How to Make it Work When Kids Share a Bedroom.
This post is sponsored by Moose Toys.
We have four kids – two girls and two boys – which is handy as our kids share bedrooms.
There are lots of reasons why we’ve chosen for our kids to share rooms – the biggest being space, we only have three bedrooms so someone’s gotta share.
There are lots of great things that come from kids sharing a bedroom. They learn to share and respect each other, they practice problem solving, conflict resolution and compromise, they develop a close bond, they learn to communicate well, and they feel more secure not being alone at night…
But I’d be lying if I said it was all smooth sailing.
Sometimes sharing a bedroom is hard, and sometimes I think we need to build two more bedrooms, fast! But with a little planning and effort, I think the positives outweigh the negatives for us… most of the time!
Here are a few ways we make sharing a bedroom work for our kids…
How to Make it Work When Kids Share a Bedroom.
Making a shared space work.
A big part of successful room sharing is using the space wisely.
The bedrooms in this old house are larger than average, but it’s still tricky fitting in enough storage for two kids stuff, and making sure everyone has enough space.
Bunks and loft beds help us gain a little extra space for everything, and making sure we declutter and get rid of outgrown stuff on a regular basis is important.
We’ve also thought about how we can create private spaces for each child. We’ve positioned furniture between our girls’ beds, and sometimes use a curtain around the bottom bunk in the boys’ room so each child has a space that feels more private when they need it.
Creating a sense of ownership for each child.
When you share a room it can feel like you have to share everything, but we’ve made some ground rules so that our kids still have their own special spaces that are just theirs.
The rule in our house is that you don’t go onto someone else’s bed without being invited.
Your bed is your own, private space, you can choose what bedlinen you want, and you can decorate the walls around your bed any way you like.
The boys sleep in a bunk bed and they both loved using the Glow Show Sticker Launcher to decorate their ‘ceilings’ and walls with glow in the dark stickers.
Noah created a little glow in the dark haven on the bottom bunk, putting stickers on the wall and underneath the top bunk. Morgan loved being able to shoot stickers up onto the ceiling above his bed any way he wanted (and I love that they come off super easily if they end up somewhere they shouldn’t!).
Each of our kids also has a special spot for storing ‘treasures’ – things that are special to them, that no one else is allowed to touch without permission. For Noah that is a simple box with his name on it, the girls have an under-bed storage box each, and Morgan has a special set of fabric pockets that hang on the wall next to his top bunk (you can see them in the photo above).
The glow in the dark stickers, the bed rule, and the treasure boxes may seem like small things, but it makes the kids feel like there is a special space that belongs just to them.
Making bedtime work when kids share a room.
Bedtime isn’t much of an issue with the girls, they are twins, so they have similar needs when it comes to sleep, but I was worried about how we’d manage it when the boys started sharing a room – they are three years apart in age, but our simple bedtime routine makes it fairly easy to manage.
All our kids go to bed at the same time, no matter how old they are, and I think this simple thing is the key to making bedtime easier with kids who share a room.
They don’t all go to sleep at the same time, but all four kids are expected to be in their beds doing something quiet until they fall asleep. This means they are less likely to disturb each other, they are learning to respect each other’s need for sleep, and to wind down and relax for sleep themselves.
We use small book lights to allow reading without disturbing each other, and head phones to listen to relaxing music or audio books.
Noah takes a while to fall asleep but has been enjoying playing around with the Glow Show Sticker Launcher light, charging up his glow stickers (they don’t get much natural light on the bottom bunk) and playing with the built in projector wheel. Quiet play like this keeps him happy and occupied and doesn’t disturb his big brother while he reads, or snores!
Glow in the dark stickers are also great for kids who have bedtime fears, Christie from childhood101 shares lots of great ideas for dealing with night time fears and anxieties here.
Glow Show Sticker Launcher and Scene Packs.
The Glow Show Sticker Launcher is a super easy way for kids to customise their space. Just load the launcher, pop a sticker on the nerf dart, and shoot!
It comes with a range of glow in the dark, removable, stickers, and has a built in torch to ‘charge up’ your stickers, and a projector wheel so you can project images onto your glowing wall display. There are three additional Glow Show Scene Packs available and each one comes with its own projector wheel.
This post is co-ordinated by The Remarkables Group
Great to see these in action! I saw the Glow Show advertised just this past week and thought that it may solve our current need-the-light-on-to-fall-asleep phase. (Have even wondered whether sharing a bedroom could help,so was really interested to read your article.)
We are superhero mad at present and I can just see our handmade capes decorated with glow in the dark stars and planets. What superhero could resist bling that glows? ;) All the baddies will be quivering when they see these glowing shapes materialize out of the darkness. ;)
WHAT!! What an amazing gadget! My hubby went into Target for thongs one day and came out ( a long time after) with two nerf guns and extra ammo!! Needless to say we have had lots of fun since!
How cool do these look! I’d probably shoot a few at my hubby but I know my girls would LOVE to fill their space with glowing goodness too!
I’d love to pop a couple of these on my 5 year olds forehead – glow in the dark kiddo would be easier to intercept trying to creep into my bed in the middle of the night!
I’d love to post something silly and funny but, in actual fact, I think my 11 year-old son would shoot these onto the French doors and sash window in his room because he’s convinced that “Slenderman” is going to come and kidnap him overnight. We’re having awful trouble with his anxiety at the moment. He won’t go into any room with a window unless we’re very close by, even in the day time! As for his sisters, they would be just as likely to cut out a tree and flowers to stick on their wall for all the butterflies to live and play in!
Thanks for the tips about sharing rooms. I agree with the positives and negatives :).
I should be a good mom and say that I would shoot stickers on my son’s ceiling so he can have something fun to look at while he fights sleep for several hours.
And I WOULD do that… But I would also totally want to put glow-in-the-dark galaxies (like, tracing out REAL constellations) in my own bedroom because I am SO bad at doing this adult thing and I still get over-excited about glow in the dark stickers.
In time our girls are going to be sharing rooms and I’m quietly excited about that for all the positives that you mention. Thanks so much for all the great tips and I love that you can still personalise their space, even when it isn’t that big. That sticker launcher looks super cool.
Okay, so totally random (and hopefully not too disgusting to share) but I’d personally shoot one of those sticker launchers into my oven because I was just thinking the other day how unattractive the inside of an over can be between cleans. LOL
Without a doubt, I’d shoot stickers at my phone and keys, so I can find them easily! I’m always looking for my phone and keys and anything that helps them stand out and be found easily would be a winner for me! Plus, it might encourage the kids to help me, make a game of who can find mum’s glow in the dark phone!
I would shoot them above the bath so I could lie in the bath with the light off and enjoy them with no one knowing I was in there!
I would shoot some on the toilet cistern – it might encourage my boys to focus on what they are doing – or at least to be facing the right direction.
I’d shoot these on my girls pants then maybe my nudie rudies would keep their clothes on! I can already hear them screaming and giggling as they run around in the dark with glow in the dark bums… :)
I don’t live in Australia but couldn’t help but think I would use them to mark the creaky floorboards in my girls bedroom to aid sneaking back out once they’ve gone back to sleep!
On/ in the toilet bowl – I would love the boys in my house to aim better , in the toilet not on the floor !
If I could shoot glow in the dark stickers anywhere it would be the toliet as then when going to the rest room of a night time would less scary
What fun! We have a black tent to cover our trampoline, I think it would be fun to put it on and shoot it up for a jumping in the dark play,
And with the others – my big kid already has lots of glow stars, but my littles share a room and don’t, and I did hear a wistful voice the other day say he would like some. This would be a great way to enable my pint size 5yo and 3yo to have a go at decorating it themselves.
Not in Australia but I’ve seen this product. So cool! And we have 4 kids who share rooms – the girls do, youngest boy is in our room. I preparing to rearrange the girl room and create more privacy for my oldest. Everyone has the same bedtime too.
I’d like to shoot some of these stickers on my cat! He snuggles up to my 4 y.o. who has trouble staying asleep. If he woke up and the cat was all aglow I’m sure he’d happily go back to sleep – then so could I!
Although my eldest son would enjoy shooting glow in the dark stickers everywhere! I would shoot some onto my fav coffee cup so that I could always find it no matter how early the kids had me up in the mornings when I would rather be asleep!
These are so cool. I would shoot along my hardwood floor, so when I walked around of a night it would be like walking on the nights sky.