Sleeping on shelving??

[IReallyAmHopewell]

Which blogger has the kids who sleep on shelf-units?

[Feberin]

Was it Life in a Shoe? I could be wrong.

[liltwinstar]

Kim at inashoe.com

Her kids *love* it. :roll:

Her husband works for Doug Phillips and it frosts me that apparently Doug *loves* big families and children *so* much, but he won't pay his own workers enough to buy proper beds for the kids.

[Deleted03]

Kim at inashoe.com

Her kids *love* it. :roll:

Her husband works for Doug Phillips and it frosts me that apparently Doug *loves* big families and children *so* much, but he won't pay his own workers enough to buy proper beds for the kids.

Well I think the problem is that they have a tiny tiny house and 10 children to fit in a single room.

[quinoa]

Don't forget, not only do the ten of them like sleeping together on 8 shelves, they enjoy this in central Texas in a small room with a single window in which they place a box fan.

For those of you unfamiliar with central Texas, at least 5 months of the year the night temperature doesn't really drop below 80, and the humidity is substantial, even during a drought.

I'll bet those kids really do just looooove that togetherness.

[haveapicniclife]

I saw that exact shelving at Lowe's the other day. It's very industrial. Metal with sharp edges and corners and screws/bolts sticking out. I can't imagine having kids sleep on it (or even having kids around it!). What if someone falls out of bed? A kid could get really banged up on that. It's also narrow and I shudder to think about the "foam mattresses" they made for them.

[bananacat]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just have all the kids sleep in a pile on the floor, like a litter of kittens?

[Visionoyahweh]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just have all the kids sleep in a pile on the floor, like a litter of kittens?

...or in their own coffins, like medieval nuns and monks. :roll:

[MLizabeth]

Her husband works for Doug Phillips and it frosts me that apparently Doug *loves* big families and children *so* much, but he won't pay his own workers enough to buy proper beds for the kids.

Or provide them with real health insurance (I'm looking at you Samaritan Ministries).

[slickcat79]

She has one entry about the costco shelf bunks, but the previous entry shows how they organize the master bedroom/nursery. The newest baby sleeps in a "crib" made by placing a bassinet on two folding chairs shoved together, which also sounds super safe and comfortable. It took me a really long time to figure out what the picture was showing. Since they've "kicked the crib habit", once the baby is big enough he will switch to sleeping in a pack-n-play. I just don't understand sounding so blithely happy and proud that your children have to sleep like that.

[Koala]

Children deserve real cribs and real beds. Pack and plays are not meant for a long term sleeping arrangement. Period. A bed does not= a habit to be kicked.

The shelves? I won't even go there...that requires a special kind of stupid.

You can bet your ass none of the Quiverfull moms and dads are sleeping in make-shift bedding.

[liltwinstar]

If I recall correctly, they actually have 3 bedrooms. They converted one of the bedrooms into a library, and piled all the kids into the 2nd bedroom. The 3rd bedroom is for mom, dad, and baby.

Apparently all the kids were *thrilled* to make one of their bedrooms a library. Right.

[skankbiscuit]

I'll bet the kid's room smells disgusting in the summertime... :shock: :shock:

[IReallyAmHopewell]

I'm looking for the post now. That's a lot of folks but I do remember people living like that when I was a kid--albeit with real bunk beds, not shelves.

[Deleted03]

Can you even buy 5 beds bunk bed?

[emeraldskull]

You can bet your ass none of the Quiverfull moms and dads are sleeping in make-shift bedding.

But... Costco shelving and foam mats aren't conducive to making more gems of delight to shove in the overpacked bedroom. :roll:

[library_youth]

Apparently all the kids were *thrilled* to make one of their bedrooms a library. Right.

Yup, she claimed that the kids "begged" to have that bedroom converted. :roll:

What is with fundies not wanting their kids to have real beds? I recall that Kim was pretty defensive of Emily of Under1000. Remember how Em wanted to make blanket mattresses stuffed with straw for her kids?

[ladypuglover]

I'm looking for the post now. That's a lot of folks but I do remember people living like that when I was a kid--albeit with real bunk beds, not shelves.

I hope you find it as I looked but her blog is so boring that I had to give up. Please post if you can find it as I would like to read it.

[Ridiculous]

http:// inashoe.com/2010/09/4-moms-open-house-linky-bedrooms-part-2/

There's the relevant post.

[Brainsample]

Don't forget, not only do the ten of them like sleeping together on 8 shelves, they enjoy this in central Texas in a small room with a single window in which they place a box fan.

For those of you unfamiliar with central Texas, at least 5 months of the year the night temperature doesn't really drop below 80, and the humidity is substantial, even during a drought.

I'll bet those kids really do just looooove that togetherness.

The scorpions start coming into the house around June, looking for water. The ground cracks -- even where there's grass, and I was shocked that the grass would grow again because it gets so dry. But even then, the mold counts are phenomenal, and I was super sick the whole time we lived there. I have no idea how it can be that hot and dry and still moldy, but it was moldy always, even in the hill country where we were. (I could see it being moldy by the rivers, but not in a place away from the water where your front yard looks like a photo from National Geographic's desert edition and where they had to drill 450 ft. before they hit water.)

Oh my goodness -- about the constant heat. The direct sun is hot when it's 30 degrees F, for those few days in winter which we called "non-summer" because it never really got like winter for us.

[bananacat]

This seems like neck and back problems waiting to happen. Some people are resilient and can sleep anywhere, but just as many people get stiffness and aches just from sleeping wrong. I know that when I sleep on a couch or a floor or the ground, I am grouchy the entire next day. Even the dorm mattresses are too thin for me. I spent my entire freshman year limping because of hip and lumbar pain, and I saved up every penny so I could buy an off-brand memory foam mattress the next year when I moved to my own apartment. All the rest of my furniture was dirt cheap and literally falling apart by the time I graduated, and I didn't even buy a bed frame or headboard for my bed. But I had a good mattress and that was worth all the sacrifices. Sleep is Serious Business for some people. I hope those kids aren't walking around all day with stiff necks, headaches, or sore backs.

[Burris]

The Life in a Shoe bunk bed post pissed me off a little, in part for philosophical reasons: It strikes me as stupid to intentionally have so many kids you need to stack them four to a bunk, two shelving units (one on each side) in one tiny room with a single window. A lot of people around the world live in cramped quarters, though, and so it's not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things that LioS' kids have such a tight arrangement.

(My husband's comment upon seeing LioS' kids' room: "What the fuck? Are those...storage shelves?")

One of the blogs LioS linked, however - now that pisses me off: raisingolives.com/2010/09/4-moms-bedrooms-part-2

The parents have this massive, well-furnished private love-nest they call a master bedroom, and yet their three oldest daughters sleep side by side on little cots that are crammed into what amounts to a windowless storage closet. The other kids, boys and girls, at least have actual bunk beds and decent furniture in their rooms (which have windows) - but they're still all crammed together while their parents take over by far the biggest bedroom in the house and reserve it for just two people.

[GenerationCedarchip]

Kim at inashoeDOTcom

Her kids *love* it. :roll:

Her husband works for Doug Phillips and it frosts me that apparently Doug *loves* big families and children *so* much, but he won't pay his own workers enough to buy proper beds for the kids.

I seriously doubt that. If I had to live in that room, I think I'd go crazy in no time.

To be fair, Doug may not be paying them enough. However, I remember from something I read in that blog that the the family are having financial problems related to an upside-down house back in the midwest (Ohio? Illinois?) that they thought they could sell when they moved to TX to work at Vision Forum. Sounds like they may have moved right as the market was starting its first crash.

[haveapicniclife]

The very bottom bunk looks so dark and dangerous. What if the whole thing collapses on that little girl?

[Burris]

The very bottom bunk looks so dark and dangerous. What if the whole thing collapses on that little girl?

On the upside, I doubt that would happen. The shelves are rated for 2000 lbs a tier, so there'd have to be an earthquake or something before those units would collapse - well, assuming they've been constructed properly.

But the humidity in there must be terrible.