How To Design an Age-Appropriate Room for Your Child

by: Melanie Desautels

How to Design an Age-Appropriate Room for Your Child

Designing an age-appropriate room can be a daunting task, especially when children change and develop so quickly. One of the best things that a parent can do is remember to be flexible and understand your child. Choose a color palette that will be easy to work with changing furniture and changing favorites. Understanding how a child develops is key to creating a bedroom that is age-appropriate. So we will discuss different stages and what you can do to create an age-appropriate room in each stage of development.

Birth to One Year

This is a stage of extremely fast growth and development. When you look at a newborn it is amazing that in less than a year, most will be walking, crawling, sitting, saying a few words, and feeding themselves. Having interesting objects to look at and reach for are important for babies. Babies will also enjoy a mirror; as an added bonus most children enjoy playing with mirrors up through age 8 or 9 so feel free to pick one that is a little more expensive because you know it will be around for a while. At this stage it is also important to have plenty of safe floor space. They will spend most of their time on the floor rolling and sitting and playing with toys.

One to Three Years

Children in this stage are learning how to dress themselves, and love to imitate their parents and older siblings, so make believe games of house are common. Encourage your children's make believe games by providing them with a few simple props; a toddler chair, a small table or desk and perhaps a few plastic dishes will provide hours of fun. They are also learning motor skills like jumping, skipping, and hopping, so again a lot of floor space is necessary. Another way to help children at this stage is to get a closet organizer that allows you to hang the child's clothes at their level. Learning how to get dressed on their own is an important life skill during this stage and it is much more likely that they will develop this skill if they can reach their clothes. Children at this age also love to draw and display their creations. You can easily turn a closet door into a chalkboard using chalkboard paint. Or you can set up a child chair and desk for them to use. You may want to consider covering the desk with laminating paper you can get at the craft store, that way if they get crayon or pencil on it you can just remove the paper and recover it. A magnet board is a great place for kids to display their creations and it is most likely something that the child will use for many years as they move from displaying their artwork to using it for keeping information for school.

Four to Six Years

During this time children learn how to talk. Provide them with plenty of books. This will encourage good speech development and will help them understand order of events. Children also go from side by side play to interactive play. Children at this age will still love drawing and art but you may need to upgrade to a larger table and chairs. Children love toys with lots of parts at this age such as legos and dolls with clothes. Provide them with plenty of space to store their toys. Make sure they are where they can be reached. You may also be tempted at this stage to put a TV or computer in your child's bedroom so you don't have to watch a favorite movie over and over with the child, but most experts greatly discourage this saying that it discourages interactive play and are activities that should be monitored closely.

Seven to Ten Years

Children at these ages develop definite likes and dislikes. Take cues from your child and set up a room that allows them to pursue what they like. Another tip is to give the child a place to display important items. Children at this stage like to be surrounded by favorite things.