Siblings Sharing a Room

I was reading a blog post today that inspired me to write one of my own. Now I don't have as many kids as that blogger does, but I still get questioned often about Brianna and Olivia sharing a room.

Brianna and Olivia are 7 years apart, so really, I'm not surprised too much by the questions. However, when I was pregnant with Olivia, without being aware of our plans to have the girls share a room, Brianna BEGGED us to let Olivia sleep in her room. Seeing as this was our plan anyway, we of course agreed. We lived in a 3 bedroom, but we had been discussing my mom moving in with us. We figured she probably wouldn't be as excited once Olivia got here and Brianna realized that babies can cry. A lot.

Once Olivia was born, we had her in our room because I was nursing and it was easier to have her near me. We told Brianna that as long as Olivia was waking on a regular basis during the night that we'd keep her in our room so she didn't wake up to the baby crying all the time. Almost every morning Brianna would ask if Olivia slept through the night.

Finally, Olivia was sleeping through the night most nights and we moved her into Brianna room. You'd think we had hung the moon! Olivia was a much earlier riser than Brianna (still is *sigh*), but Brianna didn't care. We even got them a bunk bed last summer when Olivia broke out of her crib.

Fast forward 2 1/2 years and we moved into a 4 bedroom house. A LOT of people assumed Brianna and Olivia would get their own room. Nope, even with an annoying toddler sister (lol) first thing Brianna said when finding out we were buying a 4 bedroom was "now you can have a craft room mommy!" Not even a single thought to getting her own room. (and yes, I got my craft room lol)

Also in this house is a much more usable basement that all ready had a little 6x12 area almost completely walled off. We thought it would be a great place for Brianna to have away from Olivia since she was going to be 10 this summer and had some fancier stuff like her science kits to keep away from little fingers. Again, Brianna's first thoughts were to making this space a play area.

When we have another baby, that baby too, will share a room with Brianna and Olivia once it's sleeping through the night. Their room in this house is roughly twice the size of their old room and will easily fit their bunk bed and a crib. Lee and I have discussed that once the baby would be old/big enough to move to a twin that Olivia would be old enough to move to the top bunk and we'll probably turn the basement room into a bedroom for an at least 13 year old Brianna.

But for now, our set up works for us. In today's age, it may be unusual, especially given the age difference. But other than the occasional complaint from Brianna about Olivia trying to crawl into bed with her lol everyone is happy