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?

3 bed. Moved to a 4 bed a year later. Looking back, once I had DC1 I found that more and more stuff was coming into the house. Baby equipment, baby clothes, toys. I had maternity clothes, which I kept for subsequent pregnancies. I gained weight so I had bigger clothes and I kept my pre-pregnancy clothes.

If I had my time over again I would minimise the items coming in. I would try to dissuade people from buying clothes and toys as gifts. I would not have bought a bigger house.

You need a cot, a pram or sling, and later on you might need a high chair. If you keep the 'stuff' to a minimum you don't need a bigger house.

2 bed plus tiny box room (6'x7') but we chose to keep kids in the same room until they were 4 and 2.5. It would have been longer had it not been for disabilities.

For the downstairs I was really strict on limiting the baby equipment and big toys. We fitted all the toys into a 2x4 kallax until we moved and got a playroom. Think multipurpose and open ended with toys so they have more play value for the space they take up. Have one Sylvanian families house rather than six. Buy one collapsible toy baby pushchair rather than multiple or elaborate ones. Teach kids to improvise baby beds, highchairs etc for their dolls or ramps for their cars from bits of sofa, cushions, cardboard boxes rather than buying all these things as bulky toys.

We were in a two-bed maisonette. DS stayed in our room the whole time, as we had the second bedroom as an office. That was in London and we moved out to a three-bed semi (plus small office) when he was 18 months and I was pregnant again. We would have stayed in London and in our first place longer (using kitchen table for work instead) but we ended up having to sell to pay a major works bill (leasehold from council - wouldn’t recommend!). At that point we couldn’t afford another place in London.