Where to Put New Baby?

You are so lucky to have 4 bedrooms. You know it is obvious to give a bedroom (close to you) to the baby.

A 15 year old can sleep in the downstairs basement. If she is going to sneak out, she can do it from the upstairs too. I would be concerned of having a 'break in' of boyfriends and would consider putting an alarm on the windows/doors down there while fixing the sliding doors.

I'd get an alarm for the house, and move the daughter to the basement with her art studio.

To be clear, I wouldn't get the alarm to keep the daughter in. Since she's done nothing wrong, I see no reason to punish her for the misdeed of a neighbor. I would get the alarm for the stalkerish ex on the scene.

geez. you're making me feel all oogly.
i can't think of any way to grow you an extra bedroom.
your kids are acting out and resentful about the baby. you and your husband have a rocky relationship. your daughter has significant emotional issues and could be a danger to the baby. your house isn't big enough for everyone to have all the rooms they want.
what sensible person gets pregnant under these circumstances?
since your older kids aren't going to share a room, and you're not willing to take away the art studio, obviously the baby will be in your room. what else is there?
blick.
khairete
S.

Teens can sneak out no matter where they sleep. You won't let her sleep there because once a violent ex smashed the glass? Absurd - no one's safe upstairs, by that logic. You get a better slider with reinforced glass and put an alarm on that door, like everyone else with a slider. It goes off if the door is opened from the inside or the outside, so you don't have to say to your daughter "I don't trust you" or "You're in danger from intruders." You have locks on your other doors, and in a few years you'll be putting childproof locks and doorknob covers on stuff anyway. You can't seal that slider shut because it's a fire exit so don't even think about that. A friend of mine moved into a home with a big basement suite, and her teen daughter was thrilled with the private space for herself and her friends. If we all made our decisions because someone somewhere knew a kid who did something stupid, we would never leave the house.

Your put a baby in a bedroom, and give your daughter a combined bedroom/studio space, maybe with a small budget for decorating it. You help your son upgrade his room (or take his sister's room if it's larger, his choice) with a similar small budget, and you renovate the remaining upstairs room as a nursery. You make renovation and moving a family affair, with everyone helping to paint and move furniture and buy a few new decor items.

Put your daughter's art supplies in the basement. Put the baby in the upstairs art room. Hire someone to make it so the slider in the basement won't open.

Have you never thought of the possibility that your daughter doesn't have to sleep in the basement to sneak out? She could just sneak down while you're asleep. Honestly, I think that you're thinking is a bit myopic here because of other people's actions.

so you have a spoiled daughter who has 2 bedrooms? can we say dudley dursley? No but seriously can the 15 year old have the basement room? I would think that would be the solution. You will have the baby in your own room for the first couple months right? after that move one of the big kids to the basement. either you trust them or you don't and its as simple as that.

Maybe you should keep the baby in your room until your oldest has moved out.

Can you convert a closet into a bedroom?

Move the art studio into the dinning room. This is what my artist friend has done.

The simple answer is to go buy another house. You can't put a 15 year old with a baby. So either put baby in your own bedroom for the next 3 years, or buy a house. This is something you should have figured it before having a baby.

You and your husband wanted this baby...not your kids (that is evident from your other post). Therefore, the 15 & 12 year old should not be inconvenienced. Put the new baby in your room until you figure things out.

I hope your daughter is in counseling. Counseling is very healthy and can really help. Your daughter sounds angry and misunderstood. Please make sure you are spending quality time with her and get her into counseling.

Why don't you move the art studio to the basement?

Congratulations :)

Sounds to me like you have some stuff to work out with your daughter - if you don't trust her enough to not sneak out, that's pretty big. I would think that a baby would trump an art studio.

What are your other options? Some people keep the baby in with them to begin with. Other people convert a den or a nook. You'll want baby close with you of course.

You can always put an alarm on a window or door if it's really that bad with your daughter ...

Good luck :)

When we found out about our surprise third pregnancy we re-did our bedroom and made room for her there. We got rid of a couple things we never used like the second TV we had in there. We got a new bed that fit better, taking up less floor space, and was a bonus in being an upgrade from a Queen to a CA King. We got a new dresser that took up less space but was taller to still fit our clothes. It was a little stressful trying to make it all work, especially because we learned I was pregnant while living in a hotel after our house flooded. But we made it all work.

I guess most people figure this out before they plan a pregnancy.

My daughter is also 15 and my son is also 12. My daughter has a full drum set in her bedroom and now that my 19 yo SD has moved out, we are considering moving her drums and our painting supplies (art studio you can call it) into her room where the drums will be. So technically my daughter would also have "2" rooms. This does not make her spoiled as someone else said, it makes us lucky that we have a 6 bedroom house and we can all spread out, which was exactly the point in WHY we moved.

So maybe you should consider moving as we did? If this is not an option, I would put some window locks on the basement and move my daughter down there. It sounds like she needs the space anyway and probably will help her mood. Good luck.

I appreciate that you want your daughter to feel important and not replaced and I think it's cool that you allow her to have her own art studio, but something here has to be fixed.

If you don't feel safe having her down there as a bedroom then you have a couple of choices. One would be to move the art studio down to the basement. I'm not sure exactly what you were saying about the space needed for her studio, maybe the basement bedroom is smaller than her current studio?? If that's the case, maybe she has to downsize for now until she can put her bedroom in the basement or more space comes available.

The other option is to move the baby to the basement, however, that doesn't alleviate the concerns of having a child with a bedroom in the basement. Of course the baby won't sneak out but it sounds like you have other concerns. You can put a heavy lock on the door so no one can break in, but I get that it's concerning. The other down side would be you'd have to go from top to bottom to feed or change the baby in the middle of the night. The plus side is that now they make so many fancy baby monitors that no matter where you are in the house, you can easily see or hear the baby even if it's in the basement.

It's certainly a tough choice but you have to find room for the baby too.

Our kids slept in our room until they were about 16 months old. I loved having them right there when they woke at night. Made things so much easier for me. Actually, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable with my baby sleeping anywhere but in the same room with me.

I think you guys do have a dilemma. The kids are too old to share a room. You can't expect a 15 year old to have a baby in their room and you coming in and out for the next year with a baby that wakes up to be fed all the time. Nor can you expect a 12 year old to do it either.

The basement is not an extra bedroom, it's family living space whether she has it as as studio or not. It's not a bedroom or suitable for an infant. Do you have upstairs? So any child you'd put down in the basement would literally be 2 floors away? Even if your bedrooms are on one main floor I agree with you that a basement is not where I'd want any kids to live.

So, do you have a den? Walk in closet that could be modified? That's what a friend of mine did. They had a bonus room at her mom's house and they were living with her parents while rehabbing an auction house they paid cash for. They took the eaves of the attic that were closed off to make a square room and built in a bathroom and a huge closet and an alcove for the baby bed and dresser for the baby. They made it quite well until they moved into their home.

So find space in your home to turn into a baby space. We had the crib in our bedroom for a very long time due to him having reflux and having to sleep sitting up in a bouncy seat. He was strapped in and wasn't turning over yet so he could literally choke to death if he had a reflux episode.

When we went to house sit my mother and father in laws house while they traveled we set up a toddler bed and the baby bed in the guest suite and had both kids in with us.

My best friend for years and years and years was one of 12 kids. There was a boys room, a girls room, and mom and dad's room with all the kids 3 and under in there in baby beds and stuff. They lived like that until all the little kids were big enough to move into their big kids rooms and the big kids started moving out and getting married and stuff.

So there are ways to do this. You just need to think outside the box, the bedroom box. A baby can stay in the room with you, in a baby bed, for at least a year. By then things might change. In a couple-three years the older one will be moving out and off to her adult life. Then your little one can have their own room.

Can you make the art stuidio your bedroom and rearrange your daughter's room to accomodate her studio (like loft her bed)?

Congratulations! I'd keep things as if for a year and keep the baby in my room. Then I'd see how things go and either move my daughter or son downstairs. No need to rush and rock the boat too much right now. Your teens need time to adjust. It's more about them right now and the baby will go with the flow. We adjusted bedrooms when my grandmother moved in with us when we were teens. My brother didn't mind moving to the basement and loved his independence.