Bedrooms on Different Levels of House

My friend's two children - 6 and 4.5 - have had a very hard time adjusting to being on a different floor...

I think the biggest concern is, can you get to him in time in case of fire? When we were house shopping, our realtor was adamant we not even consider houses with kids' bedrooms on different floors. (She was really bossy!) But that was the reason.

Does he sleep trough the night? Can he safely use the bathroom on his own? Can he navigate stairs half asleep? Could you hear him if he got up? These would be my deciding factors more than age.

We live in a two bedroom apartment. DS (2.5) is always only a few steps away, when he isn't underfoot.

Good luck to you and yours,
F. B.

Does he like playing downstairs? Is he ok being downstairs by himself? Start talking to him about it and see how he reacts. Talk about decorating his big boy room and moving all of his toys down there.

I don't think he's too young as long as he's ok with it.

I see no problem moving him. I am assuming we are not talking a dark dingy basement.

We actually shopped for houses where the bedrooms were all together.
SO MANY of them had the master bedroom on a different level or on the other side of the house.
Our son doesn't like being all by himself in a room far away from ours.
Some kids are ok with it but our's isn't.

My four and a half year old wouldn't go for that. He doesn't even like that his room is across the house (the living room is between us). You can try it, but realize that it could be a big battle. If you do move him down there, you might want to give him a special bell you can hear or something so that he can signal you if he needs you in the middle of the night. That will give him security some and he can easily get you if he needs help. My son will get up in the middle of the night every once in a while and not quite make it to the toilet. He needs help cleaning himself up, or if he is sick he will wake up crying (very rare, but you never know when they will get sick).

I would keep him on the same level with me until he's cognitively able to think straight in an emergency. If the smoke detectors start sounding off and there is smoke on the stairs he may need to think it through that he has to go out a window. Then he might need to do something different.

I think that then I would feel comfortable leaving a kiddo upstairs when there are 2 full bedrooms downstairs. Once he starts having sleep overs and having friends over then I would move the playroom upstairs and still let him sleep downstairs. At some point when he's a tween or teen he could move up to the upstairs on his own.

When my children were little, our master bedroom was downstairs and the children were upstairs. We LOVED it!
This house has all the bedrooms upstairs and we do not like it at all.
YMMV
LBC

The typical home layout in our last state/neighborhood was master downstairs with all other bedroom upstairs. Both my babies moved to their own rooms upstairs as soon as they slept through the night - around 3m old. I didn't want to go up and down for night nursings, so they roomed with us until they slept through. When they could walk/climb/get out of bed, we gated the stairs to keep them up there safely while we slept. We had a baby monitor upstairs and kept the gate up until our youngest was almost 4. My husband and I enjoy the privacy of having a little distance between us and the kids. Wink, wink. ;) Your son will be fine.

At his age, I would think he is pretty self sufficient if he needs to get up and get you.

When our daughter was 5 we moved into this current home we built. It has the Master downstairs on 1 end of the house and at the other end is a MIL suite type room which I use for my office.

We considered having daughter in my office but she loved the upstairs which is all hers and her huge room which is on opposite end from Master. My upstairs has 3 bedrooms (her room is huge... much like a master), game room and library.

We never had any issues and she is 18 now. If there was a kitchen up there, we'd never see her!!! LOL

You can always just try it and see how it works!
Good luck

I have a split level home with bedrooms on different levels. The master and one bedroom (my daughter's) are upstairs. There is a 3rd bedroom on the lower level with a bathroom and the office/playroom. Since our 2nd bedroom (daughter's room) is very small, we had no choice but to put our second child in the 3rd bedroom downstairs. He has been there since he was 3 mos old, and has always been fine. I put my third baby in there with him since they are both boys. He was fine until he went into the toddler bed and was able to come up to my room in the night. Now, his toddler bed is in my room and probably will be for some time.

I think my 7 yr old has done so well sleeping downstairs because it's all he's ever known. I don't know if he would have been OK if I'd moved him down there at 4.

Could you try moving his bed down there for a trial run? If it works, you can decorate the room and make it his.

My bedroom is upstairs and my son (5 years old) is downstairs/main floor. It's always been that way. There actually are 2 bedrooms upstairs, but I ruled out having us both on the same floor for a few reasons:

1. The second bedroom upstairs is freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer

2. The second bedroom is at the top of the stairs - was worried he could teeter out half-asleep and tumble down

3. One main reason is because of fire safety. I would much rather have to climb out my upstairs window and down the ladder to his window directly below mine (and then smash in if needed) than carry us both down the ladder to safety in an emergency. A friend of mine had the reverse, with her toddler upstairs and the master downstairs. That would have worried me, although one of the houses I grew up in had it like that. As a child, I was nervous about it.

4. The other main reason is the rest of the house is on the same level as his room. So after he's tucked in at night, I am still close by in the kitchen, family room or my office (right next to him). I work at home and this was quite handy when he was a baby. Even now, he is in there playing with a friend and I am working (well, mamapedia-ing!) and I can hear everything/they can talk to me easily. Having the room on the main floor also means we don't have a toy room. All of his toys are accessible in that room for play dates and everyday entertainment. And since our house is a bit on the small side, we are always nearby no matter where we are.

At night, I still use the monitor in his room. He knows when he wakes up, he can just say, "mom?" and I'll hear him. It has a walkie-talkie feature so I can even let him know I'm coming if he needs me so he doesn't "worry" about the time it takes me to get down the stairs.

After re-reading your question, I'm wondering if you are moving yours downstairs/basement. He *may* not adjust as well to that if he can hear you moving around so much upstairs when he is in bed or feel more shut away. For us, I leave the "family" area to go upstairs to bed, rather than my son leaving it to go downstairs.

How secure is he being alone? That would be what would be what made my choice for me. If he's ok with it go ahead and move him.