To ask your thoughts on having two adults, a toddler and a newborn in a studio flat?

[0valtine]

How practical do you think this is? Two adults, a boisterous toddler whos walking and into everything, and a newborn.

One room where you sit/cook/eat/play and then one bedroom. Tiny bathroom and no other space.

Thoughts?

How much does his help offset the fact that your living arrangements are causing it

Because he doesnt seem to do much apart from work and sleep

We did it until the youngest was 2.5yo and the eldest was almost 4. Needs must.

apologies cross posted

Just thought it would give you a second bedroom and a second bathroom.

@Quartz2208 when you put it like that..

You're not wrong.

I suppose a helping hand in the mornings doesn't go far enough by means of easing the mental strain of the living situation

We're struggling so much in a tiny one bed we've decided to sell ours and get a 3 bed house. 2 kids? Braver than I am. Jesus.

@PennyandVince I wish we had even 0.5% of that kind of money going spare

We have this issue on weekends, one bed flat , 2 adults , 1 baby and a dss visiting 3 days a week. Our soon to be plan before we move to our house (6montjs ) is to ditch the sofa, put our bed in the living room so the baby and 4 year old share a room (baby sleeps through) atm our baby sleeps in the living room and dss in our room but that's the plan for when he starts crawling aha...

It sounds bad. The baby will wake the toddler. The toddler will wake the baby. You may lose your minds.

Would your DP be happier about moving if it was to near someone he knows, like his Mum? If he's never moved, the idea can be scary. Would you need to spend much time with her? (A quick rightmove look says you can get a 2 bed in Ipswich for £650 easily)

Where else does he know people? The idea of completely new, no people, no network and starting from scratch can be terrifying.

However, if he really won't budge, Id think about where I know people and start looking at what I could get alone.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-77104085.html

Under an hour to Victoria. Could be a compromise?

I think if you knew it was a short term thing that you were both working to solve it would be fine

But in the longer term they are going to want and need more space. 3 members of the family are sacrificing to met the unnecessary needs of one

Massive sympathy OP. We lived in a similar space with a toddler and a baby for 9 months, previous to that we lived with just the toddler for 2.5yrs. This was while we were building our house so we had an end goal at least. We had a double bed a cot and a double sofa bed. So one of us had somewhere to take the baby if they were up. My husband worked days but spent his spare time building the house so I was alone a lot of the time in the small space, which was really tough. No way could it have been a long term solution and our kids were both good sleepers.

He is being v unreasonable! X

Instant thought is Hell No.

Rational thought is You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do.

Frankly, he sounds selfish.

Your living situation isn't necessary: he and you can get jobs anywhere in the country doing what you do by the sounds of it. So staying in London, where he works long, irregular hours and sleeps when the precious two days off due to exhaustion, where you have no family support on his side and rarely see them, and can't afford to do any of the great things on offer in London, and you're all crammed into a tiny flat ... isn't much of a life.

I'd tell him you'll be looking to move North as soon as you feel up to moving after you've had the baby. You will have better lives: income will go farther, more space, hopefully less exhaustion and more family time.

Tell him he needs to prioritise his family, not himself, and prepare himself to move. Because he can't even stay awake to spend time with his children when he's living with them; he certainly won't be able to make weekly trips to see them under those conditions. He needs to give himself a good head wobble and put his family first ... and that means moving out of the most expensive part of the country where you're not tied to your jobs.

It's such a shit situation he's landed us in by back tracking now that I'm out of work.

Even if I were to persuade him to move further out I don't know where we'd find the money. It cost us 2.5k to get in here, and we didn't have the added costs of transporting furniture that time.

Every bit of money is eaten up on bills, travel, rent and necessities and a measly £8 a week on his hobby. We could barely afford to do something special for DS first birthday let alone find the money for deposits etc.

Ugh

What's the £8 a week hobby? Do you get £8 a week for a hobby/treat too? Tbh with the rent that high and the debt payments he should be giving up the £8 a week to the family food/necessities budget.

Had a toddler and a baby in one bed flats for just over a year. It sucked, but needs must.

One of the flats was a private rental riddled with damp, the other was in a block of temp housing for families waiting to be housed (also riddled with damp). There were families with teenagers, small kids and parents all bunking up on mattresses on the floor together. Two small kids ain’t so bad compared.

How much rent are you paying OP ?

The toddler will wake the baby and vice versa. I don't think he'll last long when one or the other is awake every 90 minutes max.

He plays football on a weekend and has done since long before I met him.

Apparently it's a non negotiable luxury as it's the only thing he gets to do for himself besides working.

I don't have any hobbies anymore, I can't afford to join any clubs. I had to cancel my gym membership after I became a SAHM and took it on the chin because we simply didn't have the disposable income to pay for it.

@PennyandVince - have you seen the mooring fees for St Katharine's Docks? Linked below are the 2017/2018 rates.

42 foot = nearly 13 metres

Cost per meter per month is £98.78 x 13 metres = £1284 per month (annual fee would be slightly cheaper).

Electricity and pump out charged on top of that. Looks as though you also need an annual licence fee of £3,500 per annum

www.skdocks.co.uk/media/1320/skd_tariffs_en-2017.pdf

Okay, so what's his long term plan?

I think get a sofa bed for the adults. Have the baby in a Moses basket and the toddler in the bedroom. I found my toddlers unbearable when they were tired/woken up in the night. Then the dcs can have the bedroom when older and you don't have to creep around at your bedtime.

OP, he sounds really selfish and I don't think he's bringing you much happiness. Seems like sooner or later it's going to come to the crunch.

To clarify the rent is £1,000pcm

Oh we do have a damp problem too. The wall under the bedroom window is ruined. We have to air dry clothes on racks indoors because there's no room for a tumble dryer.

We don't even have room for a normal sized fridge freezer. We have a built in under counter fridge freezer and the freezer department is small and shallow, that means we can't do big food shops and have to buy day to day which costs more.

The flat doesn't contain any heat due to cracks around the windows so our electric is constantly being eaten up by the radiators and a portable heater which we need to use in winter months otherwise poor DS would freeze.

It really is a horrible living environment.