Move or not to move before the baby - the flat is small though

[Marianish]

Hello!
It's my first time on mums net. I'm now 16 weeks pregnant with my first child. I'm a postgraduate student and live in my own bought 1-bedroom flat. My DP officially still lives at his father's, but spends most of the time at mine. We've been going out for 7 months.
My DP is trying to get back into his old job (for the last year) and has just recently been made redundant from a temp job.

We like to live together when the child arrives, but my flat is very small and I feel already crowded when he's staying here for more than 1 week. This is mainly due to the fact that I have to work from home a lot - carrying all my books / work into the library is not an option.

I'm open to moving into rented accomodation, but it will be a much greater financial strain on myself and him (as he hasn't got work at the moment he'd need to use his savings).

I'd love to live somewhere with a garden, but my current area would simply be too expensive to find a reasonable size garden flat. If we move somewhere cheaper I won't know anyone in that area and who knows where my DP will get his next job - he may have to travel all across London, adding to the stress levels and reducing family time.

Also, as I understand mothers form friendships with other mothers in the antenatal classes and other courses, I don't want to go to the ones in my area and then move somewhere where I loose all those contacts.

Or how easy is it to make friends through those classes once you've moved? Which classes are there once the baby is born and e.g. 3 months old?

At the moment I see it as 3 options:

1. we move as soon as possible (before I get too big and we miss the classes in the other borough), but moving away from friends, taking on a huge financial strain and without knowing where DP will work

2. we stay in the situation as it is - staying in my small flat - he goes back to his father when it gets too crowded (but DP is not really happy staying at his father's either) and we move once DP has a job. But then I need to rebuild the contacts to other mothers in the new location

3. I stay in my flat - and DP gets a room in the area to have his own space - this will still cost money he hasn't got at the moment, but less than a full flat for the two of us (Note: he is not keen on this idea and rather would like to get a 2 bed-room flat where I shall move in when I'm ready, but I'm not keen on this because I think he wastes money and it won't be a joint decision on where we live)

Has anyone of you been in this situation? What would you do?

many thanks

Don't worry about keeping up with people you meet at antenatal classes - you may not click with and want to stay in touch with anyone. Who knows, you may end up delivering before you even make it to an antenatal class! It's far better to focus on you, your partner and your baby initially. For the first three or so months of the new baby's life you'll find it hard to get out and about anyway as most of your time will be spent feeding, changing the baby, and then catching up on sleep.

From your listed options, i'd say 2 looks the most sensible. Keep things as they are, have a big declutter in your flat, and put up shelves to give you more floor space. Your current situation is only temporary. Save the money you've got for when DP gets a job then move.

thanks for your answer. Don't think I will stay sane considering the size of the flat, so option 2 is the last resort. Fingers crossed DH gets a job soon!

You could always do what my parents did - they moved from flat to house on the day I was born!

But if it is any help, I made as many friends at mum and baby groups after DS was born, as I did at antenatal classes.

To be honest, whatever you decide, things will 'fall into place' anyway - everything pre birth feels like it is going to be a huge event/upheaval, and often it isn't. If you get the opportunity to move before you have the baby, it honestly won't make any difference to who you end up being friends with - I met far more people at classes/groups post baby. Can you find somewhere without a garden locally? I'd love a garden but live in a first floor flat and my DS1 and DD3 don't miss it - there are loads of parks to take them too to run around outside. And echoing Bike, I moved when I was 8 months pregnant - was glad I did it before as afterwards I don't think I would have had the energy!

Having said all of that, do you and your DP need to talk this through some more? It feels (and forgive me if I'm wrong as I really don't mean to offend) a little bit as though this all might be a bit scary for you - not that you don't want to live together, but because 7 months is not a fantastically huge amount of time to be together and be pregnant and I wonder if the speed of things has contributed to you both still feeling that you need some space?

hello! My DP has a job now (Horray!), and we're currently looking for a new place to live. We haven't seen anything suitable so far in my area. Market seems to be quiet...

Cloud - I appreciate that it's possible to make new friends when you move, though I feel having previously moved a lot between cities and countries, there is something to be said for longtime-grown friendships.
I take your point about our length of the relationship on board - and you touch a nerve about things being very new, but I also think I wouldn't be able to cope easily with a baby all by myself (my family doesn't live in this country so that they could simply pop over) in my flat.

It would probably all be a different story if I would be a second time mum...