My husband and I believe that room sharing can be character building. We believe that as mammals, primates, that we are social by nature and that it is natural to want to share sleep and space with one another. We feel it meets a primal need to feel safe among other things.
Still it was a bit of a shock when our son at near 2 years old would toddle into his sisters room at night and demand that she would cuddle with him. Why not the parents? Could it be our bed was too big or that we had a new baby already sharing our bed? What ever the case, big sister was happy to help and before we knew it, they wanted to share a room. So we moved beds and made little mans room a play room.
When baby number three was about 18 months she started the same cycle, only now it was three little people trying to pile into a twin bed very happy to not be alone and when she was 2, there was again another baby in sharing our room. We thought it was wonderful for them all but as we had the room, maybe we should make our son be in his own room, he was 4 after all. He however just ended up back in the girls room and it was a battle we did not want to fight as again, we understood his need to not be alone.
Another move across country and while the house could offer another room for little man to be alone in his own room, the house is smaller, our items do not all fit. So we all talked about it and in the end the three older children, ages 11, 5.5, and 3.3 have the master bedroom and the master walk in closet for toys. A loft bed helps the our oldest have space away from the youngers and taking time to let the kids pick colors and paint their joint space has been great. While out oldest wants a room of her own after meeting new friends and seeing their spaces, none of them have more than one sibling and funny, they all push for sleep overs to all be here so they can puppy pile together on every surface the room provides, including an over sized bean bag! I love the sleep overs, I love that the older kids don’t even mind the younger ones and the younger ones love the older ones! There is nothing in that room but childhood innocents but soon that will change. Soon our oldest daughter will be a young lady, soon she will need private space to talk about boys and curl her hair and make calls alone. Soon. But for now, the kids sharing space works. It is healthy for them, supportive, and helps them share with one another and think about eachothers needs.
We are always looking for ideas on how we can make their space even more perfect for them and welcome ideas!
A friend asked about room sharing and so I went right up and took this photo. Notice “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” on the TV? My oldest was on the phone and watching this at the same time from her upper bed. She knows she can’t have it on when the little ones are in the room and they where not!
