How important is a garden when you have children?

[Snakesandpropertyladders]

We are house hunting and have found a nice house which ticks all of our boxes. It has an ok size garden but its not very child friendly. It's been heavily ( and expensively) landscaped and it looks beautiful but is tiered so nowhere to ride a trike or play football. There are also concrete steps coming directly down from the conservatory which could be dangerous.
We currently have a much larger garden that will be ideal for games of football, swings, slides etc, though the inside won't work for our family in the long term.
My baby is too young for playing outside at the moment so I've no idea how important or not a garden will be. Any words of wisdom?

I'd say it depends on your lifestyle. If you are likely to be home all day with the children I'd say it's pretty important. If you like to go out a lot and the child/children are at nursery all day I'd say not so much.

Children get brought up perfectly happily in flats etc with no garden - parents take them to the park etc.

I found that once mine were old enough to play out the front and go to the park themselves and round to friends etc (about age 8), the garden got ignored. But as my OH stayed at home with the boys until they went to school, the garden was used a lot up until that point - he found it useful that they could come and go in and out themselves.

We will be out most of the week so yes it would just be weekends that we would be home.
I think I'm only doubting it because the garden we have now is so ideal for children. I sort of worry that we would be short changing our kids by moving somewhere that they couldn't have the swings and slides or play football.

I sometimes look at a photo of my daughter aged 2 with a bucket full of sand in her dungarees . KIds love gardens, sand small pet dogs . Getting mucky , swing slide trampoline

Oh gosh we had none of that lot when kids, but we had a garden

Is there open space nearby?

Is there no room at all for even a sand pit or single swing?

Could you put off moving until children are nearer school age?

The bigger and flatter the better.

A garden is really important for us because I'm a SAHM and DS needs space to run around.
Swings, slides etc aren't essential though IMO. As long there is easy access from the house, no escape routes and room to run around and play with toys they'll be fine.

Not being difficult but kids need grass not concrete. Kids cant be watched every second and concrete does damage, Grass however just makes kids dirty . So grass rules

We have a small and down-hill garden and 4 boys.
It works fine - not ideal, but the house was very much worth the garden compromise. In an ideal world I'd buy next door's garden
We have a trampoline and a swing set and a park nearby for running/riding a bike/kicking a ball.
My kids are between 11 and 4 btw.

To me it's very important ( house hunting at the mo and keep finding great houses with crap gardens). In the summer our garden in used a lot, and as it's flat and secure I'm happy for 3 year old DS to play out there alone with me just inside in the kitchen. But I agree that it depends on your lifestyle, we are in the house a lot. I would say that size is less important than it being child friendly though.

If you can, I think a secure garden that DCs can play in by themselves is great. Our garden up until DS1 was 7 was accessed by really steep steps (from first floor flat), and shared: they were still out in it quite a bit but we had to be there too.

We moved to a house with a secure garden, it really came into its own after school, but if your children are likely to be at a childminder/afterschool club then this might not be as important. It really depends on your other reasons for moving.

Very important.

There is grass it's just not flat and continuous. It's been 'designed' into triangular shapes using railway sleepers with loads of big plants around the sides. No patio area though, just stairs which come directly down to the grass from the conservatory.
It's quite hard to describe it but it's basically a beautiful garden that offers lots of privacy from neighbours but not the open space a child would enjoy more. Lots of potential for tripping and getting into mischief.
Though DH is saying we could always rip out all of the landscaping and make the grassy area bigger but I'm struggling to picture it.

We spent quite a bit getting our garden unlandscaped and flattened earlier this year and have said everyday since that we are so glad we did-garden is used so much more and kids have been outside almost everyday since we had it done whereas last year they could go weeks without even stepping outside.

I think it's entirely subjective.

We have a massive garden - child heaven in our experience.

We have friends that have a 2m square of decking. Have their kids missed out? Not in my opinion - there are always parks/green spaces/friends with gardens.

Very important.
We have a lovely, huge, enclosed garden- doors are open all summer.
Bliss.

This is the closest thing I could find online to explain how the lawn is. But with triangular shaped raised beds at the sides filled with lots of tall plants. No path or patio just steps coming from the conservatory to the grass. The steps are wide paving slabs and are staggered so not steep but still not ideal.
The garden is enclosed and otherwise safe.

For us a Garden was of utmost importance. We have two DC's and our Garden is used come Rain, no Rain, snow, Wind, Sun, no Sun. . . you get the picture.

Very important IMO. We have rejected many a near perfect house due to small garden or garden without adequate lawn. Kids use it for hours and hours during school hols. In the summer they're also out there for hours after school. They love it. In the good weather all 3 sets of doors are open all day.

We moved from a house with a tiny tiny backyard on a busy road when ds was 7mo.
We had our new gardens about half an acre laid to grass with a big long Tarmac drive (for bikes) and no steps. We have a nice flat patio outside the living room which they use for paddling pools and chalk drawings etc.
The kids now 5 and 2 are able to run about outside by themselves and have swings and slides etc and I don't have to worry about them falling or being run over.
Its brilliant. Not very stylish or pretty but we are starting to shape the banks up to the fields into a rockery and will eventually put in some more plants and shrubs.
So yes it's important to have a nice space for kids so you don't have to spend every sunny day out somewhere which is a real pain. Doesn't sound like your isn't suitable tho just not flat. Once the kids are 5 ish you won't have to worry too much about the steps?

You can change the garden except for the aspect, the size and the boundaries... anything else is temporary. Also, I don't think gardens need to be football pitches, for me gardens are for playing and exploring nature, making dens, or sandpits etc. football is for the park.

We had a grassy garden until we moved last week. The dc almost never played in it. I don't really know why. We tend to go out quite a bit, to the park, on outings etc. They just never seemed very interested in playing in the garden (except in very hot weather when the paddling pool was up.

We don't have a very child-friendly garden at our new house and I don't think it will make any difference to them tbh. There's a lovely park with swings etc 2 mins walk away and we are very near woods, sea, rivers etc.

You can definitely get a ramp for the steps if they're not too high... but by the age of 2 or 3 kids can be taught to watch the steps out of the house (steps halfway down the garden i'd be more worried about as they'll be running and excited).

We are only planning 2 kids. Only have 1 so far .
The house itself offers good space so they would be able to have equal sized bedrooms of their own. It's also walking distance from the town and a couple of fantastic schools.

I think it is hugely important, I used to kick mine out in the morning with a sandwich and don't see them for hours. my kind of parenting