Bunkbeds and Fairness
Bunkbeds can be a great way to save space and allow siblings to share a room. Unfortunately, just like everything else, the siblings will most likely fight. Siblings fight about everything and who gets the top bunk is most likely to cause a problem.
There are many ways that you can handle who gets the top bunk in a bunkbed. If you have a twin over twin bunkbed, there is no incentive to sleep on the bottom bunk. Most people like the freedom of sleeping on the top bunk. That is, unless they are afraid of height.
If you choose a twin over full bunk bed, you may give the child who sleeps on the bottom an incentive as they can have more room to stretch out. This can make sleeping on the bottom bunk a lot more beneficial to the child who is assigned this bed.
You can do it by age. If you have and older child and a younger child, you may give the older child the benefit of the larger bed on the bottom if you have a twin over full bunk bed. Bunkbeds come in so many different styles that you can probably come up with one that will be a nice compromise that will work for both of them.
Another option is to give the older child the top bunk as they are less likely to fall out. bunkbeds are not recommended for children under the age of 6 years old if they sleep on the top because they can fall out. If you have a child under the age of 6 who will be using the bunkbeds, the only fair thing that you can do, as a parent, as well as the sensible thing to do is to have the young child sleep on the bottom bunk.
If you have two children who are both fighting over the use of the bunkbeds all of the time, there are several options available for bunkbeds and fairness.
Week to Week changing
Since you most likely change the sheets weekly, make this day bunk bed changing day. If you have two children who are both able to use the top bunk of a bunk bed, you may have to make them change bunkbeds once in a while. Each week, they get to switch beds. This will be fair and give them each something to look forward to. It will also ensure that each child gets to sleep on clean sheets. The day that you clean the sheets is the day that they get to switch beds.
As they get older, this can give them an incentive to learn how to take off their sheets and wash them and you can help them put them back on the mattress.
Month to Month changing
You can allow the children to have the top bunk of the bunkbeds each month. This way, they can get more comfortable with their beds and do not have to be switching on a week to week basis. The best reason to do this is to see if they do not mind their arrangements. By the time it gets time to switch, you may find that each child is happy with their bunk bed.
As A Reward
You can have the child who does the most chores or does better in school get to choose the top bunk for the week. Competition is a great incentive for them to achieve their goals. And since their goal is getting the top bunk instead of allowing their sibling to have it, they might just take you up on this offer. You cannot do anything about sibling rivalry. What one has, the other will want. But what you can do is take this annoying fact of life and turn it into a positive. Have the child who did the best in school for the week brought home the best paper, or got the best grades, or did something extraordinary, such as helped an elderly neighbor, get the glory of the top bunk.
Some parents will think this is horrible because they are putting their kids in competition with one another. But siblings are always in competition with one another and it doesn’t’ seem like it ends with age, either. At least with this, they can get the benefit of actually doing something good to earn the top bunk.
Whether you have a twin over twin bunk bed, a futon bunk bed, a full over full bunk bed or even a twin over full bunk bed, you can rest assured that if you have two siblings using the bunkbeds, there will be some sort of argument over who gets what. As a parent, you are most likely used to this sort of behavior.
If you are lucky, your children will settle into their bunkbeds routine. You may be lucky enough to have one child prefer the lower bunk and want to stay there and the other child not want to antagonize him and then have them fighting over the lower bunk. As long as you have more than one child, chances are that they are going to fight over something, even if it isn’t something that they do not want.
So what do you do about sibling rivalry and bunkbeds, just to be fair? You can take the tips offered in this article and make sure that you try to be as fair as possible when it comes to bunkbeds and your kids. Or you can just see if they can work out their differences with themselves, without coming to blows.
As long a you have more than one kid, you are going to have sibling rivalry. Today, you may have the fighting over bunkbeds and who gets the top bunk. Tomorrow, it will be over who gets to drive the car. Ten years from now, they might be fighting over who gets to host Thanksgiving dinner. It may start with bunkbeds, but it doesn’t stop there. It is part of the joys of parenthood and having more joy is always good.
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