Doing an extension with a baby?

[Dillybear]

Hiya, just posting to ask your experiences of doing a significant extension/project while caring for a baby.

We bought our home and found out I was pregnant a couple of days before we moved. We bought the house with the intention of doing this work, it came with planning permission. The downstairs of the house doesn’t work for us as it is and we will ‘need’ to do the work in the long run. Also, if we don’t do the work this year, to look after the house properly over the winter I think we’d need to do some remedial work to part of the house which would then be knocked about anyway once we do the work - if that makes sense. So we’d be spending money which would ultimately be wasted.

Before having a baby, we were still hoping to go ahead with the work after she was born. Now she’s here and three months old... Im not sure if I can manage it! I can just picture her naps being disturbed and me losing my mind from all the disruption. The project should take 16 weeks, and I don’t want to spend four months of the first year of her life being a crap mum and feeling miserable. I had thought that with lockdown the work simply wouldn’t go ahead but the builder we are going with says their projects are back on and they want to start in a month! Which will tie in nicely with the four month sleep regression.

Half of me thinks it’s a terrible time to go ahead, and half of me thinks just get it over and done with while she’s small and immobile (for now), while I’ve only got one child, and before my DH needs to sit more professional exams. In case it makes a difference, my parents live very close and would let us move in or escape to theirs as much as we like, which is probably the only reason I’m even considering it!

Am I mad to even consider it? Thank you in advance for any advice.

Has to be done sometime but yes it won't be fun. Then again it never is! Use your parents living nearby as much as possible (ie move in with baby) and get the project done

We had a big extension when youngest was months old.
It was fine, she can sleep through an earthquake now
Worst bit was when they broke through, I went to my mum's for a few days at that point.

Do it now. Building work with a toddler is much, much worse.

We're planning an extension this summer, DD will be 7 months. We're going to move out for the worst bit, probably around 6 weeks, because she'll be crawling by then.

Depends what you're having down. We had an extension build which was 6x6m at the back of the house. The builders cracked on and the only real inconvenience was when they knocked through into the existing house. I think it would be easier with a baby than a toddler.

Is hard work. That was what I was thinking when I read the title of the thread.

Did a 4 month job where pebble dash was removed from the house and then repointed. Loud drilling and dust constantly. You will be tried from not sleeping at night and then with all the noise from a project you won't get rest and neither will the baby.

Do it now.
I moved into our house heavy pregnant. We had no internal doors, no kitchen so had to have a temporary sink and then a pipe from the washing machine going in to it. Every downstairs ceiling had to come down. We hit problem after problem.
It was easier to manage with a baby who couldn't do anything.
When things got too much my friend would let me go round to her house for the day while she was at work do I could get some peace from the builders! That was a great help.

Thanks for your opinions. I know that whenever you get work done to a house it’s a pretty difficult experience, so it’s not like it would have been easy even before DD arrived. I’ve been told that it’ll be harder with a toddler than with a baby before, and that seems to be the general consensus here. Looks like I’ll need to find a way to make it bearable now then rather than putting it off!

If it absolutely has to be done - yes
Otherwise, I’d avoid

Going to my parents’ to escape will be a lifesaver and they’ve said we can move in while we do the work if and when we need to, which should make it more manageable.

We took the roof of our house and removed the back wall to extend. We started 2 weeks before my eldest was born. It was tough but because she wasn’t moving about I think it was easier. I’d get cracking!

What’s the living situation with your parents? Ie lots of space? All get one well?

100% do it now before baby is mobile! Building work with a toddler is a total nightmare and you’re soooo lucky you can stay with parents. Go for it!

But r were it’s a toddler you can put in nursery!

No way would I do with a baby

@sodamncold where are you that nurseries take your toddler 24/7?? You send the kid to nursery from 9-3 or whatever, but what about the rest of the time, and the weekends, when you're then trying to keep a toddler safe in a building site?

Ignore this advice OP, it's nonsense. Definitely get it done ASAP.

Any builder worth his weight will leave the property absolutely safe and secure
I had massive downstairs work done. With two young children. Every day they would finish up 3.30 and then began the full hour of tidying, hoovering, securing tools

Do it now, as previous posters have pointed out it's much easier with a baby as opposed to a toddler. We had a kitchen refit done when we had a 5 month old baby, it was grim of course but would have been much worse if I were in the middle of weaning, baby was still EBF at that point so I just used to retreat to the bedroom to watch tv whilst feeding, and took her on long pram walks when the noise was affecting her naps.

@sodamncold We all get on really well. We would have our own room with an en suite at my parents’ house, and there’s enough room for baby’s crib in there with us. I do think it would be okay, but I’ve never lived with my parents as an adult so of course it could be awful (for them and for us!)

Well then go for it!

Thanks for all the advice. It’s really useful to hear from people who have done it and have lived to tell the tale!

Have you already got a builder booked? I'm guessing some will returning to work as some of the builders merchants are coming back but good ones normally have 6+ months of work lined up already.

Go for it.

We did major refurb works, knocked through walls from before DD was born to her being about 9 months. She was a rubbish napper anyway but the sound of hammering and power tools seemed to make her go to sleep 😂 otherwise just going out for a walk to get her to nap which is still feasible in lockdown.

We're now a week into a house extension and she's now 2.5. Picked up about 100 screws and nails today alone which we'd never find and nearly fell into the foundations twice 😂

You're more likely to regret not doing it than doing it 😀

We are doing one now with a 6 month old (started when he was 4 months) and a 9 year old with autism. The extension with the baby is absolutely fine, the baby does not mind the noise at all and is very portable for walks and not yet mobile which helps. The combination of the 9 year old with autism and lockdown with the building work is more of a challenge!