Minutes after I found out I was pregnant with my fifth kid, my mind drifted from sweet baby cuddles and outfits to a more concerning thought — we just don’t have room in our house for this baby to have her own room. And who wants to share bedrooms with their four stinky older brothers? It’s a common concern for people with smaller apartments or spaces, or larger spaces with many people or children. It also might be a concern if you frequently have house guests who need their own room.
As part of this year's 25 Days of Giving campaign (check this page for daily giveaways every day through Christmas!), Sleepopolis is taking a closer look at how to share a bed (and a bedroom): whether it's with your partner, pet, sibling, or you're sharing a bedroom due to downsizing, or you don't have a spare room. In the spirit of the holidays and 25 Days of Giving, we're putting a spotlight on sharing.
A CBS News poll found that 60 percent of Americans reported sharing a bedroom with a sibling while growing up, compared to 30 percent who had their own rooms. (1) Older generations were more likely to have shared a room, with 72 percent of those over 65 confirming this was the norm for them. But, parents today, including myself, sometimes think that they are doing a disservice to their kids by asking them to share a room. However, that couldn’t have been further from the truth with my own kids, who have seen numerous benefits of room sharing with siblings (in spite of their initial protests).
Here’s how to make it work if you find yourself with more people than rooms.
Think Vertically
Bunk beds might be a distant memory from your childhood, but they can make a tight space roomier even for adults. They’ve also evolved to have numerous innovative designs, and much more space than two twin beds. There are combinations of fulls and twins, triple bunks, and the potential to put two sets of two bunk beds in one room for maximum capacity.
Brianna Bell, mother of three, lives in a shared bedroom space during the summer months.
“We have a bunk bed, which includes a lower double bed and upper twin. The younger two are in the bottom and the eldest is mostly in the top, although there were times the 3 would sleep all together at the bottom,” she says. This makes the 10×9 bedroom much more usable.
“It was hard, especially since they want their own space and have their own rooms at home, but they managed…” she says.
Bunk beds also work well for a single kid’s room that also needs to double as a guest room — the guest can take a larger bottom bunk and kick the kid to the top bunk when guests stay over.
Room Dividers Do Double-Duty
In rooms where you really need two rooms, strategic furniture decisions can help preserve privacy and a sense of one’s own space. LaToya Jordan, who has a 12 year-old-girl and a 6-year-old boy in Brooklyn uses a large cube storage system to break up one room into two smaller “bedrooms” for her kids. “This is common in New York City,” she says, adding that it’s working out in the meantime while they plan to find a 3-bedroom apartment or home in the future.
“There’s also a large gray divider curtain that my oldest is in charge of. We have rules, like when the curtain is pulled, we knock on the bookcase. My son goes to bed before my daughter so she has a lamp that we turn on before he goes to bed so she has light,” she says. “We had their input in choosing new bedding and decor so there was excitement and buy-in on this idea. We still run into issues occasionally with my son finding all of my daughter’s secret candy hiding spaces, but it’s worked surprisingly well for an older kid who didn’t start sharing a room until she was 11.”
A Minimalistic Kids’ Room/Guest Room Combo
Many kids’ rooms could double as a guest room except for a few problems — like the warzone of toys on the ground, and a snack they snuck into their bed a few nights back. So, for some parents, it works to keep one of the kids’ rooms as the “minimalist” and “toy free” space for easy conversion into a guest room.
Kelly A. Burch, mother of two, from Concord, N.H. has a three-bedroom house. “We used to use my younger daughter’s room as a pseudo guest room, which meant keeping toys in there to a minimum and having a queen-sized bed,” she says. “That way when we had guests I could easily put her in with her sister and give the guests private space.”
Burch also shares a helpful tip in dividing a child’s belongings between two rooms. Since her father-in-law moved into that room, her younger daughter has a twin bed in her sibling’s room, and has her other belongings in the playroom. Her set up points to the fact that kids don’t have to have all of their things in one room. “That allows a solid sleeping space for both of them, without my oldest feeling like her bedroom is being overrun by her little sister,” she says.
If you do have to have siblings share a room, giving them voice and choice over their part of the room, from comforters to wall decorations means they can still have a space of their own, even if someone else is in those four walls too. And, like my kids, you just might notice sweet moments of them reading to each other or convincing their siblings there’s really no monster under the bed.
Bedroom Design Ideas For Kids That Actually Promote Sleep
6 Steps to Create a Minimalist Bedroom Design
“Hot Bedding,” Where Strangers Share a Bed, Is On the Rise
Everything to Know About Montessori Beds, the Potentially Perfect Rising Trend for Kids and Parents Alike
Sources
1. Backus, Fred; “Most Americans shared a bedroom with a sibling growing up: CBS News poll,” CBS News; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-poll-most-americans-shared-a-bedroom-growing-up/; June 16, 2021
Bell, Brianna. Author interview. November 2024.
Jordan, LaToya. Author interview. November 2024.
Burch, Kelly A. Author interview. November 2024.
