Living in a 2 bed flat with husband and 3 yo and baby on the way

[TwinkleTwinkleX]

Hey,
My husband 3 year old and I live in a 2 bed flat in an area in London that we love. The schools are outstanding and my parents and other family live 10mins away and have big houses so we have help with childcare a couple of days a week and use their gardens in the summer.
i am due with our new baby in June next year.
unfortunately the area is unaffordable for 3 beds and there are compromises if we were to move further out to be more affordable (longer commute, less going on, reduced help with childcare due to distance)
Wondering if anyone has experienced our position? Wonder if we bite the bullet and compromise for the space or enjoy life as it is with a smaller place? Thank you ☺️

Lots of people live in 2 bed houses or flats with 2 kids.

Small children don't need to have lots of money spent on them, and you have loving extended family, so save, save, save whilst the children are young so that later on have more to contribute to moving to a three bedroom place.

Sounds fine. I think the bedrooms are a non- issue. Baby can sleep with you for a year or two or longer and then they can share. Life will change and you can consider upsizing later. Dh and I never could have imagined being able to buy the house we have now when we had a toddler and a baby on the way. We have plenty of room now that they are older and actually need the space.

I brought up two kids in a two-bedroom house, as did pretty much all of my neighbours. It was absolutely fine until my oldest was 12 or 13, but by then we could have afforded to move - we did an internal conversion to get 3 beds instead.

Two beds is manageable. It just is tricky when they are on different schedules.

I would prioritise the location and make every inch work for you. If you have different sex children you can withe divide a room or invest in a Murphy bed in the living area.

It's fine, the baby can be in with you for a year anyway and then young children are fine sharing even if different sex.
Plan and save to move in the longer term when your eldest is about 10 and starting to want more privacy

We had 3yo and a baby in a 2 bed flat for a while, but they were all in our room as we needed the second bedroom for wfh! Personally I would say it's doable, especially if you have a London lifestyle (we were living very centrally too) where you are out most of the time. We weren't in a hurry to put them in their own room. Our eldest was in our room until she was 4 years old, and our youngest is still in our room even now aged 2.5, even though we now have a room for her. We've never had long commutes and I think that's been really important for a good work life balance - we can walk to work now and it's nice not having to deal with public transport or traffic.

However, we have moved slightly further out now and being in a larger house with a garden is amazing. Financially I think it is a better option for us long-term, as I believe the house will go up in price more than a smaller flat will (so we will have a nice nest egg for the dcs when we get older and downsize).

In your position I'd probably try to stay in the flat for long enough to get admission into the outstanding state school (which hopefully would secure a sibling place for the baby - but check as not all schools have that policy), and then look at moving, but to somewhere close enough to travel back to the school. But if you will have to move too far out to stay in the same school, I'd probably make the move earlier rather than later. It gets more awkward to move once dcs are in school, because you need to be careful about admissions deadlines for secondary, perhaps finding in-year places for a new school, disrupting friendships and trying to build a new network in a different area.

If the baby is opposite sex to your 3yo that would put a time limit on how long they could share for - I wouldn't want opposite sex siblings sharing once the eldest is around 10.

I really appreciate all your responses and hearing your experiences. Appreciate there are families making it work in even smaller places and I am fortunate to have family nearby.
the second bedroom is very small so would need to be bunk beds once kids in together.
we live a typical London life - out a lot of our spare time! Definitely like to keep clutter at a minimum. I think we are tempted to stay put for the babies first year and see how we get on.. I don’t think leaving the area will get any easier but maybe we can save some more money and the move might feel like too much change in one go for my 3 yo with the new baby too.. xx

My kids are 4 and 8 and happily sharing a bunk bed in a small room (opposite sexes), so I’d say you have a few years. I plan to move them into separate rooms when the oldest is about eleven.

Definitely stay put for a while and see how you get on.

Children sharing bedrooms was overwhelmingly the norm until relatively recently. its only on MN that I've seen it described as if its a human rights deprivation.

If the room doesn't have space for two full sized beds one option for the first year or two is a toddler sized cot/bed for the older child with the cot for the younger child which may well both fit (we did something similar with the first two). As soon as the older child is safe on a top bunk then bunk up!

Don't give up a good area to avoid sharing bedrooms. Once they are older and you are past the worst of childcare costs you might want to revisit moving but its a choice rather than a need at this stage.

Thanks for sharing your experience! In time we might be able to fit a bed with a trundle underneath that we can put away during the day for space.. I guess we are a while off that though! 😊