Is this possible? Having a baby in a one bed flat

[BoredOfWaiting]

DH and I live in central London. We have a very good deal on rent in zone two and have a beautiful one bed flat and we have a secure tenancy. We couldn't afford to rent a two bed flat in this area we would have to move much further out which neither of us really want to do. If we were to move further out we would look at buying somewhere in a cheaper area which we could do but probably not for another couple of years as we have more saving to do.

We really want to start trying for a baby. Do you think it would be madness to have a baby in a one bed flat?

The layout is this:
Small hallway
Huge front room we currently have a sofa bed in the corner here as well as a desk and everything else
Decent sized kitchen with dining table
Small bathroom
Small bedroom (not big enough for cot)

Would appreciate any advice!

I guess that's it isn't it?

If your one bedroom is a penthouse, then you can certainly raise a family in it!

I don't think the bedroom could really be turned into a sitting room if it's not even big enough for a double bed and a cot. The fact that the living room is huge means less of a problem with all the baby stuff (it's possible many 2 bed flats are smaller than this one). Also agree with the other poster that it's less of a problem if going back to work.

I think it could be done but I wouldn't choose it. My daughter is now 2 and I like after she is in bed and we get the rest of the night to ourselves.

Of course it is!

If your one bedroom is a penthouse, then you can certainly raise a family in it!

Exactly. Square footage and layout make more difference than 'one bed' status.

I don't think the bedroom could really be turned into a sitting room if it's not even big enough for a double bed and a cot.

Side and TV take up less space than a double bed and a cot?

We live in a one bed flat, ds is 3 months and just moved him from Moses basket to cot. Had to rearrange bedroom to get cot in, it's perfectly fine other than we can't shut the door

We lack space in the living room but babies really don't need that many toys and you just have to limit how much stuff you really need. Buggy tends to stay in the boot of the car to save space!

Give the baby the bedroom and buy a a lovely comfy sofa bed for you and dp

Babies don't really come with a lot of "stuff". You can buy as much or as little as you want. I didn't have a play chair for DS when he was little as they are massive. We had a small, basic bouncy seat and a playmat which could easily be rolled up when not in use. And it was fine.

It will be cramped OP so it's up to you whether you want the baby enough to go for that!

I bought my first flat from a family of 5 living in it (2 adults and 3 children between 2-11). The bedroom was large, as was the living room which was open plan with the kitchen. I think it depends on what you can do with the space. You can get double loft beds so a cot fits underneath, but obviously dependent on your ceiling heights.

The issue is they don't stay babies for too long, when they are sleeping through the night it means uou need to be quiet if they are in the living room. When they get to a few months and above, then what will uou do in the evenings if your sitting room is also your child's bedroom.

Is it doable, of course, plenty do, but it will mean a bigger change to uour lifestyle than normal. Maybe even to the extent of watching tv with the subtitles on so uou don't wake uour child with the noise.

Maybe you give the child the bedroom and uou sleep on the sofa bed in the living room?

Bearing also in mind falling pregnant can take awhile, although it may be instaneous, and you're pregnant for nine months, then uou could be looking at another year before a child arrives. So if uou were ready to move in two, then uour be out by the time they were a year. However babies cost money, no doubt about it, then there is maternity leave etc impacting pay, and then, God forbid, sometimes things don't go according to plan, so saving may not go according to plan.

Probably if it was me, I'd try to get pregnant, and then I'd move if it happened.

Throw contraception to the wind and go for it!! A secure tenancy is worth more than a second bedroom. When my brother and I were 12 and 13 our parents divorced and to our absolute joy we ended up with a bedroom each as my mum moved into the front room. When my first daughter was born we lived in a 1br apartment and dh and I did the same thing, put the cot in the quiet bedroom and moved our lives into the front room. You have the luxury of a separate room for all your clothes, make up, everything that you don't need minute by minute. Along with dds cot we had a single bed for nights when she just couldnt settle, but mainly the room was used for storage.

We did until DD1 was 2. We turned a hall cupboard into a closet so cot and subsequently toddler bed could go in the bedroom in the place of a wardrobe. I miss it all the time and part of me wishes we hadn't moved to a house, even though we have DD2 now. It was easy to keep clean, easy to keep an eye on DD. No stairs to forget something and have to run up and down! I like having a garden to hang the washing out now but tbh we don't go out there as much as I thought we would - maybe just got into the habit of going to the park when DD1 was small. Next time we move it will be to a flat.

Staying in our 1 bed flat is what we should have done when DS1 was born, so I would definitely say do it! I look back and think we could have comfortably done well in that place for at least another 12-18 months as it was 865 sq. ft. and had a separate office room we could have converted.

But I was so enamoured of the idea of a nursery to decorate, we moved, and it was a terrible decision all around (there should be a law against deciding these things whilst pregnant!)

I lived with my parents in a one bed flat (admittedly a fairlay large one) until I was 11. They slept in the living room and I slept in the bedroom. It was completely fine.

We had twins in a 1 bed flat for about 13 months, which was alright just had to rearrange things like wardrobe was moved into living room. Much longer than that would of been a real struggle IMO

I know people who did this by screening off one corner of their living room with large floor to ceiling folding screens to create a separate toddler's 'room'. Toddler seemed to sleep quite happily through their evening TV noise etc.

And I know another family who put the baby in the (small) bedroom and the couple slept on the sofa bed in their living room.

Perfectly do-able.

Yes, it is absolutely possible. We live in a 1 bedroom flat (tiny hallway, tiny bathroom, tiny kitchen - no room for table, large lounge room and decent double bedroom) with our 10 month old and both my husband and I work from home. We are lucky, as the cot fits next to our bed but, if it didn't we could switch the lounge room and bedroom around.

In terms of baby 'stuff', much depends on how much you choose to buy them (or allow doting grandparents / friends to buy!). We sell things the baby has outgrown (e.g. jumperoo) to make room for anything new we wish to buy. We don't buy lots of toys and I keep the baby clothes in a holdall under our bed, as there is no room in our shared wardrobe for baby clothes, and no room for a chest of drawers or a 2nd wardrobe. We are also lucky that we only have two neighbours in our building, both of whom are happy for us to keep our pram in the shared hallway, so I don't have to carry it upstairs or store it inside the flat.

Empty boxes and paper keep our little one happy for hours, as does banging on pots and pans with a wooden spoon. We don't have any outside space, but have several parks nearby, and at least one walk a day in the fresh air does me and baby good.

The one thing I would suggest is a nappy bin - nappies can smell unimaginably bad, and I've found our nappybin keeps these smells encased, so the flat smells clean. The bins are small and cheap on Amazon, though the bags to line them are expensive. We wait for specials and stock up - on everything (bin bags, baby wash, nappy cream etc).

My parents managed to live in a very small caravan (not the huge Amercian-style ones made now) with me as a baby. Anything is possible. Easy, no, but possible, yes.

I think probably the rental factor is more important than the 1 bedroom thing. How much freedom do you have? Is it unfurnished so you can arrange things as you like? Are you able to drill holes in the wall to anchor the furniture to?

We were in a one bed flat for the first 7 months of DDs life until we moved. My friend is still in a one bed flat two years later. Baby has the bedroom as his room and playroom and she has the living room.

It's more than doable. Babies don't NEED loads of stuff. Books you can get from the library, loads of stay and plays for toys (and always more interesting if they are new anyway). We're now in a three reception room, 4 bed house and feel overrun with stuff. I think you cut your cloth accordingly

Not the same, but we had twins in a two bed upstairs maisonette. We moved out after 6 months to a 3 bed house as it became impractical

We had nowhere to store our huge twin buggy
Couldn't park outside so would need extra muscles for me to carry tge 2 car seats with babies in up and down the road (we ended up keeping buggy in car)
Had to keep walking up stairs to access maisonette with 2 car seats etc
No outdoor space
Stuff everywhere -2 cots, baskets, bouncers

We are fortunate to own a three bed house. Guess which bed everyone ends up in by morning?

I sometimes joke to DH we should have skipped buying cots and just dumped a kingsized mattress on the floor for us and the kids. So yes, perfectly doable for the first couple of years. You will then have the added bonus, by the time you are ready to buy, of thinking ahead about schools, parks and other toddler friendly activities.

We did it. Though bedroom was a big room so we had space for cot. We had very little clutter then . When ds2 arrived, DH and I moved to sofa bed in living room. It worked with careful planning. We had gate leg table for meals - it took up whole living room when out!! You'd have to get used to all the 'I don't know how you manage', OP.

What I'd do differently, if I could. Not be on a 2nd floor. If we could have had a garden flat or other ground floor with a bit of garden, that would have been easier. Also, I wish we'd moved to a cheaper area much sooner.

Pleased I found this-lots of reassuring voices here.
OP I did it the other way around slightly by accident so maybe our view will be useful. We moved from a rented small flat in central zone 2 which we loved, to zone 3 a year ago to buy a (very run down) house (3 rooms, garden, basically ideal for a family). The opportunity arose and it felt like a no brainier for long term security. Fell pregnant 3 months ago and after a couple of early complications we have realised we don't need the space more than we need to be near supportive friends and in an area we love. Cue race to finish the house, rent it out, and rent ourselves a one bed in our old neighbourhood before I pop (which is as far as budget will stretch in that area).

I agree with the other posters who say stay where you are until you really need to move, which could be a handful of years. Pregnancy itself can be tough mentally as well as physically from the word go, so in my limited experience I think it's better to be settled and secure in a smaller space if that's where you feel happy. Life is too short not to enjoy where you live! Good luck with everything.

In fact ds2 slept in his carry cot ON the gate leg table for the first year. He was quite little. If we had company we'd carry him through. He was great at sleeping anywhere. We moved to a bigger and lower down place not long before ds3 was born.