cheap space saving ideas for a new baby.

Angel_Rachie

hi there, does anyone have any cheap space saving ideas for a new baby. Im pregnant and have a tiny one bed flat and thanks to hb cuts i wont be moving til the babys one years old at least. My bedrooms so small i dont have room for a cot - any ideas pls? I have room for a moses basket but not sure how long babys can fit in those. Also dont have much room to store baby clothes if anyone has any ideas pls? Thanks in advance x

dizziblonde

You'll get a few months max out of a moses basket. Think I could have got till 4 months or so with my first daughter - but she's a splatter-outter in terms of sleeping and woke herself up hitting the sides of the basket on a night (this is the child who can take up an entire double bed aged 1 year).

What about a space-saver type cot like Kiddicare do? http://www.kiddicare.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/productdisplay0_10751_-1_105838_10001 they're a decent half-way house between cotbed size and a moses basket size jobbie... our very very long 1 year old can still just about sleep in one (we had one downstairs for her naps when my SPD was terrible with baby number 2 and the stairs were causing me problems) particularly if we have her in a sleeping bag so she can't get legs stuck out of the bars in comedy positions... because of the way the cot is as well - you could get something like one of those underbed storage boxes to put things in underneath it for extra storage.

As for baby clothes - our girls have one chest of drawers each for their clothes which normally more than does them storagewise - and I have a LOT of clothes for both of them (combination of loads of hand-me-downs and over-zealous grannies)

sooty&sweep

Hi
Most of a baby's clothes don't need ironing and hanging I.e. vests & baby grows so could you stash them in a plastic crate somewhere ?
Jen

waitingforpost

You could use a travel cot but buy a decent mattress for it rather than use the thin folding ones they come with.

Sequeena

I bed shared with my son until he was 19 months (almost 20 months now and has just gone into a toddler bed). That definitely saved us space

Spendless

I was always a fan of using as little footprint space on the floor as possible, so a set of drawers which is narrow but tall would help. Some sort of underbed container or drawer that could go under the cot? I had a nappy stacker that I used to put all my nappies in. It was made by my mil and then I used to hang it from a coat hook on the door.

Kayalana99

Sequeena wrote: »

I bed shared with my son until he was 19 months (almost 20 months now and has just gone into a toddler bed). That definitely saved us space

This. Kind Of. Would still recommed a moses basket to start with as little babies (good ones ) sleep most the day and you need somewhere to put them that you can wander off without worrying!! They generally stay in this about 4 months. They say 6months but mine was quite a small baby and 4months was the limit.

The main problem with sharing a bed with a baby is if you have a partner and it means obvouisly thiers less 'cuddles' in bed as the babys thier :cool:& if you move around in your sleep but I find that with my arms hooked round my little guy I have never woke up in a dif spot.

I think you could manage without a cot at all if you were willing to do this, and could put your bed up against a wall and let the baby sleep that side so thier is no way baby could fall of as well.

Mine will let me put him down in the cot but when he wakes up in the middle of the night its either spend an hr getting him back to sleep or bring him in bed so I guess im just lazy. I guess what I am saying is *if* you have a partner cot would be helpful to be able to put him somewhere other then the bed once in a while ...

Its only for the first year though I hope you manage OK remember you'll get child benifits and tax credits as well x

Al1x

We had baby in our bed till around 14 months. we bought a bed guard just to be on the safe side. Luckily the cot we have was a hand me down from my sister as we have hardly used it!

Sequeena

Kayalana99 wrote: »

This. Kind Of. Would still recommed a moses basket to start with as little babies (good ones ) sleep most the day and you need somewhere to put them that you can wander off without worrying!! They generally stay in this about 4 months. They say 6months but mine was quite a small baby and 4months was the limit.

The main problem with sharing a bed with a baby is if you have a partner and it means obvouisly thiers less 'cuddles' in bed as the babys thier :cool:& if you move around in your sleep but I find that with my arms hooked round my little guy I have never woke up in a dif spot.

I think you could manage without a cot at all if you were willing to do this, and could put your bed up against a wall and let the baby sleep that side so thier is no way baby could fall of as well.

Mine will let me put him down in the cot but when he wakes up in the middle of the night its either spend an hr getting him back to sleep or bring him in bed so I guess im just lazy. I guess what I am saying is *if* you have a partner cot would be helpful to be able to put him somewhere other then the bed once in a while ...

Its only for the first year though I hope you manage OK remember you'll get child benifits and tax credits as well x

:rotfl: now you don't need to cuddle :cool: just in a bed it gets harder though when you have a toddler who can follow you round :rotfl:

Can I just add though, safe co-sleeping guidelines don't recommend having the bed against a wall as there's still a gap between the mattress and wall which baby can fall into (bit like falling asleep with baby on the inside of the sofa). It would be safer to get a safety guard that slips under the mattress and it means baby won't fall out. They're under £20 in Argos I believe.

Just a few more if anyone is seriously considering it - baby should be at breast height, away from pillows and have their own blanket. No smoking, drinking etc.

katiechoc_2

My husband and I live in a one bed flat with our 11 month old. We decided before he was born that he needed a bedroom more than us, so he is in a cot in the bedroom and we have a sofa bed in the living room.

It's not ideal obviously, and I'm sure a lot of people think we're bonkers, but tbh it's fine for us and I prefer it this way than having him in our room still anyway - just because a baby is asleep doesn't mean they're quiet! George was forever rustling around and snuffling, drove my oh mad! For the first 4 months or so we had a crib in the lounge then moved him into his cot.

Getting rid of the bed means we have space for a second chest of drawers which hold all of the baby's stuff - clothes, vests, spare blankets etc. Nappies go in one of the drawers for easy access with the main sth under the cot.

Hope that helps a bit, and congratulations!

skintchick

Just a safety note: babies should sleep in the same room as you for the first six months, to reduce the risk of SIDS.

If you do co-sleep, you could get a bigger bed than you have now.

Or there are co-sleeper cots where one side comes off and the cot goes up against your bed. We had one, but it was me who slept in it most of the time!

My main space saving tip is don;t buy a load of stuff for the baby that you don't need, and consider using a sling or carrier instead of a pram, if pram storage is an issue.

Oh, and if you breastfeed you don;t need space for bottles and sterilisers either, unless you want to express.

TBH small babies don't take up much space and I'm sure you will adjust as baby grows. could you move somthing out of your room into the living room, like a chest of drawers, to make room for a cot?