Hello to all you 3rd Trimester ladies!

I haven't been in here before as I am only in my 1st but wanted to see if anyone had any tips on coping with living in a small house/flat with a baby?

We only have a one bedroom flat and I doubt we will be moving until after the baby comes along so I am trying to think of ways we can reduce clutter and keep things neat.

If anyone has a similar problem and can offer us some tips on space saving baby related devices, could you let me know? I am thinking along the lines of minimising the amount of things I need to buy or maybe doubling up the use of some things, eg. carrycot/moses basket.

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Jemima x

Hi im in a sort of similar situation as you, We have a small ish 2 bed house and have custody of my OH's 2 boys so a nursery wont be possible and baby will have to be in our room until if or when we can move.
I ordered a swinging crib today for next to our bed for baby as they are only in a moses basket for a short time so felt the money could be better spent there and the crib should be ok until they are 6 months or so but not as big as a cot so will save some space.
The pram i am also getting comes with a soft carrycot which i can use for downstairs.I also have a fold up type bouncer chair thing so can store it easily when not in use.
In our bedroom we bought a slimline canvas storage thing with individual canvas type boxes on it for all of babys stuff and equipment and i cleared out a couple of drawers to use. The top of the chest of drawers will also act like a change station up stairs as our bed is very low and we cant get anymore furniture into our room!
Have also been quite ingenious with hooks and the way our bedroom is layed out.

If you see anything or have any good ideas please send them this way too!!

Some good ideas there, thanks. Good idea about the swinging crib. That'll save having to buy a moses basket then a cot as well. Gonna have a look at storage boxes/chests that will double up as change station for the bedroom but will prob just make do with a mat on floor in the lounge I think.

I have only had a quick look at prams and really not sure which ones will be best...car seat attachable, carrycot, who knows. If you see any decent things on the net, can you post links and I will do the same. Thanks a lot for your advice, much appreciated! x

The best thing we have is a changing station. We have a small house too, and we couldn't have fitted more drawers or wardrobes in the baby's room, so we got one of those and it's brill. Its got loads of drawers and we've fitted all of juniors clothes, bath things and his bath in there. I think they can be quite expensive though, but we got ours donated by a relative.

xxx

Linzi,

Do you mean something like this?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/White-Painted-...QQcmdZViewItem

Yeah, that looks the same as our actually

xxx

We also are in a one bedroom for the time being, but hopefully will be moving in a few months. For now, we have her bassinet right next to our bed (which will be convenient for middle of the night feeds anyway), Our play yard has a changing table attached to it, so we will be able to change her on that until she gets too big. Her stroller has an attachable carseat. We got a swing that folds down, for travel and space saving reasons. Luckily we have a HUGE closet, so we've given her her own section in it. We also have a really big cupboard in our bathroom, and have designated a shelf just for her stuff. So all her bath stuff and towels and washcloths and what not are in there. We also got a rocking chair that actually matches our couch, and will have it in our living room, since we no longer have room in our bedroom.

You can make it work hun, trust me. Its me, DH, our SPOILED Shih Tzu (who we also have a huge crate for and all of his toys all over the house), and now our daughter. But it works, and when we can move up to a two bedroom, it will be great, but for the meantime, we're making it work. Congrats!

We have a 2 bed flat and it's sooooo full now!

We have just bought a moses basket for now and plan to get the cot later once we've moved. We've also tried to limit buying to things we really need because you can buy other things later. For toys we just have a play gym and a few tiny things. For babys clothes we bought a chest of drawers which is tall rather than wide & we don't even having a changing unit for now. We really want to just make do until we are settled somewhere else.

If you haven't already you could try using the plactic boxes which go under the bed too.

Thanks so much for your advice. Good idea to have storage boxes for under the bed and like you said Burtonbaby, a lot of it is about crates and storage, chests etc. I hadn't really though about toys but then I suppose when they are tiny they don't need too many toys. It's really the sleeping arrangements etc that concern me a bit. I saw this:

http://www.silvercross.co.uk/sleepov...ic_chassis.php

which I thought was a good way of combining a carry cot with a moses basket.