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I think it really depends on visitors. For us, grandparents visit (or would like to!) relatively often, and both sets are coming from 12+ hr drives, so they tend to stay for longer than just a weekend. And, honestly, at holidays, there are times when both sets would like to be here at the same time! We also have a lot of friends out of town that I would love to come visit.

When a grandma comes to town, does she usually stay for just a weekend or more like a week+? Do you have another space (office, bonus room, etc) where you could put an air mattress?

We're in a 3 bedroom and currently don't have a guest room. We don't have family visit often, and when they do, they stay in a hotel. I honestly prefer that, because I'm someone who needs my space. After the kids go to bed, I like to relax and not have to worry about entertaining anyone.

I posted a similar quandary last year, I'll find the thread and post it here!

I would go with what makes your life easier all year round vs accommodating guests 12 weekends a year. We don't have guests that often (well partly because we have nowhere to put them!) so id rather have a room for each kid. When they get older you should be able to move them around for guests and have guests sleep in one of their rooms. In the meantime I think a bed in the playroom is fine.

Do you have room for a bed in LO2's nursery? You could just have the baby room share with you when you have guests.

I would really like a 3rd bedroom, and my 2nd LO is still in our room because I am so nervois about them room sharing, so I definitely say use the 2nd 3rd one for a nursery

For us a guest room is only important because DH is not ready yet to part with his bachelor day's bedroom set. We only have overnight guests maybe four or six times a year. Having a home office space trumps a guest room, so if push came to shove we would just offer our guests air mattresses. At this point we have quite a few- one twin, and two queen sizes.

@daniellemybelle: do you have room to store teh twin for the future in the garage or somethinbg? and get a full bed now?

@daniellemybelle: For us, a guest bedroom is critical. For several reasons...1) lots of out of town guests 2) DH and I frequently have weird schedules bc of having conf calls with Europe and Asia 3) it gives us a choice when one or the other is sick...

However - we up-sized to a 4 bedroom so we now have the extra bed...plus an office if we ever decided to have 3 kids (wont happen).

Instead of swapping the couch you have you could get a nice inflatable bed. My mom had to get one recently when her husband suffered a fall and had to live on one floor (no stairs) - I think she got it from Frontgate or Ballard Design and it was around $300. She also invested in a great micro-foam topper. The thing is SO comfortable. Its about the size of a suitcase and fully sets up on its own - you just plug it in and push a button.

DH and I actually plan to invest in one for our basement since many of our visitors now have kids...we can offer them two sleeping spaces (guest bedroom and basement) so they aren't stuck in the room with their children if thats not their jam!

As others have said - I am not sure I would alter my kids 24/7 routine to accommodate guests. Its the kids house after all - they should come first in my opinion.

We have four bedrooms and definitely need one for a guest bedroom! We plan on having our two DDs share a room sometime after LO3 arrives as we will not be sacrificing our guest room. We have family spread out across three continents and have frequent visitors, so the room is in regular use. We also are a big fan of siblings sharing rooms for a while when they're growing up as it teaches lots of important skills. So even though we will technically have enough room for each of our three kids to have their own room, we will not be going down that route any time soon. We'll keep our guest room and our children will learn the value of compromising, sharing, and having to get along as they will share a bedroom for at least part of their childhood!

We just turned our guestroom into a nursery for #2, and are having this same debate. At the moment we have a good pull-out couch in the basement/playroom and when my parents come that's where they'll sleep - they've actually been sleeping down there for a while because (the reason we tell them) our son won't disturb them if he wakes up crying and (the real reason) they're SO LOUD, stomping around and slamming doors, and I don't want them to wake up B. My in-laws live in England and recently informed us that next time they come they'll probably stay in a hotel because they "don't fancy sleeping with the cats" (we have 3 cats) so we'll either relocate the litterbox (in another room in the basement) for the duration of their visit or just let them stay in a hotel, which is probably easier because then we don't have the "your bedroom is also our playroom" dilemma.

You can get inflatable beds that have stands so older guests aren't trying to get up from the floor, that might be an option?

I don't think it's essential. We don't have guests often, but when we do, they stay anywhere from 3 nights to 2 weeks (since they come from so far away). We have a 3 bedroom and so far we have been able to make it work. We end up putting my younger LO in the same room with my older LO and move the sofa bed to LO2's room so that the guests have their own space.

For us it is not essential- we've only used it once in the 7 months we've lived in our house and even then we could have worked around it. My mom feels very strongly about us having a guest room so she doesn't always have to host everyone. I'll see how it goes over the next few years. We have plenty of space but I want to use it in the way that suits us best day-to-day and I foresee needing another kid room and an in-home office!

We have a 3 bedroom house and will continue to have a guest room. It is the only room with its own bathroom but not big enough for a master. Ironically right now we have a single bed in there so when my parents do come they sleep in our partially finished basement anyway!

So for us it is because we love having friends over. We all put the kids to bed and then have game nights. As we (all) keep having more kids, we at least want our two to be able to sleep in the same room. And when we visit my parents they'll need to sleep in the same room. I guess i see riom sharing as training! Someday they can each have their own room and maybe we'll actually get a bigger bed in one of the rooms for guests.

Since you have out of town grandparents visiting so frequently, it seems like having a guest room is a pretty big deal for you guys, more so than for most people. I say keep the guest room, try to figure out a way it could double as a play room, and have the two LOs share a room. I see a lot of people say that they love having their LOs share a room, so that seems like a fine way to go.

We have a 3-bedroom plus den and expecting LO2 in May. The den is an office for DH that is necessary, so we can't touch that space. DS1 (17 months) has his own room and the 3rd bedroom is a guest room, which is furnished with a queen bed and a small table with a TV. My in laws prefer to stay at a hotel when they visit, but my family prefers to stay with us and we have company fairly frequently and like to have the visiting children watch TV in the guest room to stay quiet.

While DS1 has recently started playing a bit more in his room, he mostly just sleeps in there. DS spends most of his time playing in the family room and I figure once the second child arrives, it will be the same. So we've decided there's no real reason to gut the guest room for DS when he's mostly going to just sleep there for at least the first year. Part of this decision is based on the fact that we don't want to buy a second crib. DS1 will be 20 months when DS2 arrives and it just seems like we can wing it just fine with the bassinet, RNP, and PNP + mattress combo we already own. Plus, 99% of the time, we do diaper changes for DS1 on top of the queen bed in the guest room because he's so squirmy, so I think we'd really miss having that surface!

So for now, our plan is to just have DS2 sleep in the bassinet or PNP + mattress in the guest bedroom, do diapering on the guest bed, and have a comfy bed for either parent to sleep in for MOTN stuff. If we have guests that need the room, we'll just move the PNP to our master bedroom - we even have a walk in closet that will fit the PNP - and he can sleep there.

For us (with out of town family), its important but not willing to go out of our budget for it or impact our daily lives.

I would really look at your two bedrooms from scratch and see what you can do. Your little one will only be in a crib for a short while. Maybe focus your plan on after that.

Bedroom 1 - Queen size bed
Bedroom 2 - Bunk beds

Queen goes to guests when they are in town. and other child goes to the bunk beds.

How big is your play room? Is it separated? I know my parents like a private space when they come to visit and they wouldn't feel super comfortable on a futon in the playroom.

I haven't read all of the responses, but we live in a two bedroom house. We are converting our guest room into a nursery/ guest room. We are keeping the full sized bed, and working with the smaller amount of space. Our future LO can stay in our room when guests are over, and we are planning for a second child to share the room until we are ready to upgrade houses. We don't get visitors a ton, but I'm sure once grandchildren are involved it will be more than it was.