What size home did you have when you had your first baby?

[Moseyjosey]

My sister and BIL were lucky enough to own a 5 bed house before starting their family, and they managed to do all this under 30.

We live in a two bed semi detached home. It’s a lovely street. We have a garden and a bedroom for baby, and some floor space in the sitting room but not a separate playroom or anything like that for when they are bigger.

Everyone’s different but what was your living situation when you had your firstborn and if you upsized how old were they when you did this?

a one bedroom apartment with a lay out that i loved. corner unit with windows on two side and good ventilation a nice outdoor balcony. great location and perfectly fine for a baby.
good memories OP thank you for reminding me.

We were living in a 2 bed maisonette, moved to a 3 bed house when I was pregnant with number 2, still live in a (different) 3 bed house with 3 kids living here. Can't afford to move up and kids sharing isn't the end of the world, we have a detached garage we've made into a teen den.

A single room bedsit.

Three bed small detached. Still in it now 33 years later (without the husband!)

Tiny 2 bed terrace! Now in a small 3 bed semi with two kids. :) life is good

3 bed semi when I had DD1, now expecting baby number 2 and trying to find a 4 bed plus study as planning on having more after baby number 2 and I work from home.

1 bedroom flat.

Moved into a 2 bedroom house when DC1 was 15 months.

Moved into a 3 bedroom house when DC were 7yo.

Large three bed end terrace with biggish garden and garage! Also has a nice big cellar to stick all our crap down!

Living here 20 years now and never have any plans to move! Only 1 child - his bedroom is the largest in the house and he's never had nor needed a play room!

We have a two bed semi detached. No playroom either as you said.

We have another DC on the way now but the housing market is awful at the moment and we've looked on right move and couldn't find anything we actually liked within our budget and with the same amenities we have now e.g. driveway, garden

So we've just decided to make do for now. Worst comes to worst we can divide DD's current bedroom as it's large and has two windows.

2 bedroom end terrace. We are still there, with two teenagers, but when they were 4 and 7 we extended the house so there are now three double bedrooms, a kitchen/diner, a living room, a tiny bathroom, a downstairs loo and a small garden.

We lived in a three bed semi. Not massive, but adequate. Living room and kitchen diner downstairs, a bathroom, two decent bedrooms and one box room upstairs.

DD1 went into the box room and we had the middle sized room as a spare bedroom for a while. Then we had DD2 so she took the box room and DD1 went into the middle sized room.

We would have coped absolutely fine but the pandemic meant that DH and I started working from home and suddenly we were really short of space. I'd work from the kitchen table and DH would work from the bedroom but I hated our work stuff taking over the house. DH's company sold their offices and went fully remote so there wasn't even an option of going into the office.

We moved to a 4 bed house when DDs were 4 and 2. Even now we have a spare bedroom/office one of us is still at the kitchen table when DH and I are both working from home. And we still only have the living room.....the vast majority of people don't have a playroom. It's actually fine as we have good storage where toys can be tidied away and DDs have lots of toys in their rooms as they're both a reasonable size for bedrooms. In our last house I don't think DD2 could even have squeezed a single bed into the box room!

Tiny one bed flat. It was fine for first year but wouldn’t have been for any longer.

2 bed terrace with a postage stamp back garden. Downstairs was a kitchen and living room, upstairs was 2 beds and bathroom. It was about 80sqm, so pretty tiny. We lived there until she was 9, and managed perfectly well without a playroom!

I lived in a houseshare with a friend.

2 bed maisonette. We moved in 6 weeks before DD was born. It would have been 4 but she was late. Such happy days.

2 bed split-level flat; moved to a 4 bed when DC was 20 months.

I lived in a rented 1 bed flat in the centre of a city!
Own a 4 bed house now...
Babies are in your room for first 6 months anyway...
I'd say it sounds like you have a lovely set up to start a family

1 bedroom flat till she was 8 months, the landlord was selling the building. Got a 2 bedroom HA house, then moved to a 3 bedroom when 2nd was 2 years old.

One bedroom flat on the second floor, no lift.
Moved when ds1 was 9 months old to our current modest 3 bed semi.

We have been here 20 years, we won’t move again for another 10 years or so.

You don’t need much space really! Ds1 has a box room and doesn’t love it but he’s at university and doesn’t want to come home to live after if he can avoid it so that’s that. Not paying huge amounts for a loft extension we don’t need!

Our first home was a tiny 2 bed cottage with one bathroom.

We moved to a larger house when I was pregnant with the 2nd.

We had 3 bedrooms when S1 was born - the standard third-above-the-stairs semi.

When the boys were 7 and 4 we extended over the garage to give us two more rooms. This made having weekend guests (another family of 4) or grandparents (5 hours away) to stay much more straightforward and meant that we could put all the Massive toys like the traintrack and the lego into the Playroom.

The house I was born in was also a standard third-above-the-stairs semi, though being thirty years older was a bit more spacious and had had its kitchen extended slightly. (Also had considerably more garden.) When their 6th child was getting too old to sleep in their room my parents decided we should probably move...

Years ago I read someone reminiscing about how when her younger sister was born her parents decided the house was too small for them now: "we were posh as fuck. The identical house next door had 10 kids"

Yup, perfectly clear OP

We had a 2 bed maisonette - one living room and a galley kitchen.

3 bed semi when 1st baby was born in 2022. Had been there 5 years by that time. Moved to a 4/5 bed detached in Dec 2023 and LO is now 18 months old. For context we live in a Hampshire market town and are middle management professionals with a combined pre tax income of just under £90k/year. The only way we've afforded this house is because we managed to get it for £40k under asking as it needs completely redecorating and new kitchen bathroom etc. but we know we're going to be here until we pop our clogs so we're doing it but by bit 🤣

Mobile home, 2 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, living room. Moved to a 2 bed terrace when son was 4. Still there.

3 bedroom cottage. Still in the same cottage 13 years later. It’s the first house we’ve bought and will also be the last as we have no intention of moving again after having moved (rented) homes, and frequently countries, every year for 15 years before finally settling and buying.