Sharing a Room with a Big Age Gap

I grew up sharing a room until I was in 10th grade, and then I got my own room for 6 months before I went back to sharing with my younger sister. My older sister and I are 5 days short of exactly 2 years apart and my younger sister and I are just shy of 6 years apart. I didn't mind so much sharing with my older sister, but 6 years was a lot. If she was napping I couldn't be in my room, if she was waking up early, it woke me up early, her toys and my toys were different - so I couldn't keep my toys in there for safety once she was mobile. It sucked.

Sharing a room with my younger sister was a nightmare and we were only 22 months apart.
It's going to depend on the kids - it could work for some and no way for others.
I'm assuming the older 2 will share and the baby with have it's own room - maybe switch when baby is about 5 yrs old so oldest can have some privacy?
Eventually the oldest will leave home and then the middle and youngest will have their own rooms.
I've seen people create rooms for older teens in basements and attics.

The problem that I see in your question is this phrase: "my husband and I are wanting another baby and feel that we are at a point where the older two would be helpful".

That's not a good point to factor in when deciding to have another baby. You and your husband would be the parents and the ones to raise the baby, and just having older kids doesn't mean you have built-in helpers or babysitters, although certainly older kids can be expected to help with all household responsibilities. However, caring for an infant when a pre-teen is 11 is not at all the same as raking the leaves and loading the dishwasher.

Sure, tweens are always excited, about new babies, new puppies, a new bike, a new family car, a trip to a theme park, even the thought of getting an extra large pizza AND cinnamon sticks AND a 2 liter bottle of soda !!! But they don't have the maturity to consider the accompanying responsibilities and tasks: cleaning up afterwards, staying home to babysit, saving up to pay for the tickets, keeping the back seat of the new car free of Cheetos, gathering up the pizza boxes and taking them to the recycling bin, paying for the gas or the food, storing the bike properly every night, paying for the vet bills, hearing the baby cry, knowing that mom and dad can't come to middle school events without the stroller/backpack/diaper bag, etc. "Hooray! We're getting a boat!" is quickly followed by "what do you mean we have to scrub it and change the oil and pack the food for the day and then unpack the food at the end of the day and clean the barnacles off and hose down the deck and repair the sails and coil the lines just so? I thought we were going fishing."

So, if you really want another baby, I suggest you remove the other two kids from the equation. Do you want to be solely responsible for an infant and then a toddler at your kids' dance recitals, middle school activities, sports events, high school parents' nights, etc, without expecting help from your older kids? Your older kids might be involved in practices, rehearsals, sleep-overs, scouting, summer camp, study groups, sports, homework, and all the other things that require time and effort, either at home or away from home.

Just some things to think about...

Well, I'm going to be blunt: if you can't afford to buy a new house or remodel in some way to accommodate, it's probably not financially feasible to have another child.

I would not factor your older kids into the 'helping' quotient. Yes, they should have some chores already, but I wouldn't put any caregiving expectations on them. And yes, this would include sharing a room. Personally, no teen is going to want to share their room with a two year old. The older kids need a safe place where their belongings aren't going to be attacked and broken.

Please consider all of these points. If you can afford to change the living situation, go for it. Otherwise, I think you would be creating a rather fraught household.

I shared a room with my sister who is 16 years older than me, and when she got married and moved out, I shared a room with my sister who is 2 years older than me. I actually liked sharing a room with my sister who is 16 years older better. She helped me learn to read at night and would play games with me. Also, as we got older and she had a job, she bought a TV and it was very nice having a TV in my room. For a 5 year old girl, it was awesome. I was 9 when I started living with my 11 year old sister. It was awful. We fought all the time. She never had time for me and I always got kicked out when her friends came over. Kids have a way of dealing with things. It may not be ideal, but it works out. For what it's worth, my sister who I shared a room with who was only 2 years older than me, is one of my best friends now. We talk almost daily. The sister that was 16 years older than me, may not of always liked sharing a room with a kid, but she dealt with it. Your kids will learn to deal with it too.

My brother was 7 years younger and at times I shared a room with him when I was a teen. It didn't bother me much, but I was pretty easygoing.

There are worse things than sharing a room. Kids all over the world share rooms. Warn your kids ahead of time that this might be the case, and that it might bother them more when they are teens. But after that, they will live. And there are ways to partition rooms.

I shared a room with my sister from the day she was born (I was three) until the day I got married and moved out of my parents' house.
I do not recommend it.
We had widely differing tastes in music, decor, entertainment. Any time either of us wanted to listen to music, we had to do so with headphones because we hated each other's music. But we had to share a stereo, which meant that only one of us could listen to music at a time.
Same with tv. We didn't like the same shows, but we had one tv in our room, so only one of us got to watch what she liked at any given time. This was before VCR's, so taping and watching later wasn't an option.
There was no privacy. Neither of us could go into our room and close and lock the door because the other might want to get in.
Do you know how difficult it is to discreetly masturbate with your sister lying three feet away from you?

My girls (now 18 year old twins and a 23 year old no longer at home) shared a room growing up. I have a bunk with a full bed on the bottom, and a twin on the top.

I actually made 'bed curtains' that hung from the bottom of the top bunk to the floor. This created a 'tent' feeling for the twins...(they LOVED it), and also some darkness for them as they all got older, and sometimes the eldest needed to stay up later.

I also got a wicker screen...it folds up...but has 4 reasonably private panels that separated a desk/changing/vanity area.

When the eldest comes home, the girls CHOOSE to bunk together. It is pretty funny!

When we moved here, just over a year ago, the twins finally have separate rooms. It was an adjustment for BOTH of them, but felt it was important to do this now, as next year, one twin will be off to college, and the other will be here alone (with ME of course). She has developmental delays.

They did have sibling squabbles from time to time...but over all, I think they remember fondly their 'room sharing' years!

For what it is worth...I have four boys as well. And they each 'bunk bedded'...two to a room. They sometimes 'switched' up 'who' roomed with who (usually by packing up another one's 'stuff' and moving it...lol). But, I think they remember those days fondly as well. They are now 25, 24, 22 and 19.

It CAN work...and IMO, is a great lesson in respecting others!

Best!

***ETA***

At one point the boys did move BOTH bunks to one room...and had desks etc in another...but then, they began going off to college, so things varied a bit***

I would give the older kids their own room (sharing is difficult esp w/age
differences).
Then I would put the baby in your room when born for awhile so he/she
has a safe place to be & you can get to him/her easily & quickly.
Next I would look at some area in your current house that you could
transform into the baby room (they don't need big rooms at young
ages) like an alcove, huge walk in closet in your bedroom, office area etc.
If you can move in the near future, it would be ideal.
Good luck & hope you find a fantastic solution!!! :)

Listen to Nervy Girl. I agree with her 100 percent.

And think of this: A two-year-old sharing a bedroom with a 12-year-old. So the older kid would have to ensure EVERY single day and night that every pencil, pen, paper clip, game card, electronic device, piece of jewelry, barrette (if applicable) -- everything small and swallowable or breakable --is out of the way securely. The older kid would be responsible if the younger one pulls the battery out of the older one's calculator or phone and loses it or worse, swallows it. The older one would be the one constantly being told, "You need to be careful about X being out in the bedroom in case Sibling gets into it." That's a great recipe for breeding deep resentment and rebellion in an older kid.

We're not talking a few years apart. We're talking about gaps so big that the older kids will absolutely feel invaded if they share 24/7 with a far younger child. And it's setting them up for guilt (if the sibling gets hurt) and/or anger (if the sibling destroys something of theirs) when -- not if, but when --the younger child gets into the older child's stuff.

As for how the older two "would be helpful": You have zero idea of how they actually are going to react once an infant is a reality and not a sweet idea to them.

I'm not saying don't have a baby due to the age gap. I'm saying don't expect the older ones to share or to "be helpful." If they are the world's best babysitters and everyone gets along great, that's wonderful, but don't go into this with any assumptions of roles for the older kids beyond being siblings. Have a baby if you can cope with one (without the need for the older kids to help) and if you can give everyone adequate space.

Since you already have one of each you don't know which one will end up having to share a room. Years ago there was no such thing as having your own room so children of all ages were crammed in bunk beds in 1 room. I remember a friend of my mom had a lot of children and before they moved into a bigger house from their 2 bedroom house they had 3 sets of bunk beds in one room with 2 children sleeping in each of the lower beds in addition to a couple cribs in their room.

I'd say to not let this influence your decision to have a new baby. Evaluate what's working and what needs to change as situations arise and go from there. Remember the old saying 'Man plans and God laughs'. You can plan out everything now but really who knows how things will work out in the end.

If you are counting on two almost tween children to be truly "helpful" in any way then you probably need to reconsider. Of course they are "excited" by the idea but as with puppies and kittens the novelty quickly wears off.
In terms of house size, of course you can make it work (there are many clever ways to carve out individual spaces within the same room) so I don't even see that as an issue, unless your house is teeny tiny. But why would the BABY share a room with one of the older kids? Wouldn't the older kids naturally share a room because they are closer in age?

It's horrible. The little one should share a bedroom with you and hubby for as long as possible. I shared a room with my sister and everything was my fault.

You do realize your teen will not be able to have any personal belongings in that room until the baby is over 3 years old right? Seriously, I know your teen probably doesn't play with Barbies but visualize this. A Barbie shoe in a babies mouth and they choke, a bobby pin or hair accessory that accidentally fell on the floor, toddler chokes, big sis has a curling iron plugged in and toddler wants to imitate her and picks it up.

A teen and a baby/toddler/pre-schooler just have too much developmentally going on that's too different.

You need to consider that having another child could be a good reason to look for a different home, add on, turn a large closet into a nursery that can last for a year or more, close off the garage and make it an extra bedroom, turn the attic into a teen room that they'd love, and more.

There are many things you can do to make room for a baby. Putting the baby in your own room for several months is absolutely needed.

I'm still hung up on the part where you think the older two will be helpful if you have another baby. are the older two the same sex? could they share a room so the baby can have its own room? can you convert a room in the basement? 10 years is to big of an age split. you will have a highschooler and toddler together. it will be a nightmare.

Make the older two share the room. Baby gets his own room. What's to consider?

I wouldn't do it. If you can't afford to remodel or move, I would say nope.

Also, I wouldn't count of your kids to be too thrilled in a few years when little brother/sister is getting into their stuff. What happens when your older children have a friend over? Things to think about.

I really think it depends on the kids personalities. My 12 & 4 year old share a room & it has always worked but my 12 year old has a lot of patience & for the most part responsible. We are about to change things up a bit & try to put our 4 & 1.5 year old together. I have a feeling , that is going to be a disaster but we'll see.