Nursery: how small is too small?!

[Paris2019]

Hi, I'm due in Nov and just starting to look at nursery stuff. We live in a fairly compact 4 bed-terrace which has: large loft room + en suite (used for guests); 1 double (our room); 1 double (guest room / my dressing room); box room (currently office). My question is: which room would you use as the nursery?! I was thinking the box room, so that we still have 2 guest rooms, but the box room is very small. We could fit a cot, drawers, changing table but not much else (prob no space for a chair). So now I'm wondering whether we should use the spare double instead...

Any advice / suggestions? Just trying to work out what would be most practical / suitable!!

Do you often have both guest rooms in use at the same time with people staying? Is that likely to be the future pattern?

Well the baby won’t need a room for at least 6 months, so you could put a chest of drawers into the smallest room first of all.
I would use the other double as the baby’s bedroom once needed.

Why do you need 2 guest rooms?! Your child will live there permanently, guests only come and go. I’d prioritise your child over your guests personally.

I'd use guest/dressing room.
Realistically he/she will eventually grow out of box room.

My daughter's room has a cot bed, a rocking chair and a chest of drawers. Nothing else would fit. I originally had a changing table but replaced it with the drawers when she got older.

Use one of the proper bedrooms.

Thanks everyone. We sometimes have in-laws AND sister-in-law/kids come to stay together, but TBH that's only a couple of times a year, and I wouldn't relish that once baby is here anyway...

I'd use a guest room and you can always keep a double in it for time being. Baby won't be in it for first six months at least and even then you can move cot back through to your room for a night or two if you really need the second bedroom. We also found it useful having a bed in baby's room for bad nights!

Why don't you have the loft room yourselves?

Definitely a proper room for your child over twice a year guests. But no urgency as they need to be in with you for 6 months. As someone else said, it is quite nice having a double bed in the baby's room initially

-AWhy do you need 2 guest rooms?! Your child will live there permanently, guests only come and go. I’d prioritise your child over your guests personally.

^ This

I have a bungalow with a loft conversion so it has two big bedrooms downstairs, one used as guest bedroom, another as a man cave/office/ additional space for guests on a sofa bed. We are using the box room upstairs as the nursery, it's not really tiny but the sloping ceiling make it quite awkward shape. I didnt want our baby downstairs though when they go into their own room and us upstairs. I have no idea what we will do if we have another and not something we would've even thought about a few years ago when we bought it!!
I think do what suits you best.

We put our DD in the box room when she was 16 weeks and we have one guest room for when my parents visit. Now we are expected DC2 so DD is moving into the guest room. The box room suited her fine in the cot (just had a cot, drawers and a toy box) but I know it wouldn't suit a child. It would barely fit a bed. If you have 2 guest rooms in would just use one of them for he babies bedroom so you dont have to move them down the line.

Thank you everyone. This is really helpful! So the second double could be nursery / guest room if needed... that makes far more sense than cramming everything into box room for the sake of it! Box room could just be used for extra storage...

Invest is a good and large air bed that has a plug in pump for the rare times you have more than one couple stay. My parents are being relegated to one in our lounge when our DC2 arrives.

Our experience was that the combo guest room and nursery worked for a while and was great for that period but by around 18 months/2 years it needed to become a proper kids room.

Make guest room into the baby's bedroom. Get rid of double bed. Only have 1 set of guests at a time that you can accommodate comfortably in the guest suite. Win win in my view. You will be glad of it.

And box room is your dressing room

We are using box room for nursery and then guest room remaining for time being for visitors (we have family from abroad). When baby is bigger or 2nd child arrives they will be moved into the guest room. We do have a good built in wardrobe in our box room though.

We used the box room and kept the guest room, not for guests really but it was great for if DS had a bad night and needed to come into our bed as DH or I could go in the guest room and get a decent night sleep!
DS is almost 3 and still in the box room, he has his cot bed, a chest of drawers and a rocking chair. It works fine for us

I'd use a bigger room tbh, you'd be surprised how much stuff little ones accumulate so you'd probably end up changing rooms after a while xx

I'd use one of the guest rooms. Especially once baby is a toddler as nd child the extra space will be good for storage and play space so you don't have to have everything in your sitting room

Our box room is having to stay as an office instead of nursery due to working from home so baby will be in with us then planning on moving anyway
Box room is fine if you don't have another option

In all honesty, I’d go for the box room in the short term. We were in a similar situation, using one of the larger bedrooms as a study and the other we wanted to keep as a guest room (my DMum was going to help with childcare and sometimes I leave before 5am, so she stayed overnight sometimes). We used a really tiny room for all DDs bits, but her cot was in with us for 6 months. As it happened, cosleeping worked really well with us, and I didn’t fancy rocking the boat, so she didn’t move out of our room for 2 years (NOT the initial plan, but it worked really well for us!). At that stage, she was too big for a cot anyway. So we never really had a “nursery” as such, just all her clothes and nappies etc were in the box room.

Why not stick with the littlest room for now if that’s what you think will work, and review the situation in 6months/a year/whenever you feel like it?