Making room for baby can be an adventure no matter what! Whether you live in a small home or apartment, here’s my ultimate tips for how to prepare for a baby in a small apartment.
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How to Prepare For a Baby In A Small Apartment
THIS is a post that I have been wanting to write for some time now. Not that I’m an expert (well, maybe a self-proclaimed expert), but since we announced our pregnancy I have been neck deep in figuring out how to manage living in a small space with one child and one on the way – and I think I’ve mastered it! So I wanted to share how we have a baby in a small apartment and some products that have helped us along the way, too.
So here is a little backstory: We live in a pretty spacious NYC apartment, but it is a 1 bedroom. Our living room doubles as a living space and Branden’s bedroom, something pretty common for city living. (You can check out the before post and the after post of how we’re living in a small apartment.) Since we are literally a 5 minute walk from the hospital where I will be delivering and all of my appointments have been, we are renewing our lease this month instead of moving to a bigger space right now. Baby C will sleep in a crib, in our bedroom with us for the first year of her life.
The above picture is not our nursery (I just ordered the crib this week), but it definitely embodies many elements that I have been working with to keep our space our own, but also make room for all the baby gear that has been building up.
Tips for preparing For a Baby In A Small Apartment
I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of years, and these are all the tips that I can pass along from my experience preparing for our new baby in a small apartment.
The Crib
This is obviously the most important part of preparing for baby and my tips are to make sure that the crib you choose is convertible to a toddler bed (be careful when choosing because some come with the toddler bed converter kits and some you have to purchase whenever you want to eventually convert) and has storage. After we searched high and low, we found the Babyletto Mercer Crib (pictured) below to be the best choice for us. It is Eco-friendly and that drawer is perfection for storing extra baby clothes. We have also chosen the Babyletto In Bloom bedding to match.
And my last tip for parents who are sharing bedrooms with their newborn: choose a crib that matches your furniture. We got our in espresso, but this comes in a few different color combinations as well.
Storage
One of the best things that we have ever done, was purchasing a storage unit that our television sits on in our bedroom instead of a t.v. stand, similar to the concept pictured above. These fabric storage cubes fit in each cubby space perfectly and it helps to save SO much space. We mostly store Branden’s clothes here and have 2 drawers for my business paperwork and 1 for general miscellaneous stuff. You can store whatever you need, but I can’t recommend this anymore! (Pictured below is the one that we have in our bedroom and we also have 2 in the living room that we use to store books.)
Beauty Products
I say it all the time, but it is even more pertinent now: buy 3-in-1 everything and get beauty products that your whole family can use. These are so many companies that have taken note of this for families and have truly created products that the whole family can use, yet are gentle enough for baby. These save space in your home and in the diaper bag. Here are my absolute favorites that you will find in our shower, kitchen, and diaper bag:
Gear
Baby gear gets everywhere, right? It’s big, bulky, and if you have a small space, chances are that you don’t have room for it to be all over the place. For us, absolutely nothing compares to the MetroTots StrollAway (pictured below on my bedroom door). Yes, our GB Child Lyfe Pram Stroller is a little bit bulky whenever hung up, but it really doesn’t compare to how much space it would take even being folded up against a wall in our apartment. (Read my full review of this travel system + video HERE) Even if you live in a large home, this tool is perfect for hanging on garage/basement doors to save space and I can’t imagine our life without it right now!
Overall Organization
Obviously I’ve been in the nesting phase and focusing on cleaning, organization, and updating everything around our home left and right. My best advice is to make sure before baby gets here that you do a big dump of stuff that you don’t need. Clean out closets, drawers, and send things to storage if necessary. We often overlook just how much space baby things will actually take up once they get here!
Fashionably Yours,
Allison
Great tips. I have that bookcase, in fact, we have two! I also LOVE the MetroTots Stroll Away. We’re done with strollers now, but we still use it.