Baby

Living in a Small Space with a Baby

by theminimalistmom |
Living in a small space with baby: a simple guide to small space baby gear.

Small Space Nursery Ideas and Space Saving Baby Items

Wondering if you need to move into something bigger for baby’s arrival? Is your one bedroom and den too small for a family of three? Do babies need big houses? No, no and no. Living in a tiny house with a baby is possible and even practical. There’s lots of great baby gear for small spaces and you need less than you think. I have some great small space nursery ideas for you in today’s post.

Our transition back to North America continues at a slow pace. We’re currently house-sitting until our tenants move out of our condo. It was a huge win to find a friend of a friend that would let us crash at her place while she was away for the summer. We are in a great location and have spectacular views of the North Shore mountains. But we’re winging it on the baby friendly front and space is tight. It’s reminded me again that babies really don’t need a lot of space or lots of stuff.

Best Baby Gear for Small Spaces

High chairs are not a necessity. If you’re in a small space consider using a booster seat at your dining table or if you have a bar height eat-in space, look into high chairs that attach to the counter. These are great space savers and easy to find second hand. You can have a high chair in a small space but you need to be creative.

Super tight on space? Have the baby sit on the floor to eat. A 6 month+ baby that can sit without assistance doesn’t have to be in a high chair or booster or at a table to eat. When we travel I’ve had my babies sit on a washable blanket for meals. It’s not perfect but it gets the job done.

Invest in multi-use and multi-purpose items. One of my better buys for child 2 that we are now using for child 3, was a portable play pen/ portable crib. Our portable crib has been used at the gym to contain a young toddler, at home as a safe spot to leave a mobile baby and as a bed (our second used ours as his crib from 18 months to 2 years of age). If you’re in a small space and don’t have room for a full size crib, consider a smaller portable option. There are so many options for baby cribs for small apartments.

Avoid those one off items like white noise machines and instead, buy something that can be used after the baby years like a fan (same noise but it will also keep you cool).

Look for space saving baby gear.

This is a great small space crib for a tiny baby room. Strollers that collapse quickly to get stowed in a front hall closet, high chairs that can be easily folded up and put away between meals and cribs that can be rolled out of sight are all helpful to small space dwellers.

Often these handy small baby gear pieces are marketed as baby travel gear and carry a hefty price tag. Look for good used condition models to buy – they are great investments and you can often resell them later on with very little depreciation.

A portable exersaucer and a space saver crib for babies can make all the different in making your small home still feel spacious.

Only have what you need right now. Forget about stocking up for the next developmental milestone. If you’re living small avoid getting that exersaucer that’s on sale when you’re baby is just a few weeks old. The few dollars saved just aren’t worth it when you have to store a huge item in limited closet space. Buy the bigger car seat when you’re baby is ready for it and not before and avoid the temptation to stock up on next years sizes at end of season sales. You don’t need your living spaces packed with baby furniture.

Get creative. There are so many space saving nursery ideas out there and small cribs for small spaces. Cribs can fit in closets. Tiny baby rooms are cute! Yes, you can have a baby in a one bedroom apartment. Move the baby into the bedroom and yourself into the living room like this Vancouver area couple described in their Apartment Therapy interview. It’s not always about ‘will this work forever’ but rather ‘will this work right now’. Yes, you may need to upsize your home at some point but if you can live comfortably in a small space for a few extra years, that’s savings in the bank. We’re now a five person family living in a two bedroom apartment. I don’t know if we will be in this home forever but I do know that for right now, it works. Being flexible, creative and owning less stuff and smaller stuff all helps!

Want more ideas for living in a small space with a baby? My book The Minimalist Mom: How to Simply Parent Your Baby (Adams 2016) is full of great ideas and strategies for keeping things smaller, simpler and sweeter. I also have the minimalist newborn essentials list from the book available on Amazon here:  The Minimalist Baby Registry

More posts on keeping it simple with a new baby:

  • Great tips. We have always been low on space. We purchased a highchair that would fold extremely flat so it would be out of the way but there when needed. We have always used a portable pack n play. It was a cheaper option and like you said took up far less space and was so easy to store away or take along to grandmas for a week end stay.

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  • so awesome, thank you!!! we are still in babymaking mode and while we have a house, our master is upstairs and the other two rooms are in the basement so initially our dining room will be the kiddo’s area. and why not? we always eat in the kitchen 🙂 super glad to have http://www.woodlawnswapnplay.org/ in our neighborhood so our own toys can be kept to a minimum. Heck my mom said I just liked banging a wooden spoon on the floor when I was little, and I turned out ok !!

    One thing a pregnant friend introduced me to that we’ll be getting is the Baby Box instead of a bassinet – along with being super functional for the baby to sleep in, it’s got a great story: http://babyboxco.com/pages/tradition.

  • You can also have the baby sleeping in your bed and skip the bassinette/crib/nursery question altogether until they’re 2ish. Which puts them straight into a bed and gives you much more flexibility and requires less gear again. Better sleep all round too. I never got out of bed to feed my son, I rolled over, fed him and then we went back to sleep. It’s beautifully simple and very natural.

    • I wish my baby would cosleep! In her crib she doesn’t move around very much when she sleeps, but if I try to lay her next to me for sleep, she thinks it’s playtime and tries to either crawl all over me or tries to get off the bed.

  • Great post! I like the idea of a washable mat on the floor for mealtimes. I wish we’d thought of that. Also, if anyone else has a baby like mine that hates cribs and being contained, forgoing the crib altogether might be an option if you’re comfortable bedsharing (& adhering to the relevant safety guidelines).

  • Wonderful tips! Even though we are not currently tight on space (we’re in a temporary rental before we move overseas with the military), I don’t like having too much baby gear spread all over the house. Our 3rd baby is now using the pack-n-play that his two older siblings used. It’s not as chic as some of the cribs out there, but it folds up in a tidy little package for storage when each child outgrows it! It has a bassinet layer that’s perfect for the early months — and while I originally thought the portable aspect would be fantastic, it rarely gets transported. At least that’s an option! At 18-22 months our two older kids transitioned to nap mats (24″ by 48″ — not the foldable kind) with a simple pillowcase style sheet. The mats can be stored during the day if needed, and we’ve never had a child “fall” out of bed. 😉

    I’m a long-time reader, and I’m always inspired by your posts! It can be difficult to keep things simple when advertising is always telling you that you need more/bigger/better — thank you for helping me to constantly reevaluate what we actually need! 🙂

    Blessings,
    Shannon

    • Love the idea of nap mats. Very futon-esque minimalism 🙂

      We are still mulling over bunk beds – possibly ‘hacking’ child size beds from IKEA into bunk beds. Our three will be sharing a small room so floor space is at a premium. I was even thinking of one child size bed with a mattress underneath that we could pull out trundle style.

      • We have friends who did bunks and a trundle for quite awhile so their three boys could share a room. It worked great for them!

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