Starting a family in a one bedroom flat

fannyanna

Thanks for everyone's views - both those cheering me on and those with wise warnings.

In my eyes I see the baby in the flat being temporary. Up to 6 months and no longer than a year. Ultimately the situation may never happen. We may be in a new place before a baby arrives. I don't think we'll conceive easily (for various reasons that I wont bore you all with ) and we therefore have a bit of time. I suppose I'm thinking about what we would do if we did fall pregnant tomorrow and only had 9 months until a baby arrived.

Either way we've been thinking about space saving ideas just in case. We're lucky that we have a relatively large flat and I also had a brainwave today about seeing if one of the garages in our street is available to rent. If it is we could obviously use that to store some of the things in the flat.

pigpen

moomoomama27 wrote: »

Says who?

My sister has 3 children in a 2 bedroom flat. The two boys in one room and her 7 yr daughter in with her. Obviously if there was a way, she would move, but it's not possible! None of the above is relevant to them at all!

I think you make very blanketed statements, families make things work, and as long as everyone is happy, that's the main thing! Worse things can happen than having to share a bedroom with your child!

Numerous child psychologists and social workers and psychiatrists and health professionals and everyone who decided there should be no more than 2 children in a bedroom (check out council housing policies) would be who says it is detrimental to a childs wellbeing.. and the parents too in many cases. I know it had an impact on my PND and to varying degrees my children.

And she probably wouldn't know if it was relevant.. it is just 'normal' Have you spoken to families who grew up with lots of children in tiny houses? Despite not having the levels of crap we have now they were overcrowded and it impacted their adult lives.. possibly shown through their choice to not have any children or just 1 or 2..

And being happy isn't always that obvious either.. they could appear happy yet not be coping at all.. it is easy to spend 5 minutes smiling in someones company when you spend 20 hours a day crying or miserable.

I also said in my experience this was what I found.. and was backed up with reports from the various health practitioners my children saw. Everyone needs personal space it is part of the childrens rights as a sub clause apparently.

And after about 18 months I wouldn't choose to share a room with my child.. though at one point I had 2 of them in my room.. at the same time I had 3 in a room 6x8 and one of them had to have a mattress on the floor as his bed because there wasn't room for a third bed. It isn't healthy, it isn' good for them and I wouldn't advise it. Local authorities also do not have any obligation to move someone who has deliberately chosen to make themselves overcrowded.. not that this is applicable to the OP but might be of interest.. I think it is interesting.

Tiddlywinks

fannyanna wrote: »

In my eyes I see the baby in the flat being temporary. Up to 6 months and no longer than a year.

But how can you be sure it will be that temporary? You have already had the flat on the market for, what was it, 7 months? Unless, you change something - condition of property, sale price or whenever the stumbling block may be then the situation may be more permanent than you would hope for.

You are being an optimist but I think you should be a bit more realistic about your property and the current market and do whatever it takes to make a move happen sooner rather than later.

onlyroz

pigpen wrote: »

Numerous child psychologists and social workers and psychiatrists and health professionals and everyone who decided there should be no more than 2 children in a bedroom (check out council housing policies) would be who says it is detrimental to a childs wellbeing.. and the parents too in many cases. I know it had an impact on my PND and to varying degrees my children.

I have to say that I agree. My sister-in-law is stuck in a one bed housing-association property that she has not a hope in hell of ever leaving - and it certainly had an impact on her two (now teenage) children. She had the property assessed and the clever social service people decided that there was plenty of space, because the living room and bathroom both counted as "bedrooms". For all of her children's lives they had mum and dad sleeping in the living room while the two girls shared the bedroom. The youngest is now a delinquent and the eldest moved out as soon as she was legally able.

fannyanna

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

But how can you be sure it will be that temporary? You have already had the flat on the market for, what was it, 7 months? Unless, you change something - condition of property, sale price or whenever the stumbling block may be then the situation may be more permanent than you would hope for.

I think the main problem is price. Whilst we don't want to reduce this further at the moment having a child in a one bedroom flat would push us to reduce the price. If that didn't work we would rent out the flat and rent a bigger property.

Both are not ideal but we would do it if we had to. For now we don't have to.

I wouldn't even consider having a child in a one bedroom flat if I thought we would be stuck here for longer than a year. I can handle the idea of a baby in the flat but not a toddler onwards - although that is my personal preference.

moomoomama27

pigpen wrote: »

Numerous child psychologists and social workers and psychiatrists and health professionals and everyone who decided there should be no more than 2 children in a bedroom (check out council housing policies) would be who says it is detrimental to a childs wellbeing.. and the parents too in many cases. I know it had an impact on my PND and to varying degrees my children.

And she probably wouldn't know if it was relevant.. it is just 'normal' Have you spoken to families who grew up with lots of children in tiny houses? Despite not having the levels of crap we have now they were overcrowded and it impacted their adult lives.. possibly shown through their choice to not have any children or just 1 or 2..

And being happy isn't always that obvious either.. they could appear happy yet not be coping at all.. it is easy to spend 5 minutes smiling in someones company when you spend 20 hours a day crying or miserable.

I also said in my experience this was what I found.. and was backed up with reports from the various health practitioners my children saw. Everyone needs personal space it is part of the childrens rights as a sub clause apparently.

And after about 18 months I wouldn't choose to share a room with my child.. though at one point I had 2 of them in my room.. at the same time I had 3 in a room 6x8 and one of them had to have a mattress on the floor as his bed because there wasn't room for a third bed. It isn't healthy, it isn' good for them and I wouldn't advise it. Local authorities also do not have any obligation to move someone who has deliberately chosen to make themselves overcrowded.. not that this is applicable to the OP but might be of interest.. I think it is interesting.

You wrongly assume everyone is in council housing!!! There are NO policies when you own your own home! Also the rule 2 per bedroom is not accurate, it depends on the size of rooms, and gender of the children.

FYI it is relevant in my sisters case, they have known different! I'm not going into personal details, but they are 100% happier now with this arrangement then they were before!

I think it's a personal choice, and wish the OP the best of luck.

osian

http://www.ikeahackers.net/2010/10/turn-your-studio-apartment-into-1.html

This is a great website, here someone turned a part of their living room into a bedroom using some Ikea bits. I think there are a couple of other similar examples on there too. Wonder if it could be applied to your flat?

In my own experience, my daughter slept in our bedroom until she was 18 months (through our choice - not space restriction). Nearly a year on she still sleeps a lot of the time in our bedroom as she wakes in the night and comes in to our room.

In terms of living room space, we have more than one room downstairs but we tend to spend most of our time together in one living room although the other rooms are useful for storing toys/ extra room for when visitors come etc - but day to day we tend to just use the one room.

I found that at about 1yr - 18mths the toys and books just exploded, before then the amount of toys was easily contained in a box or two.

I'd go for it. You can't be sure anyway how long it would take to conceive, so you may have longer to plan a move than you think.

jo101_2

Hi

We were in the situation for a while that we had to rent my brothers tiny 1 bedroomed annexe for 9 months when my son was 18months old, we only had the essentials out and the rest was in storage, it was a squeeze but do-able, as far as toys went I used to rotate these on a 2 weekly basis so there was never that much out. While we were renting the annexe I found out I was expecting number 2 and we were still living in the annexe when she was born so for a short while there were 4 of us in one bedroom, definitely not ideal but we all survived!!!!
So, basically I would say it is do-able especially if you know it will be for the short term, also I would say only buy the basics for baby and only buy things as you need them, there are lots of things on the market out there that babies do not need.
It took us 6 years to conceive our first baby and eventually this was with fertility treatment (subsequent babies have been somewhat of a suprise!!!) so I wouldn't hold back on starting to try for a family, you never know how long it will take.

Jo

Sequeena

Part of me wants to say go for it and start trying now because I'm pregnant and understand that urge to want a baby but honestly I would wait until you've moved. It's taken us 2 years to conceive our baby and we moved during that time. Thank god because the place we were in before was awful and I have no idea why I even considered bringing up a baby in that environment would be a good thing.

Savvy_Sue

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

I'd look at why the flat hasn't sold - is it price, location etc. What will make it sell... push for that first. You need to be honest about this because once the baby is born you will have a lot more on your mind than keeping a place tidy and sweet smelling for a viewing.

So very true ...

I know one couple, mind, who moved into a 1 roomed bedsit after they'd had their first, and then produced No. 2 while they were still there ... Now that I really would NOT recommend!