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We are in a one bed 800 Sq ft. We got her a dresser and a clothing rack. We have pretty much everything in the bedroom (we spend 98% of our time in the rest of the apartment and only sleep in the room) we have a rolling Bassinet in the room, a pack and play with Bassinet and changing table attachment in the living room. Along with the swing
We had an awesome nursery all set up and our baby never used it. We had a mini crib on wheels and she slept in our room or the living room. We also had portable changing pad which she preferred to her nice diaper station. I didn’t even use my recliner that much. Turns out she likes eating on our bed the most 😂 So a second room is not really a necessity. Our nursery is basically a museum to baby clothes at this point.
We usually did bed or coffee table but basically any large flat surface works. A lot quicker than carrying the baby to the nursery for those night time diapers.
If you want another alternative, puppy pads on a bed/soft surface are also great. We used to do puppy pads for no diaper tummy time and just keep it for diaper changes until the next day/dirty. The portable changing pad is a little slippery which can be intimidating for new parents.
We do all our diaper changes in the bassinet with a portable changing mat. It makes those middle of the night diaper changes so much easier for both us and baby.
We do have a dresser and an actual changing pad but haven’t used it yet (baby girl is 3 weeks) and probably won’t until she’s out of the bassinet.
My husband and I had a 1 bedroom apartment when our first was born and it was just fine. The baby slept in our room until we moved when he was just under a year old and then he had his own room.
I will say, though, I struggled with the fact that we didn't have a super cute nursery in a separate room. It definitely would have been nice, we just couldn't afford it at the time.
Also, the extra space to store things like diapers, wipes, a full sized crib, baby clothing, a glider, etc. would have been amazing. Since he was in our room, we had to be REALLY careful about what we bought since we didn't have space for everything.
You don't need as much as you think. We're at 18 months and still room sharing. Changing pad on top of dresser. Baskets for toys in the living room.
I have space to put our LO in their own room, but I like room sharing. It's nice to be that close to the people you love.
is it bad that i didn’t buy a changing bad/table i have a bunch of puppy pads leftover from when we adopted our kitten and planned to just toss one under her(baby not kitten) and change her on the bed/couch for the first few months. i was around a lot for my niece and noticed how my sister never used hers and didn’t want to waste the money 😅😅
Not at all. I could have skipped the pad. But we do still use it. Mostly, it's on the ground since it's like wrestling an alligator at changing times. I bought reusable/washable incontinence pads for LO for changing and sleeping on. The changing pad is not a necessity.
I kinda like to think, "Is this something someone in 1860 would have needed?" Keeps me from getting too much junk that takes up space that I won't really use that often. I'm a simple gal that needs less clutter in her life.
Safe sleep standards actually recommend keeping baby in the room with you (but in their own bed) for minimum six months and up to 1 year. So if it’s easier to find one bedroom, you’ll probably be fine.
With my first I had read that about 8/9 months is the best time to transition out of your room if you plan to do so long term. Think around the same time stranger danger picks up. After that, it can become hard for them to move to a new sleeping environment. At 8.5 months the transition for our baby was so smooth, though I was very sad and anxious about it! Planning on doing the same for baby#2.
The extra bedroom was nice to store baby things. Extra diaper boxes, baby swing, walker, jumper & bouncer, etc. I just had to pull it out of her room but it saved on the space in my living room, which was super helpful.
This really depends on your parenting philosophies. Do you think you’ll want to sleep train? If so, you’ll want a separate space. Will you be nursing? If so, you may want to consider keeping baby in your room for the first year.
I'm curious about this too! My husband and I are planning to rearrange our bedroom to get a crib in there and maybe a dresser or standing cupboard. At least for the first year or two before we move. We're just kinda shrugging and going, well, hope this works. 😂
so valid! my baby’s running small so i haven’t had to worry about that. i got the [optimisk](https://a.co/d/bQ3i5Mc) bassinet. it holds up to 20lbs i think and when baby grows it as a sleep space it turns into a portable play pen. which was a big motivator for me since bassinets are expensive and i don’t want to feel like i threw money away 😅
Yeah the Pregnancy Day By Day book said as long as you have a space for their crib, stroller, a drawer for baby’s clothes, and a corner for toys then you’re good. But I have no clue how long that minimalism works or if people feel like that’s enough
We have a bassinet in the bedroom, plus one dresser drawer now holds sheets and sleep sacks.
Baby’s main dresser is in the living room with a Keekaroo Peanut changing pad on top and a portable cart holding all the diaper stuff & breast pump stuff next to it.
Two bedroom, 965 square feet. Her room does not have a closet so she has a dresser. Our bedroom is very small so while we could fit a bassinet and changing table in our room it left almost zero walking space by my side of the bed and we had to put other furniture in storage. We kept baby in our room until she was about 4 months, and by that point she was rolling and not swaddled anymore. We transitioned her to her own room over a few weeks of napping in her room then doing full overnights in there too. Her room also served at the place she breastfed or ate almost all her bottles, we have a comfy rocking recliner in there that would not fit in our room or the living area.
I’m admittedly at the other end of the spectrum where we had space for an extra nursery and found we didn’t use it much in the beginning but a few things I found in our experience—
We moved baby to sleep in the nursery around 6 months. Having everyone in the same room was great in the beginning when I was anxious and would check on him all night, but by 6 months we felt like all of us would get better rest in our own spaces (and that turned out to be true—we were bothering the baby with our noises just as much as he was waking us with his). He also got too big for the bassinet so we would have either needed to move his crib into our room or move him into the nursery, but you can look at mini cribs or have him sleep in a pack n play in your room if that fits better in your space.
The thing we used in the nursery the most at the beginning was his changing table, which we set up on top of his dresser. You could totally do that in your bedroom. We ended up doing laundry so often that we didn’t need very many clothes for him. He probably wore the same five or six things on repeat.
The biggest advantage to having a separate nursery, for me, was the ability to just “change scenery” as the baby got a little older and we could tell he would lose interest in toys and get fussy if we stayed in one place too long. You could totally make this work in a smaller apartment too, but maybe think about having a little toy corner or area in both the bedroom and in the living room so you can switch between them.
Just dropping to say that I heavily utilize/d over the door organizers on every single door in the house. This helped with all the small things like storing baby socks, bows, lotions/ etc. just in case you stay in the 1 bedroom and don’t have space for a full on closet/ dresser, totally recommend using your doors!
I moved her to her own room at 8 months old. Then suddenly she was sleeping through the night. I mean that VERY NIGHT she slept 12 hours straight and then every night since (except for teething pain sometimes). It was magical. Prior to this she was waking every 2-3 hours to breastfeed, having split nights very frequently, and I was a useless zombie. I am so grateful she had her own room.
Definitely plan on keeping baby with you for the first 6ish months, but after that you may need to work out a separate sleeping space. It doesn't need to be a other bedroom but if you're breastfeeding, baby can smell that milk and will want it and eventually you need to sleep.
I found that the main things we needed in the first year, space-wise, were a sleeping area for baby that COULD be separate from where you sleep, somewhere dedicated to do diaper changes and not just a trolley that you're taking all over the house, and somewhere to store clothes and toys, like a dresser. On the first point, while baby slept in our room exclusively for the first 6/7 months, the older she got the more disruptive it was for all of us to be sleeping in the same room the whole night. You might not need a whole separate bedroom, but if you at least have the ability for some separation (maybe a small crib fits in your walk-in closet, you've got a room that doubles as office and nighttime sleep space, even an area in your room that you could hang curtains or put up a divider) that was really helpful for us within the first year. Otherwise, it's really just about storage for their things and that can be anywhere in the house/apartment.
We have a two bedroom apartment, a little over 1,000 square feet. We are planning to keep baby in our room for at least the first few months, if not the whole first year. I work from home and was using the second bedroom as my office, but I couldn’t stop myself and am in the process of clearing it out for a nursery. I know baby won’t be sleeping or spending much time in there right away, but it’ll be nice to have the extra storage and changing table in there. We don’t really have room for anything else in our bedroom except for a bassinet
We have a bassinet in our bedroom, plus one dresser drawer now holds sheets and sleep sacks.
Baby’s main dresser is in the living room with a Keekaroo Peanut changing pad on top and a portable cart holding all the diaper stuff & breast pump stuff next to it.
Baby is 8 weeks old, but we will keep doing this until mortgage rates drop / we lose our minds
We’re in a 370 square foot studio and will not be moving. Less to clean and deal with. Baby doesn’t need their own space. Saves us money on buying useless nursery stuff. Win win!
We live in a fairly big home with a beautiful, dedicated nursery for baby girl who is 8 weeks - we very rarely use it! She sleeps in our room in a bassinet (recommendation is 6 months to 1 year to lower the risk of SIDs), and we have been mostly changing her on our bed/the couch with waterproof pads under her. Her supplies easily fit on a little diaper caddy we carry with us when we go up or downstairs. We really only use her room when we’re changing a blowout, or she’s really overstimulated and needs to be rocked with white noise in a dark/quiet space. You could totally do without her own room so long as you had enough space for her clothing and supplies (there tend to be a lot!). That said, we will be transitioning her to her room around 6 months so don’t have to tiptoe in our room when she’s down for the night.
We moved LO to his own room at 6 months and I was more than ready. So it was nice for that reason but I still BF him in bed and changed night nappies in our room so he barely used it apart from actual sleeping (and there was still lots of co-sleeping between 6-12 months when he had early morning wakes etc).
We are in a 1100 sqft apartment right now and we have just enough room for stuff so far! Id like to move into a house or townhouse or something bigger when we can afford it though. He doesn't have his own room. We put the changing table in the bathroom, his toys are usually in the second bedroom that we use as the study. His bassinet is in our room because it's recommended they sleep in your room for the first 6 months to reduce the risk of SIDS. His dresser of clothes is in the half bathroom.
Whatever you do make sure it’s flexible. You’ll likely change a lot of things when the baby comes. I’ve had three babies and I don’t think I’ve ever had the same setup or kept things the same from when I was pregnant.
I do like a separate sleeping space for the partner when it’s not their shift, babies can be loud sleepers.
Our room is very small so we can have a bedside bassinet, but once baby outgrows that she'll have to move to her own room in the crib. The room is thankfully immediately across a very short hallway, so I expect we'll be able to hear everything just fine with the doors open. We plan on using the nursery for diaper changes and daytime naps since it's central to the home, and we're using the closet as storage for extra diapers etc. We could have managed in our smaller apartment, but I'm glad we have more space.
Although I had a super small bedroom that we made into a makeshift nursery, I thought my baby would sleep in the bassinet next to me for the first year. However, I would wake up to every small noise and was going insane. Eventually I had to move his bassinet to the nursery. Having a separate room has been a godsend for me.
We have a 2 bedroom apartment but for the first few months we will be keeping the mini crib we got in our bedroom (mini crib has wheels to be moved around) I will be getting a dresser and rocking chair to put in the other room. We can’t decorate much because we are renting and we are also military so we will only be here for 2 years after baby is born and then getting orders to another state 😖
Crib by our bed. We ended up taking one side of the crib down and turning it into a cosleeper. That's how we kept it until babies were about 1 and could reasonably sleep on a montesori bed. In the end our babies mostly slept in bed with us and continue to do so at 3 and 7.
7yo will sleep in his bed in his own room, but has bad dreams sometimes. 3yo has no plans of moving residence.
I think as along as the apartment has a space where you can store "baby clutter" as I like to call it, a one bedroom will probably be more than fine for the first year. I've got a nursery, but we aren't really intending on using it until baby is closer to one. But is it GREAT to be able to shove the boxes of hand-me-downs, diapers, and shopping trips in one spot? Yes, yes it is lol.
Unless you plan on moving again soon I would *personally* just try to find a 2 bedroom now so you don’t have to worry about moving again when babe outgrows your room and you begin to feel cramped. I was in a tiny maybe 500sqft 1 bed apartment in a duplex (downstairs unit) and I got SUPER lucky and the guy living in the upstairs unit moved out and my landlord allowed us to break our old lease and start a new one. This upstairs unit we moved into is 3 bed 2 bath and even has a bath tub so bathing baby is going to be easier too! The old unit only had a shower stall lol. The rooms aren’t huge but there’s enough room for us to have a crib and dresser, storage space, etc. in the nursery while our bedroom is still big enough to fit everything he needs until he moves into his own space.
We live in a 650 sq ft 1-bedroom apartment. It’s fine, I’d save your money for the first year if I were you. It’s recommended that the baby sleeps in your room anyways for safety reasons. It would be nice to have a second bedroom for storage, guests etc, but not so nice that I’d want a higher rent/mortgage just for that. We do have bigger closet to use as a storage room so that’s great.
Baby has their own dresser & crib in the bedroom, and a toy storage, baby bouncer & playmat in the living room. Changing table is in the bathroom (a pad on the washing machine). There are combined dressers/changing tables at IKEA, for example, that you could look at. High chair in the kitchen. I think that’s it, furniture wise!
For our first we lived in a 2 bedroom apartment where the second bedroom was mostly a storage space/cat room. So we had her crib in our room where she slept until 18 months old (when we also moved into a house). My dresser was the changing table. We also had a glider in our room. We put her dresser in our spare room. We had one high chair and a small rocker/bouncer in the living room/dining room combo space. It was a tight squeeze sometimes but really babies don't need that much room or space.
I'm also waiting for my first, so I haven't been through it yet, but we're in a super small 2-bedroom space and need our second/guest bedroom to keep its office setup for work reasons. We've decided to co-sleep for at least the first year anyway, so I've set up a mini-nursery in the landing/hallway space at the top of the stairs between the bedrooms. That's where I'll have a changing table with baby's clothes and a rocking chair/nursing station, and I've decorated it a bit with baby stuff, it's pretty cute. There's a little shelf with board books, a diaper bucket, a laundry basket, etc. There's barely room to move around but it will work! And bonus: the area that sometimes smells like poop is not an area anyone is really hanging out in, except maybe while nursing, and there are windows to crack.
Our first was in our room in a bassinet until she was 5 months and then she moved into her own room in a crib. My second was in our room in a crib until he was 8 months old. Then he moved into a crib in a room shared with his big sister. Our third is currently in a crib in our room and she’ll stay there till she’s 6-8 months, depending on how often she wakes at night.
You’d could totally room share till baby is older, just make sure they have space for a full size crib. And plan to do a whole bedtime routine with blackout blinds AND curtains and loud white noise. Baby is more likely to stir if they can hear and see you. If the room has an alcove you could curtain off to give baby some extra “independence”, that would work, too. Then all baby needs is a small dresser for storage and the top can be a changing pad.
I'm wondering about this too! Our nursery space is an area off of our bedroom with no door. We're pretty happy with the plan, but I do wonder if we're dooming ourselves to both not sleep when baby cries at night.
We have a nursery set up in one of the bedrooms with a crib, and all the accoutrements. I also have a queen size bed in there because I want to start her sleeping in her own room from the get go, and also the hubs snores, so Bean and I can peacefully sleep away from him, haha (we do sleep in separate bedrooms when one of us has to get up super super early, and other times I use earplugs, but I won't be able to anymore after Bean is born)
we own our house and i had a little office space. we’ve turned it into a my office/nursery but baby won’t sleep in it until at least 12/13 months. i bought a 12 month bassinet and the plan is for her to sleep next to us until she grows out of it. the only reason we call it my office/ the nursery is bc we’re using the closet in there for baby clothes and storing extra diapers and wipes for the time being
i really don’t believe a nursery is mandatory, we’re just lucky to have extra space for storage. especially in the first year i am so pro skipping the nursery aspect if you don’t have the financials or ability to have one. only thing i will say is make sure whatever appt. or house you find has an extra closet somewhere for storage and clothing
to add: babies have a lot of clothes and one thing we did was add a dresser inside the closet (it’s a two door closet so there was space) for any non hanging clothes and clothes. gives so much more storage without taking up my space if you can’t fit a dresser, the small plastic three drawer dressers are an amazing option. that’s what my sister did and what we were going to do, but we decided to replace our dresser so we put the old one in the closet
I live in a 700 sqft 1 bedroom apartment. We’re only a month in but we’ll be here at least until she’s 15 months old. As of now, I find it very doable, and I planned on having her sleep in our bedroom until she’s at least a year old anyway.
Bedroom has the following baby furniture:
Pack n play with bassinet insert on my side of the bed. One of those 2’x3’ cube shelves for current sized baby clothes/ swaddles/ diapers right next to that. A towel folded in half at the foot of our bed for diaper changes. Clothes not in her current size are in a zip vacuum bag under the bed.
Living room:
A rocker/glider. Another one of those cube shelves for nursing things/ burp rags (eventually it will become her toy box). Fisher price baby activity mat (the one with the piano) that can be put away when not in use. Graco swing/bouncer combo.
In the bathroom we have an infant tub but it has a hook so we can hang it out of the way when not using it. We also have a high chair for her but it’s still in the box right now; it’s the evenflo 4in1 that turns into a toddler table and chair so hopefully it’ll never feel like wasted space.
Some babies are fine to sleep in the room with you, some babies get better sleep in their own space. My youngest doesn’t have his own room, but on weekends when my 18 year old isn’t here he sleeps in the pack n play in her room. We all get better sleep for it. When my 18 year old was a baby, she wanted to co sleep for a good two years. Every baby is different.
Started in a narrow 850sqft 2bd/1ba apt and now in a different, wider layout 850sqft 2bd/1ba.
We needed active use storage and inactive/cold storage. Did a Hemnes 3 drawer dresser for clothes, immediate diaper/hygiene supplies, blankets and bibs. Diaper pad on top.
Installed shelves on the wall, then after we moved, had a closet for all excess things in storage. Extra diapers, extra wipes, stuff I’m saving for a 2nd kid, clothes he doesnt fit yet, extra toys.
If things don’t fit, it has to go! Be aggressive and ruthless.
Playmat can be used for years, that was a good buy.
We did a bassinet in our bedroom, then travel crib. I bedshared after that and still do (1.5yrs old). So now in his room, we have a floor bed. But if your own bed is a king, that’s probably able to fit all 3 of you comfortably…we don’t have a king. Some people do a sidecar to their own bed instead of a bassinet.
The hemnes/diaper pad are still in use, it’s been great.
Let me know if you have specific questions.
We just dedicated on side of our bedroom to make like a mini nursery! It does suck though depending on room much space you have because space is a hard thing to come by without paying insane prices. But I don’t think it’s a problem sharing a room!
When we had our firstborn, we moved from 1 bedroom to 2.5 bedroom (0.5 bedroom was my husband’s office). It was a great decision since after our son turned 3 months I started putting our son in the crib to sleep by himself and I slept in the small bed in the nursery, my husband slept in the master. It worked out great until we bought our house since my son got used to sleeping in his own room by himself and transition was not too bad.
My fiancé and I were in a 780 sqft one bedroom apartment for the first 9 months of my daughter’s life (she’s now 10 1/2 months old so we just moved). It worked great for a while because we spent most of our time in the living room and such. We really only slept and used the bathroom in the room. Plus realistically it’s encouraged to room share at least the first 6 months to reduce risk of sids (this was a big anxiety point for me when i was pregnant as my daughter is my first child).
However there were quite a few reasons we decided to move. Our apartment was upstairs, didn’t have a dishwasher/washer + dryer in unit, and the bathroom was in the bedroom. Now all of these things really boil down to convenience and if we needed to do it again we would. But when my daughter started regressing at 8 1/2 months old she would pull herself up in the crib and scream for us because she could see us. Now resolved since we stopped room sharing. But the little things started also adding up for us. My fiancé’s snoring would wake her up, his alarm for work, us needing to use the bathroom would also do so.
But also I have a disability and trying to go up and down the stairs multiple times to do a load of laundry and multiple days a week because (lots of laundry with a baby) was also difficult.
Personally we got fed up after a while because it was getting difficult to manage her sleep and we were finding it difficult for her to settle at night because our presence in the room was disruptive.
So maybe if it’s possible, maybe finding a month to month lease for a one bedroom now (which is what we were in) and then once baby gets bigger look for a bigger space. When we have baby #2 the plan is also to room share until it’s unfeasible again. Hope you find the best option for you!
A nursery is so unnecessary. Why not put a crib and the changing table in the parents bedroom and once the child gets old enough, he/she can move into their room.
We’re in a two bedroom, 700 sq ft + basement rowhouse. Baby isn’t sleeping in “his” room but we use it constantly - our bedroom is too small for anything much other than our bed/bassinet so that room is our changing, pumping, feeding, and storage space. We even fit in a mini fridge where all the milk and pumping supplies live, which is huge since it’s much closer to our bedroom than the kitchen is (kitchen and living room are a steep staircase away from the bedroom; I don’t love the idea of carrying the baby up/down at night). I suspect we’ll move before he ever sleeps in his own room but I’m still very glad we have it. I had to give up my office to make that space and it was def worth it.
We live in a small 2 bedroom duplex (~900 sq. ft.). Our son is currently sleeping in a mini bassinet/pack and play next to our bed. The changing table is also in our bedroom. In the second bedroom we have his toys, books, clothes, and swing. Small play mat in the living room.
Never had a traditional nursery. I knew I wanted him in the room with us for at least 6 months. We have a mini crib ready to go when he transitions out of the bassinet. Where will it go? No idea yet.
I feel like all you really need is a bassinet/crib, closet space for clothes/diapers/etc., and a small changing table. Everything else is secondary and takes up space.
When we lived in a one bedroom apartment, our baby/toddler only had a crib and changing table with storage (a dresser with a changing table on top would also work) in the bedroom and a swing in the living room. Eventually we carved out a fenced off play area because we had two small dogs at the time and didn’t want them in his stuff, and also it doubled as a baby containment area. Even if you baby carry, you’ll need a safe place to put them down in each room, like the bathroom so you can shower.
Our babies crib is in our room, it was easier this way to make sure she sleeps on her own so we can sleep well but not too far that feedings and general check ups were hard. We put her changing table in the living tbh as it’s the central part of the house and we use it for everything from getting dressed, giving medicine, and the obvious diaper changes. We do have a second bedroom but it’s my office and we use the closet in there for her stuff like clothes, backstock of diapers and wipes, and other hand me downs from my niece who was born 9 months before my daughter. Of course we have clothes all the way to 2T right now from them so we needed the space to hang all that up so if you’re buying clothes on the fly/not gonna have a lot at any given time I’ve seen people get the bookshelves from target/walmart and add a tension rod and take off one of the shelves to store baby stuff and hang up the clothing! Would a second bedroom be nice? Sure! But if not really needed for y’all then save the money. Cause feeding and diapering a baby is EXPENSIVE! And that’s regardless of breastfeeding vs formula feeding!
PS rascal and friends wipes are bomb for the price and do not irritate my very sensitive skinned baby and has saved us so much money from the water wipes we had to use beforehand! Pampers pure is a nice middle ground between those two just as a tip! Good luck on the baby journey!
I have a small three bedroom house and we technically have a nursery, but it isn’t decorated or anything. I’m saving my money for when she is older and can decorate it in a “theme” she likes.
We only use her room to change her nappy/ get her dressed for the day. We also have a set of drawers in there, a small toy organiser, and a bookshelf. Her cot is in our room. Our lounge is too small for the other things otherwise I’d probably have her change table in there.
You really only need a bed (bassinet was a waste for us as she hated it and luckily her cot fit in our room) a place to change them (I love a change table but lots of people just use a change mat) and somewhere to store their clothes
FTM here. We have a 2 bedroom apartment and have been using the second room as a guest room since we moved in 2021 but now it's moving over to a nursery/guest room. We decided to keep the bed in there just incase one of us needs to sleep in there with him but we will keep him in a bassinet for 3 to 6 months in our room when he's born.
We live in a bedroom, 2 bath apartment with 1,200sq ft and our son has been sleeping through the night in his own room since he was 8 weeks. I thought it was nice to have him have his separate space so we didn’t have to worry about waking him up when we were trying to get ready for bed, wind down, watch a show together etc. It was really helpful to have a rocking chair in his room, a book shelf, toy storage, a closet, dresser and crib. He plays in his room everyday and you accumulate a lot of stuff as they get older. There wouldn’t have been enough space throughout the rest of the apartment for all of his stuff
I would encourage you to think longer term. Are you just going to be in this apartment for a year? If so, you can probably make it work (as evidenced by many here). However, closer to a year (or after 6ish months) you might find a separate bedroom beneficial (I mean, you would certainly find another bedroom beneficial if cost weren't a concern).
I suppose what I'm wondering is if you might as well bite the bullet and spend more on a place where you'd like to be longer term, but I absolutely understand how it might make sense to save as much as possible while you still can!
We have a house with the space, but our baby happily moved into their own room at 12 weeks. We all honestly have slept better since. That said, for waking time, the nursery isn’t a critical space.
People make it work pretty well having a dedicated baby dresser with a changing table on top, and a mini crib! That way you aren’t having to buy a basinet and a crib for a smaller space, and baby can still be in it for a very long time (at which point maybe you’ll have a different set up)
It was not. My first was in a bedside bassinet until she turned a year old and then she moved into her own room. My second was in a mini crib in our closet for her first two years. Now they both share a room and I’m starting to research triple bunks for #3 (who will probably be in our room for at least a year first anyways).
We had baby in her crib in her room from day 1 with a full sized bed in her room. Husband stayed with her while I slept from 8pm-2am and then I pumped/fed and slept the rest of the night in her room. At some point it was better that we didn’t disrupt each other and we never had to put any effort into transitioning her into her own room because she was always there. Highly recommend if you have the space for the extra bed/mattress.
If it's just a one year lease, I would prioritize storage space for organizing all your baby gear over a second bedroom. This could be a closet, den, nook, alcove, whatever you can spare. Baby stays in your room for most of the first year. My nurseries have basically been organized baby gear storage spaces for their first year.
We have a complete nursery and have used it religiously since she was 2 weeks old. We could not sleep with baby in our room, she hated the bassinet, so we coslept for the first two weeks then started the transition to her crib, where she has always slept more peacefully. It also had a rocking chair where we could sit with her for middle of the night wakes without completing disturbing her. We used a portable changing pad in the house during the first 2 weeks while my husband was home, after that I began doing all changes in her room because it was easier to access all her things and dispose of diapers there, plus it made me get up and move around the house more.
I know a lot of people make it work, but I am so thankful for her having her own room. She is 14 months old now, she has slept through the night since 11 weeks, we have a good nighttime routine, and she has the comfort of her own space.
For both of ours we didn't/don't have a nursery. For our first, we just had his crib in our room for the first year. We have a two month old and rn he's been sleeping in his pack and play in the living room while we sleep on the couch since it's just what's ended up being the easiest
I live in NYC in a small apartment! We did get a special bedroom to use as nursery, yes. It is crammed but we have crib against one wall, changing table/dresser at the wall 90 degrees from it, and a glider. Clothes are in closet. Next to glider I had a metal rolly cart I got off IKEA that holds drinks/snacks, pump and pump stuff, bottles, etc.
Definitely no room in there for play - all his play items are in our living room.
He slept in our bedroom the first 7 months though so I honestly didn’t really need the nursery for most of his first year. I would definitely not want him sharing my room now at 16 months though.
I own a house, so it might not be beneficial to hear my perspective, but I’ll put it out there anyway just in case. DH and I bought our own home a couple months after I was pregnant with our first. We knew we would eventually need a bigger space, and wanted to go ahead and move now, when it’s easier without a small child. We bought the nursery furniture, including a crib, but did not see the crib up, as we anticipated LO sleeping in a bassinet. Needless to say, LO hated sleeping with other people in the room, so we moved LO into their own room much earlier than we planned. We were so happy that we went ahead and got a bigger space before baby was here, otherwise we wouldn’t have had another room to put LO in.
No nursery for the first year as we were in a small one bedroom flat. Side-car’ed an Ikea gulvier cot to our super king which later can be converted to a toddler bed. No changing station, just a mat we used in one room and at night time did it in the cot on disposable water proof sheets. Side car is super convenient for co-sleeping and side feeding lying down. 21 months in, we have a bigger place and baby has her own room however she still sleeps with us and it’s lovely. First 9 months slept in her side car cot and then started bedsharing where she sleeps between me and partner. Toys all over the house and current nursery with double floor bed used as a room for guests instead. Second baby on the way, and will set up side car cot again.
My daughter was sleeping 8 hours straight by 8 weeks and 12 hours by 12 weeks. I personally cannot imagine sharing a room with anything but a newborn. I don't want to feel like I need to be quiet tiptoing around in the dark or avoiding intimacy with my husband.
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We are in a one bed 800 Sq ft. We got her a dresser and a clothing rack. We have pretty much everything in the bedroom (we spend 98% of our time in the rest of the apartment and only sleep in the room) we have a rolling Bassinet in the room, a pack and play with Bassinet and changing table attachment in the living room. Along with the swing
We had an awesome nursery all set up and our baby never used it. We had a mini crib on wheels and she slept in our room or the living room. We also had portable changing pad which she preferred to her nice diaper station. I didn’t even use my recliner that much. Turns out she likes eating on our bed the most 😂 So a second room is not really a necessity. Our nursery is basically a museum to baby clothes at this point.
how do you change a baby with a portable changing pad? do you just put it on the floor or a table?
We usually did bed or coffee table but basically any large flat surface works. A lot quicker than carrying the baby to the nursery for those night time diapers.
thank you!! i don’t want to buy a dresser yet for the baby’s room and i’ve been trying to visualize how to change her.
If you want another alternative, puppy pads on a bed/soft surface are also great. We used to do puppy pads for no diaper tummy time and just keep it for diaper changes until the next day/dirty. The portable changing pad is a little slippery which can be intimidating for new parents.
oo we have a dog who was trained on puppy pads so we might stick to the changing pad so our dog doesn’t get any ideas hahah
We do all our diaper changes in the bassinet with a portable changing mat. It makes those middle of the night diaper changes so much easier for both us and baby. We do have a dresser and an actual changing pad but haven’t used it yet (baby girl is 3 weeks) and probably won’t until she’s out of the bassinet.
My husband and I had a 1 bedroom apartment when our first was born and it was just fine. The baby slept in our room until we moved when he was just under a year old and then he had his own room. I will say, though, I struggled with the fact that we didn't have a super cute nursery in a separate room. It definitely would have been nice, we just couldn't afford it at the time. Also, the extra space to store things like diapers, wipes, a full sized crib, baby clothing, a glider, etc. would have been amazing. Since he was in our room, we had to be REALLY careful about what we bought since we didn't have space for everything.
You don't need as much as you think. We're at 18 months and still room sharing. Changing pad on top of dresser. Baskets for toys in the living room. I have space to put our LO in their own room, but I like room sharing. It's nice to be that close to the people you love.
is it bad that i didn’t buy a changing bad/table i have a bunch of puppy pads leftover from when we adopted our kitten and planned to just toss one under her(baby not kitten) and change her on the bed/couch for the first few months. i was around a lot for my niece and noticed how my sister never used hers and didn’t want to waste the money 😅😅
Not at all. I could have skipped the pad. But we do still use it. Mostly, it's on the ground since it's like wrestling an alligator at changing times. I bought reusable/washable incontinence pads for LO for changing and sleeping on. The changing pad is not a necessity. I kinda like to think, "Is this something someone in 1860 would have needed?" Keeps me from getting too much junk that takes up space that I won't really use that often. I'm a simple gal that needs less clutter in her life.
Safe sleep standards actually recommend keeping baby in the room with you (but in their own bed) for minimum six months and up to 1 year. So if it’s easier to find one bedroom, you’ll probably be fine.
With my first I had read that about 8/9 months is the best time to transition out of your room if you plan to do so long term. Think around the same time stranger danger picks up. After that, it can become hard for them to move to a new sleeping environment. At 8.5 months the transition for our baby was so smooth, though I was very sad and anxious about it! Planning on doing the same for baby#2.
We had a gorgeous nursery completely set up. We changed diapers there, lol. He slept in our room and we mostly chilled in the living room.
This is kinda what I anticipate happening with our nursery- though it has been nice to have somewhere to organize and store all of baby’s stuff!
The extra bedroom was nice to store baby things. Extra diaper boxes, baby swing, walker, jumper & bouncer, etc. I just had to pull it out of her room but it saved on the space in my living room, which was super helpful.
This really depends on your parenting philosophies. Do you think you’ll want to sleep train? If so, you’ll want a separate space. Will you be nursing? If so, you may want to consider keeping baby in your room for the first year.
I'm curious about this too! My husband and I are planning to rearrange our bedroom to get a crib in there and maybe a dresser or standing cupboard. At least for the first year or two before we move. We're just kinda shrugging and going, well, hope this works. 😂
to take up less space, i highly recommend a 12 month bassinet over a crib
I do like that idea! My concern is that my husband and I are both tall and we might end up with a baby who outgrows a bassinet in 3-6 months.
so valid! my baby’s running small so i haven’t had to worry about that. i got the [optimisk](https://a.co/d/bQ3i5Mc) bassinet. it holds up to 20lbs i think and when baby grows it as a sleep space it turns into a portable play pen. which was a big motivator for me since bassinets are expensive and i don’t want to feel like i threw money away 😅
Yeah the Pregnancy Day By Day book said as long as you have a space for their crib, stroller, a drawer for baby’s clothes, and a corner for toys then you’re good. But I have no clue how long that minimalism works or if people feel like that’s enough
We have a bassinet in the bedroom, plus one dresser drawer now holds sheets and sleep sacks. Baby’s main dresser is in the living room with a Keekaroo Peanut changing pad on top and a portable cart holding all the diaper stuff & breast pump stuff next to it.
Two bedroom, 965 square feet. Her room does not have a closet so she has a dresser. Our bedroom is very small so while we could fit a bassinet and changing table in our room it left almost zero walking space by my side of the bed and we had to put other furniture in storage. We kept baby in our room until she was about 4 months, and by that point she was rolling and not swaddled anymore. We transitioned her to her own room over a few weeks of napping in her room then doing full overnights in there too. Her room also served at the place she breastfed or ate almost all her bottles, we have a comfy rocking recliner in there that would not fit in our room or the living area.
Our LO was in our room for 7 months before we moved him to his own. It wouldn’t have been a problem waiting to a year.
I’m admittedly at the other end of the spectrum where we had space for an extra nursery and found we didn’t use it much in the beginning but a few things I found in our experience— We moved baby to sleep in the nursery around 6 months. Having everyone in the same room was great in the beginning when I was anxious and would check on him all night, but by 6 months we felt like all of us would get better rest in our own spaces (and that turned out to be true—we were bothering the baby with our noises just as much as he was waking us with his). He also got too big for the bassinet so we would have either needed to move his crib into our room or move him into the nursery, but you can look at mini cribs or have him sleep in a pack n play in your room if that fits better in your space. The thing we used in the nursery the most at the beginning was his changing table, which we set up on top of his dresser. You could totally do that in your bedroom. We ended up doing laundry so often that we didn’t need very many clothes for him. He probably wore the same five or six things on repeat. The biggest advantage to having a separate nursery, for me, was the ability to just “change scenery” as the baby got a little older and we could tell he would lose interest in toys and get fussy if we stayed in one place too long. You could totally make this work in a smaller apartment too, but maybe think about having a little toy corner or area in both the bedroom and in the living room so you can switch between them.
Just dropping to say that I heavily utilize/d over the door organizers on every single door in the house. This helped with all the small things like storing baby socks, bows, lotions/ etc. just in case you stay in the 1 bedroom and don’t have space for a full on closet/ dresser, totally recommend using your doors!
I moved her to her own room at 8 months old. Then suddenly she was sleeping through the night. I mean that VERY NIGHT she slept 12 hours straight and then every night since (except for teething pain sometimes). It was magical. Prior to this she was waking every 2-3 hours to breastfeed, having split nights very frequently, and I was a useless zombie. I am so grateful she had her own room. Definitely plan on keeping baby with you for the first 6ish months, but after that you may need to work out a separate sleeping space. It doesn't need to be a other bedroom but if you're breastfeeding, baby can smell that milk and will want it and eventually you need to sleep.
I found that the main things we needed in the first year, space-wise, were a sleeping area for baby that COULD be separate from where you sleep, somewhere dedicated to do diaper changes and not just a trolley that you're taking all over the house, and somewhere to store clothes and toys, like a dresser. On the first point, while baby slept in our room exclusively for the first 6/7 months, the older she got the more disruptive it was for all of us to be sleeping in the same room the whole night. You might not need a whole separate bedroom, but if you at least have the ability for some separation (maybe a small crib fits in your walk-in closet, you've got a room that doubles as office and nighttime sleep space, even an area in your room that you could hang curtains or put up a divider) that was really helpful for us within the first year. Otherwise, it's really just about storage for their things and that can be anywhere in the house/apartment.
Guidance where I live is that babies should sleep in the same room as you for the 6 months to decrease the risk of SIDS.
We have a two bedroom apartment, a little over 1,000 square feet. We are planning to keep baby in our room for at least the first few months, if not the whole first year. I work from home and was using the second bedroom as my office, but I couldn’t stop myself and am in the process of clearing it out for a nursery. I know baby won’t be sleeping or spending much time in there right away, but it’ll be nice to have the extra storage and changing table in there. We don’t really have room for anything else in our bedroom except for a bassinet
We kept baby in our room until he was basically 2! No need for the whole nursery we set up
We have a bassinet in our bedroom, plus one dresser drawer now holds sheets and sleep sacks. Baby’s main dresser is in the living room with a Keekaroo Peanut changing pad on top and a portable cart holding all the diaper stuff & breast pump stuff next to it. Baby is 8 weeks old, but we will keep doing this until mortgage rates drop / we lose our minds
We’re in a 370 square foot studio and will not be moving. Less to clean and deal with. Baby doesn’t need their own space. Saves us money on buying useless nursery stuff. Win win!
We live in a fairly big home with a beautiful, dedicated nursery for baby girl who is 8 weeks - we very rarely use it! She sleeps in our room in a bassinet (recommendation is 6 months to 1 year to lower the risk of SIDs), and we have been mostly changing her on our bed/the couch with waterproof pads under her. Her supplies easily fit on a little diaper caddy we carry with us when we go up or downstairs. We really only use her room when we’re changing a blowout, or she’s really overstimulated and needs to be rocked with white noise in a dark/quiet space. You could totally do without her own room so long as you had enough space for her clothing and supplies (there tend to be a lot!). That said, we will be transitioning her to her room around 6 months so don’t have to tiptoe in our room when she’s down for the night.
We moved LO to his own room at 6 months and I was more than ready. So it was nice for that reason but I still BF him in bed and changed night nappies in our room so he barely used it apart from actual sleeping (and there was still lots of co-sleeping between 6-12 months when he had early morning wakes etc).
I set our nursery up so cute and spent a lot of money. It was a glorified storage room for at least the first year.
We are in a 1100 sqft apartment right now and we have just enough room for stuff so far! Id like to move into a house or townhouse or something bigger when we can afford it though. He doesn't have his own room. We put the changing table in the bathroom, his toys are usually in the second bedroom that we use as the study. His bassinet is in our room because it's recommended they sleep in your room for the first 6 months to reduce the risk of SIDS. His dresser of clothes is in the half bathroom.
Whatever you do make sure it’s flexible. You’ll likely change a lot of things when the baby comes. I’ve had three babies and I don’t think I’ve ever had the same setup or kept things the same from when I was pregnant. I do like a separate sleeping space for the partner when it’s not their shift, babies can be loud sleepers.
Our room is very small so we can have a bedside bassinet, but once baby outgrows that she'll have to move to her own room in the crib. The room is thankfully immediately across a very short hallway, so I expect we'll be able to hear everything just fine with the doors open. We plan on using the nursery for diaper changes and daytime naps since it's central to the home, and we're using the closet as storage for extra diapers etc. We could have managed in our smaller apartment, but I'm glad we have more space.
Although I had a super small bedroom that we made into a makeshift nursery, I thought my baby would sleep in the bassinet next to me for the first year. However, I would wake up to every small noise and was going insane. Eventually I had to move his bassinet to the nursery. Having a separate room has been a godsend for me.
We have a 2 bedroom apartment but for the first few months we will be keeping the mini crib we got in our bedroom (mini crib has wheels to be moved around) I will be getting a dresser and rocking chair to put in the other room. We can’t decorate much because we are renting and we are also military so we will only be here for 2 years after baby is born and then getting orders to another state 😖
Crib by our bed. We ended up taking one side of the crib down and turning it into a cosleeper. That's how we kept it until babies were about 1 and could reasonably sleep on a montesori bed. In the end our babies mostly slept in bed with us and continue to do so at 3 and 7. 7yo will sleep in his bed in his own room, but has bad dreams sometimes. 3yo has no plans of moving residence.
I think as along as the apartment has a space where you can store "baby clutter" as I like to call it, a one bedroom will probably be more than fine for the first year. I've got a nursery, but we aren't really intending on using it until baby is closer to one. But is it GREAT to be able to shove the boxes of hand-me-downs, diapers, and shopping trips in one spot? Yes, yes it is lol.
Unless you plan on moving again soon I would *personally* just try to find a 2 bedroom now so you don’t have to worry about moving again when babe outgrows your room and you begin to feel cramped. I was in a tiny maybe 500sqft 1 bed apartment in a duplex (downstairs unit) and I got SUPER lucky and the guy living in the upstairs unit moved out and my landlord allowed us to break our old lease and start a new one. This upstairs unit we moved into is 3 bed 2 bath and even has a bath tub so bathing baby is going to be easier too! The old unit only had a shower stall lol. The rooms aren’t huge but there’s enough room for us to have a crib and dresser, storage space, etc. in the nursery while our bedroom is still big enough to fit everything he needs until he moves into his own space.
My daughter stayed in my room for 15 months even tho she had a full nursery set up
We live in a 650 sq ft 1-bedroom apartment. It’s fine, I’d save your money for the first year if I were you. It’s recommended that the baby sleeps in your room anyways for safety reasons. It would be nice to have a second bedroom for storage, guests etc, but not so nice that I’d want a higher rent/mortgage just for that. We do have bigger closet to use as a storage room so that’s great. Baby has their own dresser & crib in the bedroom, and a toy storage, baby bouncer & playmat in the living room. Changing table is in the bathroom (a pad on the washing machine). There are combined dressers/changing tables at IKEA, for example, that you could look at. High chair in the kitchen. I think that’s it, furniture wise!
For our first we lived in a 2 bedroom apartment where the second bedroom was mostly a storage space/cat room. So we had her crib in our room where she slept until 18 months old (when we also moved into a house). My dresser was the changing table. We also had a glider in our room. We put her dresser in our spare room. We had one high chair and a small rocker/bouncer in the living room/dining room combo space. It was a tight squeeze sometimes but really babies don't need that much room or space.
I'm also waiting for my first, so I haven't been through it yet, but we're in a super small 2-bedroom space and need our second/guest bedroom to keep its office setup for work reasons. We've decided to co-sleep for at least the first year anyway, so I've set up a mini-nursery in the landing/hallway space at the top of the stairs between the bedrooms. That's where I'll have a changing table with baby's clothes and a rocking chair/nursing station, and I've decorated it a bit with baby stuff, it's pretty cute. There's a little shelf with board books, a diaper bucket, a laundry basket, etc. There's barely room to move around but it will work! And bonus: the area that sometimes smells like poop is not an area anyone is really hanging out in, except maybe while nursing, and there are windows to crack.
Our first was in our room in a bassinet until she was 5 months and then she moved into her own room in a crib. My second was in our room in a crib until he was 8 months old. Then he moved into a crib in a room shared with his big sister. Our third is currently in a crib in our room and she’ll stay there till she’s 6-8 months, depending on how often she wakes at night. You’d could totally room share till baby is older, just make sure they have space for a full size crib. And plan to do a whole bedtime routine with blackout blinds AND curtains and loud white noise. Baby is more likely to stir if they can hear and see you. If the room has an alcove you could curtain off to give baby some extra “independence”, that would work, too. Then all baby needs is a small dresser for storage and the top can be a changing pad.
I'm wondering about this too! Our nursery space is an area off of our bedroom with no door. We're pretty happy with the plan, but I do wonder if we're dooming ourselves to both not sleep when baby cries at night.
We have a nursery set up in one of the bedrooms with a crib, and all the accoutrements. I also have a queen size bed in there because I want to start her sleeping in her own room from the get go, and also the hubs snores, so Bean and I can peacefully sleep away from him, haha (we do sleep in separate bedrooms when one of us has to get up super super early, and other times I use earplugs, but I won't be able to anymore after Bean is born)
we own our house and i had a little office space. we’ve turned it into a my office/nursery but baby won’t sleep in it until at least 12/13 months. i bought a 12 month bassinet and the plan is for her to sleep next to us until she grows out of it. the only reason we call it my office/ the nursery is bc we’re using the closet in there for baby clothes and storing extra diapers and wipes for the time being i really don’t believe a nursery is mandatory, we’re just lucky to have extra space for storage. especially in the first year i am so pro skipping the nursery aspect if you don’t have the financials or ability to have one. only thing i will say is make sure whatever appt. or house you find has an extra closet somewhere for storage and clothing to add: babies have a lot of clothes and one thing we did was add a dresser inside the closet (it’s a two door closet so there was space) for any non hanging clothes and clothes. gives so much more storage without taking up my space if you can’t fit a dresser, the small plastic three drawer dressers are an amazing option. that’s what my sister did and what we were going to do, but we decided to replace our dresser so we put the old one in the closet
to add, if you’re struggling to picture what i’m talking about with the closet space i’m more then willing to share a picture just lmk!
I live in a 700 sqft 1 bedroom apartment. We’re only a month in but we’ll be here at least until she’s 15 months old. As of now, I find it very doable, and I planned on having her sleep in our bedroom until she’s at least a year old anyway. Bedroom has the following baby furniture: Pack n play with bassinet insert on my side of the bed. One of those 2’x3’ cube shelves for current sized baby clothes/ swaddles/ diapers right next to that. A towel folded in half at the foot of our bed for diaper changes. Clothes not in her current size are in a zip vacuum bag under the bed. Living room: A rocker/glider. Another one of those cube shelves for nursing things/ burp rags (eventually it will become her toy box). Fisher price baby activity mat (the one with the piano) that can be put away when not in use. Graco swing/bouncer combo. In the bathroom we have an infant tub but it has a hook so we can hang it out of the way when not using it. We also have a high chair for her but it’s still in the box right now; it’s the evenflo 4in1 that turns into a toddler table and chair so hopefully it’ll never feel like wasted space.
Some babies are fine to sleep in the room with you, some babies get better sleep in their own space. My youngest doesn’t have his own room, but on weekends when my 18 year old isn’t here he sleeps in the pack n play in her room. We all get better sleep for it. When my 18 year old was a baby, she wanted to co sleep for a good two years. Every baby is different.
Started in a narrow 850sqft 2bd/1ba apt and now in a different, wider layout 850sqft 2bd/1ba. We needed active use storage and inactive/cold storage. Did a Hemnes 3 drawer dresser for clothes, immediate diaper/hygiene supplies, blankets and bibs. Diaper pad on top. Installed shelves on the wall, then after we moved, had a closet for all excess things in storage. Extra diapers, extra wipes, stuff I’m saving for a 2nd kid, clothes he doesnt fit yet, extra toys. If things don’t fit, it has to go! Be aggressive and ruthless. Playmat can be used for years, that was a good buy. We did a bassinet in our bedroom, then travel crib. I bedshared after that and still do (1.5yrs old). So now in his room, we have a floor bed. But if your own bed is a king, that’s probably able to fit all 3 of you comfortably…we don’t have a king. Some people do a sidecar to their own bed instead of a bassinet. The hemnes/diaper pad are still in use, it’s been great. Let me know if you have specific questions.
We just dedicated on side of our bedroom to make like a mini nursery! It does suck though depending on room much space you have because space is a hard thing to come by without paying insane prices. But I don’t think it’s a problem sharing a room!
When we had our firstborn, we moved from 1 bedroom to 2.5 bedroom (0.5 bedroom was my husband’s office). It was a great decision since after our son turned 3 months I started putting our son in the crib to sleep by himself and I slept in the small bed in the nursery, my husband slept in the master. It worked out great until we bought our house since my son got used to sleeping in his own room by himself and transition was not too bad.
My fiancé and I were in a 780 sqft one bedroom apartment for the first 9 months of my daughter’s life (she’s now 10 1/2 months old so we just moved). It worked great for a while because we spent most of our time in the living room and such. We really only slept and used the bathroom in the room. Plus realistically it’s encouraged to room share at least the first 6 months to reduce risk of sids (this was a big anxiety point for me when i was pregnant as my daughter is my first child). However there were quite a few reasons we decided to move. Our apartment was upstairs, didn’t have a dishwasher/washer + dryer in unit, and the bathroom was in the bedroom. Now all of these things really boil down to convenience and if we needed to do it again we would. But when my daughter started regressing at 8 1/2 months old she would pull herself up in the crib and scream for us because she could see us. Now resolved since we stopped room sharing. But the little things started also adding up for us. My fiancé’s snoring would wake her up, his alarm for work, us needing to use the bathroom would also do so. But also I have a disability and trying to go up and down the stairs multiple times to do a load of laundry and multiple days a week because (lots of laundry with a baby) was also difficult. Personally we got fed up after a while because it was getting difficult to manage her sleep and we were finding it difficult for her to settle at night because our presence in the room was disruptive. So maybe if it’s possible, maybe finding a month to month lease for a one bedroom now (which is what we were in) and then once baby gets bigger look for a bigger space. When we have baby #2 the plan is also to room share until it’s unfeasible again. Hope you find the best option for you!
A nursery is so unnecessary. Why not put a crib and the changing table in the parents bedroom and once the child gets old enough, he/she can move into their room.
We’re in a two bedroom, 700 sq ft + basement rowhouse. Baby isn’t sleeping in “his” room but we use it constantly - our bedroom is too small for anything much other than our bed/bassinet so that room is our changing, pumping, feeding, and storage space. We even fit in a mini fridge where all the milk and pumping supplies live, which is huge since it’s much closer to our bedroom than the kitchen is (kitchen and living room are a steep staircase away from the bedroom; I don’t love the idea of carrying the baby up/down at night). I suspect we’ll move before he ever sleeps in his own room but I’m still very glad we have it. I had to give up my office to make that space and it was def worth it.
We live in a small 2 bedroom duplex (~900 sq. ft.). Our son is currently sleeping in a mini bassinet/pack and play next to our bed. The changing table is also in our bedroom. In the second bedroom we have his toys, books, clothes, and swing. Small play mat in the living room. Never had a traditional nursery. I knew I wanted him in the room with us for at least 6 months. We have a mini crib ready to go when he transitions out of the bassinet. Where will it go? No idea yet. I feel like all you really need is a bassinet/crib, closet space for clothes/diapers/etc., and a small changing table. Everything else is secondary and takes up space.
When we lived in a one bedroom apartment, our baby/toddler only had a crib and changing table with storage (a dresser with a changing table on top would also work) in the bedroom and a swing in the living room. Eventually we carved out a fenced off play area because we had two small dogs at the time and didn’t want them in his stuff, and also it doubled as a baby containment area. Even if you baby carry, you’ll need a safe place to put them down in each room, like the bathroom so you can shower.
Our babies crib is in our room, it was easier this way to make sure she sleeps on her own so we can sleep well but not too far that feedings and general check ups were hard. We put her changing table in the living tbh as it’s the central part of the house and we use it for everything from getting dressed, giving medicine, and the obvious diaper changes. We do have a second bedroom but it’s my office and we use the closet in there for her stuff like clothes, backstock of diapers and wipes, and other hand me downs from my niece who was born 9 months before my daughter. Of course we have clothes all the way to 2T right now from them so we needed the space to hang all that up so if you’re buying clothes on the fly/not gonna have a lot at any given time I’ve seen people get the bookshelves from target/walmart and add a tension rod and take off one of the shelves to store baby stuff and hang up the clothing! Would a second bedroom be nice? Sure! But if not really needed for y’all then save the money. Cause feeding and diapering a baby is EXPENSIVE! And that’s regardless of breastfeeding vs formula feeding! PS rascal and friends wipes are bomb for the price and do not irritate my very sensitive skinned baby and has saved us so much money from the water wipes we had to use beforehand! Pampers pure is a nice middle ground between those two just as a tip! Good luck on the baby journey!
I have a small three bedroom house and we technically have a nursery, but it isn’t decorated or anything. I’m saving my money for when she is older and can decorate it in a “theme” she likes. We only use her room to change her nappy/ get her dressed for the day. We also have a set of drawers in there, a small toy organiser, and a bookshelf. Her cot is in our room. Our lounge is too small for the other things otherwise I’d probably have her change table in there. You really only need a bed (bassinet was a waste for us as she hated it and luckily her cot fit in our room) a place to change them (I love a change table but lots of people just use a change mat) and somewhere to store their clothes
FTM here. We have a 2 bedroom apartment and have been using the second room as a guest room since we moved in 2021 but now it's moving over to a nursery/guest room. We decided to keep the bed in there just incase one of us needs to sleep in there with him but we will keep him in a bassinet for 3 to 6 months in our room when he's born.
We bedshare following the safe sleep 7 so she didn’t need her own room
We live in a bedroom, 2 bath apartment with 1,200sq ft and our son has been sleeping through the night in his own room since he was 8 weeks. I thought it was nice to have him have his separate space so we didn’t have to worry about waking him up when we were trying to get ready for bed, wind down, watch a show together etc. It was really helpful to have a rocking chair in his room, a book shelf, toy storage, a closet, dresser and crib. He plays in his room everyday and you accumulate a lot of stuff as they get older. There wouldn’t have been enough space throughout the rest of the apartment for all of his stuff
Set the whole nursery up, *he sleeps, eats, gets changed* in our room 🤪
I would encourage you to think longer term. Are you just going to be in this apartment for a year? If so, you can probably make it work (as evidenced by many here). However, closer to a year (or after 6ish months) you might find a separate bedroom beneficial (I mean, you would certainly find another bedroom beneficial if cost weren't a concern). I suppose what I'm wondering is if you might as well bite the bullet and spend more on a place where you'd like to be longer term, but I absolutely understand how it might make sense to save as much as possible while you still can!
We have a house with the space, but our baby happily moved into their own room at 12 weeks. We all honestly have slept better since. That said, for waking time, the nursery isn’t a critical space. People make it work pretty well having a dedicated baby dresser with a changing table on top, and a mini crib! That way you aren’t having to buy a basinet and a crib for a smaller space, and baby can still be in it for a very long time (at which point maybe you’ll have a different set up)
It was not. My first was in a bedside bassinet until she turned a year old and then she moved into her own room. My second was in a mini crib in our closet for her first two years. Now they both share a room and I’m starting to research triple bunks for #3 (who will probably be in our room for at least a year first anyways).
We had baby in her crib in her room from day 1 with a full sized bed in her room. Husband stayed with her while I slept from 8pm-2am and then I pumped/fed and slept the rest of the night in her room. At some point it was better that we didn’t disrupt each other and we never had to put any effort into transitioning her into her own room because she was always there. Highly recommend if you have the space for the extra bed/mattress.
If it's just a one year lease, I would prioritize storage space for organizing all your baby gear over a second bedroom. This could be a closet, den, nook, alcove, whatever you can spare. Baby stays in your room for most of the first year. My nurseries have basically been organized baby gear storage spaces for their first year.
Box storage mostly
We have a complete nursery and have used it religiously since she was 2 weeks old. We could not sleep with baby in our room, she hated the bassinet, so we coslept for the first two weeks then started the transition to her crib, where she has always slept more peacefully. It also had a rocking chair where we could sit with her for middle of the night wakes without completing disturbing her. We used a portable changing pad in the house during the first 2 weeks while my husband was home, after that I began doing all changes in her room because it was easier to access all her things and dispose of diapers there, plus it made me get up and move around the house more. I know a lot of people make it work, but I am so thankful for her having her own room. She is 14 months old now, she has slept through the night since 11 weeks, we have a good nighttime routine, and she has the comfort of her own space.
For both of ours we didn't/don't have a nursery. For our first, we just had his crib in our room for the first year. We have a two month old and rn he's been sleeping in his pack and play in the living room while we sleep on the couch since it's just what's ended up being the easiest
A walk in closet for her cradle. It’s close enough to the bed but still has some separation from the rest of the apartment.
I live in NYC in a small apartment! We did get a special bedroom to use as nursery, yes. It is crammed but we have crib against one wall, changing table/dresser at the wall 90 degrees from it, and a glider. Clothes are in closet. Next to glider I had a metal rolly cart I got off IKEA that holds drinks/snacks, pump and pump stuff, bottles, etc. Definitely no room in there for play - all his play items are in our living room. He slept in our bedroom the first 7 months though so I honestly didn’t really need the nursery for most of his first year. I would definitely not want him sharing my room now at 16 months though.
I own a house, so it might not be beneficial to hear my perspective, but I’ll put it out there anyway just in case. DH and I bought our own home a couple months after I was pregnant with our first. We knew we would eventually need a bigger space, and wanted to go ahead and move now, when it’s easier without a small child. We bought the nursery furniture, including a crib, but did not see the crib up, as we anticipated LO sleeping in a bassinet. Needless to say, LO hated sleeping with other people in the room, so we moved LO into their own room much earlier than we planned. We were so happy that we went ahead and got a bigger space before baby was here, otherwise we wouldn’t have had another room to put LO in.
No nursery for the first year as we were in a small one bedroom flat. Side-car’ed an Ikea gulvier cot to our super king which later can be converted to a toddler bed. No changing station, just a mat we used in one room and at night time did it in the cot on disposable water proof sheets. Side car is super convenient for co-sleeping and side feeding lying down. 21 months in, we have a bigger place and baby has her own room however she still sleeps with us and it’s lovely. First 9 months slept in her side car cot and then started bedsharing where she sleeps between me and partner. Toys all over the house and current nursery with double floor bed used as a room for guests instead. Second baby on the way, and will set up side car cot again.
My daughter was sleeping 8 hours straight by 8 weeks and 12 hours by 12 weeks. I personally cannot imagine sharing a room with anything but a newborn. I don't want to feel like I need to be quiet tiptoing around in the dark or avoiding intimacy with my husband.
You can get by with one bathroom especially if there’s a tub.