’t a huge deal at that age. I wouldn’t do it now that they’re almost 16 and 12 though.
August 5, 2011 at 10:59 pm
suzukimom
Participant
My oldest son and daughter shared a room (and then them plus the next daughter) until we had #4 in our bedroom and would be moving her into the “kids” room in a few months… at that point we made a room for him and shifted everyone… I think we moved the baby over when she was about 6 months…..
So we had a 6yo boy, 4yo girl and 2yo girl together. We now have 7yo boy in own room, and 5yo girl, 3yo gilr and 1yo girl together.
They adapt.
August 5, 2011 at 11:26 pm
LillyLou
Participant
Jenn,
Just PM’ing you…
August 7, 2011 at 10:27 am
Wings2fly
Participant
That is so sweet that your only 2 children up to this point will be roommates. My ds7 and his younger sister have been roommates since she was about 6 months old. The two are like best friends. I have not yet read the book, Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends, but the title reminds me of my two. When we moved last fall, we had the option of putting ds in his own room, but they did not want to be separated yet. That is when we got them bumk beds. Their bed is their “private” space and each has an underbed tote with their own toys in it. The other toys are shared. I believe some of the trials that come up actually help them to learn how better to deal with others. I guess you could call it socialization. They each change clothes in the bathroom for privacy. When it is the right time, they will each have their own room. But, I know in my heart that this is right for our family at this time. When would you separate them? Either when you felt the babies were ready to be more independent of you and sleep better and would not disturb dd3 or when you felt your darling little boy “growing up” and needing his own room. Bedtime is special with them both in the same room. Each picks a story or I pick it and we read a Bible story. We have special life discussions that the books open up to us. Then lights out, each says their prayers, and I play a bedtime CD of music. They know that they are not allowed to talk anymore once the music is on. They know they are expected to go to sleep and they do.
Congratulations on the twins! You are blessed with such a nice family.
August 8, 2011 at 1:28 pm
junkybird
Participant
Thank you for all the replies. I have just gotten time to come back and check this discussion from a very busy weekend! We got the shared room painted, two walls blue and two walls yellow. We also got the two dressers put together and in there. Now I just have to organize everything. Then that will leave me to start organizing the twins room.
I think, at this point, we are going to leave them sharing a room until we find it necessary to move our DS to the smaller room and the twins into the larger newly painted room with the older DD. The blue is a light blue and with the yellow we won’t have to repaint. It will make a lovely all girls room. When the time comess. We just don’t have a set time frame on when that will be. Maybe around ten? Who knows. I’m just not going to worry about that right now 🙂 For the moment, we are going to start teaching the older two to change their clothes in the bathroom. The bedroom is for playing and sleeping.
I appreciate all the comments and suggestions that I got. Truly. And certainly welcome more!
Jenn
August 8, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Britney
Member
We also have a small 3 bedroom home. My dd8 and my ds4 have been sharing a room for about 18 months now and they absolutely love it! We bought bunk beds and they each have their own blanket and pillow case according to their tastes. THey each have their own dresser with only their special things on them. We painted there room meadow green and they each picked out a Bible verse poster that suited their personality. I can honestly say they will probably share a room for a while. That being said…..their bedroom is for sleeping and reading. The schoolroom/play room houses all of our school/craft supplies and all there toys. They are not allowed to change in the bedroom, only the bathroom. That is strictly enforced. We have allowed them to sleep in the same bed when there was a terrible hail storm. But other than that they cannot sleep in eachothers bed. I have to say that they would be heart broken if I seperated them. They are, like another poster said, best friends. They love being together. 🙂 Most all of the toys, which are few, are shared. They each have a few trinkets of their own, my girl mostly, that they keep in a small bin in the closet. It works for us!
August 9, 2011 at 5:09 am
PioneerHomeschoolGrandma
Participant
I’m an older mom ages 12, 14, 19,21, 27,29 and this topic has hit a REAL spot for me. We have experienced first hand not good things from brother/sister in the same room. They are the 19dd and 21ds. They are 18mo apart and were close in friendship at one time. My dh told me to separate them in different rooms and I didn’t. They weren’t allowed to dress in the same room but this didn’t matter. We don’t do TV in our home and only watch innocent movies once every 2 wks. or so. I wish I could say that this didn’t happen but it did and I will pay the consequences for it forever. Old sin nature had it’s way. They weren’t saved back then and one of them I don’t think is now but that is the Lord’s business to know that. They were together for years and then we separated them about 8 & 10 or 9 or 11. Our daughter went right along with it but she can’t seem to come to grips with that and blames her brother. He has apologized and been humbled for his part. It messed him up too.
We have a 4 bedroom house and when the oldest was 18 she went to college and never came back to live as well as our next oldest she went to bible college and then got married to a wonderfully saved man.
If I had it to do all over again, I would have realized that they aren’t completely “innocent”. This was and has been our experience personally, not to say that it could be someone else’s. I always thought it wouldn’t happen in our home. Years ago, social services, we were homeschooling then, made a call to an apt. across the street from our home. Our daughter was talking to one of the children in our yard and she said that we do spank. That info. went to the social services and we were “visited”. The lady said, after speaking with our children, that all was fine and that she personally felt that that was needed at times. BUT what she did say that there seemed to be some exploring going on. We spoke to them kindly and frankly about this and watched carefully but to no avail and then thought nothing of it. We waited to long……..so just something to think about.

August 9, 2011 at 5:53 am
Sue
Participant
If “such a thing” is going to happen in one’s home, it is not necessarily going to be born out of young siblings sharing a room. In our case, it was an instance between an innocent 3yo and an older child one morning when both awakened early in their separate bedrooms. He is no longer living in our home due to parental separation. Several years have gone by, and God has provided much healing to the joyful, creative, lovely little girl.
Having said that, I hadn’t even recalled this incident (healing for Mom, too) when I read the posts in this thread. Probably foremost in my mind is that each parent knows their children and can be watchful for signs of “growing up” and the need for same-gender spaces separate from opposite-gender siblings. Privacy is a wonderful, respectful thing to be taught to our children, but if the privacy and respect we’ve instilled in them is in any way violated, then we respond as parents should….and hopefully, we try not to bear all of the responsibilty for the children’s mistakes ourselves. As parents, we have our own sins of which to repent; we can’t repent for our children’s sins–they bear that responsibility themselves. If we’ve taught them well, perhaps there will be less sins for which they need to repent. However, ultimately that is up to them.
August 9, 2011 at 6:51 pm
junkybird
Participant
Wow! Lots to think about here 🙂 I think I’ll think about it tomorrow . . . as Scarlett would say. We are strictly enforcing the bathroom changing as well. My DS7 is pretty immature for his age, never watches TV and doesn’t play video games. That’s not saying that nothing can happen though.
If anybody has any other room sharing ideas, you can feel free to PM me. I don’t want to cause more “ruckus” on the board 🙂
Thanks so much,
Jenn