“You can’t possibly have a baby in that flat”

[Mellowpink]

DH and I are in our late 30s and finally decided to start trying for a baby before it’s too late. Mentioned this to my sister, expecting excitement, but she had a totally different reaction. We live in Zone 3 SW London in a 2 bed 3rd floor flat. It's an old building, so no lift, just steep stairs. And our second "bedroom" is more like a box room, currently my home office.

My sister insists it's too dangerous and cramped to raise a child here. I said I’m sure we could make it work, but she says I just don't get it as I'm not a parent yet. We've thought about moving, but staying close to central London for work is a must as we are hybrid workers. We looked at houses in Surrey but prices seem to be crazy, and with interest rates, we'd be paying a more just to inconvenience ourselves by being further out.

Am I crazy to think we can handle raising a baby here?

There are other places to look at more affordable housing than Surrey!!!!

YANBU - I don’t know why family think they need to poke their nose in!

When we bought our small 3 bed house, SIL walked around and told us it would be too small for a couple of kids; we didn’t have any kids at this point!
Now she has 2 children in a much smaller two bed, third floor flat. She’s made it work.

I’ve never made the same comment to her however!

You’ll make it work and once baby is here, you can figure out the prioritises which might well be being close to work so you don’t have a long commute and get more time with baby.

What’s her solution. Don’t have kids?

I had this setup with my first. It’s a pain re the stairs but you just get on with it. We moved when my first was 2 and her brother came along.

Maybe I'm made of stronger stuff that lots on here but I did this exact scenario and didn't ever think it was a pain. I just knew what I needed to do and did it. Locked the wheels downstairs and carried up the baby in the carry cot bit. Really not the end of the world

lol I deffo live in London and I deffo value having a car now I have a baby. I didn’t used to want one at all, but now it makes a lot of sense. I guess it depends how close you are to the tube/nursery/hospital/ playmates. But ‘not needing a car’ in London is not a universal experience. It’s a big place.

Well you might value a car but it's not right to say someone needs a car just because they have kids. Do you get caught in traffic much? In a City of nine million people not everyone can have a car. Children's lungs are smaller in London as it is.

It’ll be fine. You’ll make it work.

She needs a place to stow heavy groceries and her buggy. The hall of her building isn't an option. She could also use a car to get the baby out of the city to places with fresher air.

It occurs to me that people ought to be able to hire a parking space and use it for other purposes if they want to. I bet if you put a cargo bike there, nobody would say anything.

I'd use a train to get out of London, not a car.

Please don’t delay trying for a baby over this! Of course it will be fine. Everyone would love to live in a mansion with servants so you adapt to what you have. Kids don’t care a jot up until maybe pre teen age when they get more self conscious. But even then I 100% guarantee that some mates will be living in flats if they go to a normal school in a city. Prams and stairs are a pain but you could keep your pram downstairs/in the car and carry baby up. A baby doesn’t need much bedroom space and you can figure out office space (working in the kitchen maybe). Certainly don’t worry about it now. You can adapt as and when you need or can afford to.

Please read the OPs posts. She has no car and nowhere to store a buggy downstairs.

@laylababe5 But this is what I mean about maybe having to adapt. She might have to get a car or some sort of storage solution downstairs. Some flats have space to put in a covered buggy park outside

Get on with it or else you might miss out on being parents. You can always move afterwards but you can’t schedule a pregnancy in, esp as you get older. We had our first in a flat and I used a baby carrier to get up and down the stairs or would take the pram down and then put baby in at the bottom. You’ll work it out. Cities like Madrid are full of women bringing up babies in flats.

There were loads of us kids in the 60s who were brought up on the top floor of big houses in one bed cheap rentals. I slept in one half of the kitchen. My best friend also slept in the kitchen. Our parents were slim and fit and so were we from running up and down the stairs all the time.
there was one toilet and bathroon for the whole house.We didn't think anything of it. It was better than the squalid places in the east end and we had Hampstead Heath on our doorstep. It sounds fine to me.

That's you wanting one, not needing one. I maintain that unless you are physically disabled or need one for work purposes, no one needs a car in London. Public transport there is exemplary. I miss it greatly now I'm in Bristol.

In some boroughs you can apply for a parklet which is a sort of mini garden you put in the parking space outside your house. People often use them for cargo bikes as well. Some boroughs also have on street bike docks you can pay to access - don't see any reason why you couldn't leave a folded buggy in one. Or do what everyone on our street does- Asgard bike container in the front garden. Just don't get a high value buggy; we had a babyjogger city mini which are cheap, work from birth, foldable with one hand, massive basket and not particularly fashionable so not a target for thieves. If you can fold it flat (it used to fit behind the front door) then unlikely to block a shared hall.

This is very true. And the houses tend to be narrow-ish with only a couple of rooms ( sometimes one) on each level so, while they are often generously sized rooms, every time you need something it seems to be on another level . Need to bathe baby? Lug them up to the bathroom. Doorbell rings? Gallop down from dcs room where you were entertaining them. Kitchen on a different level from where baby sleeps etc etc. Then the nightmare of a newly toddling toddler in a house literally built around an internal staircase. At least in the flat the stairs are something to be tackled once or twice a day. In London townhouses they are an issue all day long. I’d just go for it OP. There are always reasons to delay if you think hard enough.

Sorry haven't time to read the whole thread so will be repeating what others have said, but I think you need to think about whether you intend to have more than one child. One should be just about do-able but obviously not two. Lugging the pushchair, the shopping and your child upstairs all at the same time is simply not possible so you really do need to work out your logistics for everyday living.
If you do hope to have more children then it probably makes sense to move out a bit, not to expensive Surrey but to somewhere midway. And it isn't essential to have a house, millions of people with children live happily in flats. Affordable/convenient places do exist in the suburbs and slightly further out - a good problem for Location Location!
Personally I'd move now rather than later, that's what we did and it worked out OK as we chose our area with care and stayed around there for 30 years. If you bite the bullet now you should find that it benefits you financially in the long term.
There's never a right time for having a baby so you just have to choose the least worst options.

Doorbell rings? Gallop down from dcs room where you were entertaining them

Or you could just walk down like a normal person

Or just press the intercom buzzer….

I suspect you’ll be looking to move fairly quickly. Of course it’s doable, but the steep stairs with no lift and nowhere to leave a buggy will be a pain in the backside. I suspect you’ll just have to go mostly pram free , and use a sling/ carrier. It will be ok when the baby is tiny, but once the baby turns into a toddler (it’s does happen sooner than you think 😆) I imagine it will feel pretty unbearable pretty quick.

Your baby will be born into a family who love it, will care for it and meet all its needs. They don't care about whether they live in a mansion or a flat.

It's you that will find this tricky. If you have a section, you won't be able to go out yourself with the baby for weeks. How will you manage to bring up baby and shopping?

Surely you can look at moving to somewhere with a lift or on the ground floor?

But like I say it's only for you, your baby will be absolutely fine regardless.

Regarding the shopping, you can get the delivery drivers to bring it upstairs if you leave instructions.

In my current 1-bedroom flat, when I moved in, my upstairs neighbours (in an identical flat) were a couple with a 3yo son. He'd run from one room to the other, so I'd hear his pattering feet, or bounce his ball on the floor. But it always stopped pretty fast, so presumably the mum was telling him not to make as much noise.
They moved out when he was 4, to a bigger flat. Now my upstairs neighbour is a young man. He's fairly quiet except for when he invites his boyfriends round. I don't know what acrobatics they get up to but it involves one or both of them being thrown onto the floor and squealing like a stuck pig.
In the flat above him there's another young man with a girlfriend who likes to get high/drunk regularly, then yell out of the window at 3 in the morning and wake me up.
Flats are usually fairly noisy. Personally I preferred the couple with the little boy.

I moved from a large 3 bed house into a 2 bed first floor flat when me and my DP took a break. I do love how accessible everything is on one floor, and how easily me and my son can hear/'find' one another. I pretty much know exactly what he's up to at all times, whether I'm in the room or not!

It's also a lot easier to heat.

We're about to move back into a normal 2 up 2 down together, and although I am really looking forward to having a garden again, I am not looking forward to all the 'galloping' up and down the stairs 😂