When the only bathroom on her route is also everyone else's, size the path to the hours it is busiest, the doors it passes, and the lights someone else might switch off.

When the bathroom on her route is also the bathroom for everyone else in the house, the trip changes. The door is closed more often, the hall has more feet and more bags on the floor, and the lights are left in different states. Size the route to that house, not to an empty one.

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Map who uses the bathroom and when

Write down everyone who sleeps in the house or stays overnight, and everyone who uses that bathroom in the evening and early morning. Note the busy times, such as the first shower, a late bedtime, or the person who wakes at the same hour she does. Plan around the hours the route is most likely to be crowded, not the hour it is quiet.

Measure the path she actually walks

Measure the width of the hall at its narrowest point. Measure the clearance at the bathroom door with the door open all the way, and note how far the door swings into the hall. If two adults cannot pass each other comfortably, the hall is a single-file path, and that changes where things can sit. Mark the narrow spot on your sketch, then walk it with her at her own pace, holding nothing, and time it if you want a baseline.

Clear the shared route

Ask each person in the house to keep shoes, bags, laundry, and toys off the hall, and give each of them a place for those things: a bin by the bedroom door, a hook in the bedroom, a shelf in the closet. Keep the bathroom counter and tub edge clear of family items that would otherwise end up on the floor. If someone stores a rolling bag in the hall, move it with the owner's agreement and note the change on the list.

Plan the light and the door

Decide which lights stay on at night and which stay off, and write it down so no one turns off the one she needs. A light that comes on with the bathroom is easier for her than a light she has to find in the dark. Check whether the bathroom door closes all the way and how it latches from inside. A door that slams wakes the house, and a door that sticks can catch her hand. Note what you find and what needs work.

Know what the household cannot fix

If she gets dizzy when she stands, or the walk changes in a way the household cannot explain, that is a question for her doctor, not a plan for the family to work around. Put that question on the list so the answer goes to the person who can give it. The doctor is also the one who can tell you whether the route you have built fits her.

Write this down

Write the household's busy hours, the narrow spot in the hall with its measurement, the lights that stay on, the bin or hook for each person's things, and the name of the person who checks the route each week. Keep the sketch on the bedroom door or in the folder with the night plan, so anyone sharing the house can see it.

One Bathroom, Two Households: Fit the Night Route to a Shared House