Having children is an adventure and one way you realise how quickly they grow up is by how often their bedrooms change. With babies, you can get away with the bare minimum. A crib, a teddy, some dangling toys to keep them distracted and a changing table. The colour scheme is up to you because they won’t really know the difference.
As they grow older, their bodies require new furniture and their minds are now stimulated by their environment. They need more and they need to like their bedroom environment. Unless, of course, you’re happy to have them wake you up in the middle of the night when they squeeze into bed with you and your partner?
Here are some things your child should have in their bedroom to keep them occupied during the day, in bed at night and a few things in between.
Many parents use the excuse of their child’s bedroom to have some fun and play the role of “interior designer”. But it’s a kids bedroom that needs a kids theme, which is preferably chosen by the child themselves.
Let your child choose a colour and character-theme if they want one. Then buy paint for the walls, kids bedding for the beds and other bedroom décor that carries through their theme. That way, you don’t have to like their theme choice, but you can control how tastefully it’s integrated into their bedrooms. Think of it as a compromise and way of getting them to like their room.
For your sanity and organising lessons for your children, make sure they have some kind of storage system in their bedrooms. This can be through space-saving furniture, such as ottomans, drawers, boxes and shelves. Your children should know where everything needs to be packed away and you need to hold them accountable to cleaning their room at the end of the day.
With a storage system, you can make the clean-up process more interesting for their sakes. It will also make it easy for them to see where toys go, dirty clothes go, books and shoes go. The earlier you can get them involved in organising, the earlier you can stop spending your days on cleaning duty.
There does need to be at least a small area of organised chaos in their bedrooms though. And by organised chaos, we dub it a “creative corner”. Emphasis on “corner”.
Your kids need a space to express themselves and their creativity. By setting up a corner of the room with a kids table stocked with paper, colour pencils, possibly a paint set (depending on their age) and stickers. They can have bean-bags for chairs (colour keeping with the theme) and behind them, on the wall, you can put up a chalkboard.
Whenever they feel like drawing on the walls (which, you either know by now or will find out soon, they love to do), all they’ll need to do is grab some chalk and draw all over the chalkboard area of their wall. It might be a good idea to monitor this activity in the beginning. You know, so they don’t think it’s a “gateway” to the rest of the bedroom walls.
When they do create pictures and paintings for you, hang them up on their bedroom walls. It will give them something to be proud of and talk about whenever someone walks into the room.
Learning to tell time might take a while and it won’t happen overnight. Regardless of that fact, your kids need a clock in their bedroom. It will teach them the concept of daily routines, even if they don’t understand what the hands and numbers mean together.
And, over time, it can be used as an aid to teach them how to tell and understand time.
Many children struggle to fall and stay asleep during the night. As babies and toddlers, they may have had a “thing” they did when they would fall asleep. Some would need to have a specific toy or blanket around, others would suck on fingers and there are even a select few who play with their parent’s eyelashes until they pass out.
As a child, it may not be so much the falling asleep that’s an issue. But the excuses are generally based on the fact that they’re scared. Now, every child's bedroom should have a cuddle buddy or comfort item they can hold onto and feel safe with.
This could be a large (or small) teddy, a magic blanket or a calming nightlight that keeps their fears at bay. Doing this will also encourage a solid night’s rest for you as well because there’ll be no reason for them to come to your bedroom.
The last thing your child needs in their room is an overload of technology. The TV is in the lounge and cellphones are hopefully still a few years away (although you’ll need to keep tabs on your phones). Your child can get their techno-fix in other places, but electronic toy devices in their rooms aren’t necessary. Unless it’s for educational or health purposes.
You want your child to play with their toys, read their books and use their creative corner. You don’t want them to vegetate in front of a screen from this age already. The time will come when their energy levels wane, but for now, you need to keep them healthily and actively entertained. Which is something you can achieve through their bedroom by providing them with everything we’ve just mentioned.
