Baby in one bed, third floor flat

[Bryonee]

I'm starting to get nervous about our living situation. DH and I are due to have our first DC in February and live in a one bedroom housing association flat in central London. The flat is on the third floor of a period conversion and comprises of a large living room, large kitchen, bathroom and small double bedroom. There's no lift. I've bought a babyzen yo-yo buggy as it's small and lightweight. We don't have a car.

The plan is to have a bedside crib in our room, keep the buggy folded in the kitchen and try to keep any other "stuff" to a minimum. There's nowhere to safely store anything on the ground floor.

We can't apply for a bigger place until after our DC is born and then there's no guarantee of us being offered a two bedroom property so we need to be prepared to live here for some time. Please tell me it will be ok/ give me some tips. I'm worried about feeling trapped in here with the baby and not being able to get up and down the stairs with shopping etc and generally feeling overwhelmed and claustrophobic.

i lived in a one bed
flat on 3rd floor with no lift as a single parent for 3 years bumping a
double pram up and down the stairs wasnt fun but it was managable. use a sling?

tbh in london you will be waiting years so get use to it. its 8-10 years in my part of london.

I had 3 kids in the 1 bed*

You’ll be fine. Invest in a good sling to babywear instead of lugging the pushchair up and down every time.

It's not ideal but many people have coped in similar circumstances. Some stuff will probably end up being stored in the living room so it might be a good idea to get some "storage solutions" from somewhere like IKEA.

Find out what is actually necessary and what you can do without or use a travel version of which folds up.

For example - you don't need a changing table or unit, just use a change mat on the floor. You don't need a baby bath although a bath support seat is useful. You don't need a separate Moses basket.

I would definitely suggest a sling or baby carrier for going up and down the stairs and also when going around on public transport as they are much more portable than a pushchair.

Hi OP

We moved into a 2 bed property in July but before that I was in a 1 bed 1st floor flat (no lift) which my son called home for the first 2 years of his life.

You won’t need a changing table as EmUntitled says, the kitchen sink makes a great baby bath until they get too big I didn’t buy a Moses basket but instead used the carry cot from my travel system. Invest in a good sling/baby carrier and practise folding your buggy with one hand and carrying it up the stairs with a sack of spuds in the other

Storage wise I had to fit stuff where I could, I had some of those plastic drawer things inside wardrobes and plastic tubs with lids on top of wardrobes/under the bed etc
Ikea have a great product called Bosnas, it’s a footstool with storage which I found really useful for storing nappies, toys, books etc, it also doubles up as an extra seat 👍🏼

You’ll be fine, make do with what you’ve got for now, just remember it won’t be forever. Congratulations and good luck! xx

we lived in a tiny 1 bed flat for the first 18 months of having dd, it's fine, stops you keeping too much stuff, get some good storage solutions now (ikea) and practice with the buggy, a decent sling will be a life saver

We did it, no problem, you will be absolutely fine!

Why don’t you see if you can do an exchange with someone further out looking to downsize?

Am in the same situation. The Babyzen Yoyo is great. We also use an Ergobaby Adapt carrier a lot (useful also for carrying wobbly little babies up and down stairs to the pram). I have a folding changing table in the bathroom. I donate his outgrown clothes to other friends as soon as he outgrows them to avoid accumulating stuff.

I also got a load of Ikea storage solutions - underbed clothes storage, another Kallax, stacking boxes etc.

We have the Babyzen Yoyo, it's great! Although tiring, I could carry DD in the buggy up and down flights of stairs. One option a lot of people did was get a small folding sling. You can then put your baby in that to do the stairs, making it easier to carry folded buggy, shopping etc.

You don't need too much in the way of toys etc, especially as there are generally more (often free) things on to take your baby to. Possibly consider buying things second hand and then selling on when you are done (or just do the selling on bit).

We were in a third floor walk-up 1-bed when DS1 was born. We had a baby jogger city mini so I could pick the baby up and put him over my shoulder or in a sling, and then fold the pushchair with one hand and carry the nappy bag in the other. We left the pushchair in the car boot a lot of the time and I ended up just using the sling as it was so much easier with the tube and buses. We had the absolute bare minimum of stuff at all times and cycled stuff through frequently - no stashing of clothes in larger sizes for instance as we had very little storage, no large toys, changed the baby on the floor, changing stuff kept in the nappy bag at all times and just bought what we needed as and when.

Friends of ours that still live in a 1-bed partitioned the bedroom with a stud wall and have a bunk bed for the kids in one room, the parents' double bed in the other, it works for them and my aunt and uncle did it by sleeping on a sofa bed in the living room and kids had the bedroom. They said they always fell asleep in the living room watching TV anyway so might as well stay there!!

We did this in London until my daughter was almost 3. It was fine though we spent lots of time out and about, children's centres, city farms, softplay, parks, museums etc etc. If we'd stayed in lots I might have gone slightly mad! It was genuinely genuinely fine though, we had a couple of decent slings when she was a baby, and once she was toddler age we got an umbrella fold buggy and kept it collapsed downstairs (check with neighbours first!). Or even outside if you can secure it somehow? Also good storage (IKEA Kallax!) for toys etc.

Only reason we moved was when I got pregnant with her younger sibling. Before that we were wondering about putting in some kind of folding bed in the living room (a slightly better, more permanent bed than a sofa bed, which is what we had and I'd also recommend!). We coslept a lot too.

Looking back I quite miss those days, we went to so many great places that were just a bus / tube ride away. And being in a smaller home, if you're fairly ruthless about clutter, is also easier to clean and you are only ever a short distance away from your baby. Now we're in the suburbs I spend my life running up and down stairs shouting for people and moving clutter from one floor to another. I thought we needed more space (and we eventually sort of did!) but actually you just expand to fill the space you've got and it still doesn't feel palatial... At least the flat situation is compact and everything is to hand. Good luck!

You can make it work. De clutter and simplify - Marie kondo style! Get a sling too. I invested in a lovely lamb skin rather than a playmat and I just moved it around the flat with the baby.
And adjust your mindset to the reality. I wasted years wishing for what could never be and spoiled what I actually had.