Q&A: apartment living with a baby

Laura writes:

"I love your site and check it daily; you are a guru to me, as you are to many!

I wonder if you have advice to offer about living in small spaces with a baby. Ours is four months old; we live in San Francisco. Our apartment is tiny, and his crib is in our room. We're about to start sleep-training,
and wonder if it's possible to do in a small apartment, with neighbors close by, but we're desperate for more sleep.

I'm also suffering a lot of guilt over not being able to provide a separate room for my child (the apartment is so small that we can't even partition a room with screens, or move our bed into a living room). We
can't afford to move, and Bay Area home prices are so high that we'll never be able to purchase a home. Yet most of my friends have nurseries for their babies, and almost every book I read assumes that the reader has a separate room for the baby. I feel very guilty as a result: will he resent us someday? will he be okay if he doesn't have his own room? Any words of wisdom?"

Thanks. I actually prefer charismatic leader, but guru will do just fine*.

First off, do not sleep train until your son is past the four-month-sleep regression. That regression sucks so much anyway that adding sleep training into it (which is going to suck 40 times more than it normally would if you do it in the middle of a sleep regression) will make you all long for the sweet release of hospitalization. So hold on 'til he's past the 19-week spurt to train, at which point you may not need to train anyway. (The irony--it's the regression that makes you want to train him, but the regression that makes training largely futile. Then once it's no longer futile, he'll sleep better on his own.)

Did we mention that four months sucks in general?

But on to the space question. I think you have two choices: Stay where you are, or move someplace where you can have more room. Either way you gain something, and either way you give something up.

Honestly, I don't think there's any way to know whether he'll resent you for it until he's grown up. I suspect that how he feels about how he grew up will have more to do with his relationship to you and your husband than to the specifics of how much space you had.

I know adults who adored growing up in NYC. (FWIW, the NYC one-bedroom long-term solution seems to be to move the kid into the bedroom and have the parents sleep on a Murphy bed or pullout in the living room.) They feel like having all the of the cool stuff in the city was the best way to grow up, and feel sorry for kids who grew up with more space but less stimulation. The two women I know who grew up in NYC and hated it also had major family issues, so it doesn't surprise me that they have bad feeling about their growing-up years.

I know adults who adored growing up in the suburbs, or small towns, and the country. Big yards and forts and running around the neighborhood. But you know what they talk about when they talk about the way they grew up? What they did with their families and friends. It's the relationships that made their childhoods happy, and those relationships made the settings good for them.

So I think your decision to stay or go is going to have to be informed by other things, like what makes you feel comfortable (Would living in a crowded space stress you out? Would living outside a city enervate you?), whether you want to live closer or farther from your families, and whether you want to have more children or not. (From my observation, being an only is much more "normal" in cities than in other areas where most families have 2+ kids.)

If you're happy with yourselves and your marriage and your family and your son, he'll be fine growing up wherever you land.

Data points, people?

* I'm kidding, obviously. I'm so boringly normal. I have the same problems you guys do, and many others I hope you never experience. At this point writing the blog is just what I do, and I wish I had time to do more for you guys.

Comments

[hedra]

not apartment, but small house - 2 bedrooms, 6 people. Older kids have a room, twins do not. Eventually we'll swap rooms (giving the kids the bigger room, two bunks).

This bothered me until I remembered that for a good chunk of time, we had five kids in two bedrooms growing up - four in one, one in with the parents. It was totally fine. Like a slumber party every night.

Also, my sister has three kids in a one-room studio. With a dog. It STILL works. She makes some space that's 'theirs' and some that's parental, and otherwise, makes sure to spend plenty of time outside.

[vickie]

I think small-space living is fine till the adolescent years, when kids do need their own space and privacy. Even then, there are ways to deal with small spaces, I think.

My husband had 5 older siblings growing up, and his family always lived in small 2-BR apts. He's very good at sharing :).

[paola]

Wow, I'm in awe of people like Hedra and her sister. It makes me feel soooo selfish when I complain that my two kids have to share a room so we can have a study. I often say to my husband that most people we know don't have this luxury, but now I'm armed with an even better example.

[Sarah Flynn]

Hi! I love your column also, Moxie - pearls of sage and non-judgemental advice, from both you and your many respondents. I'm in New Zealand, and tho we may all be hanging upside-down in space, babies are exactly the same contrary wee creatures here ;). As to sharing a room - My (nearly 8 month old) girlie has her own room... but prefers ours! I had her in a bassinet in our room 'til she was about 4 months old, then moved her to a cot in her own room when she grew out of it (!! if only I'd known about the 4 month sleep regression THEN). She was fine for about 2 weeks, then started waking about EVERY HOUR (up from once per night! Wah!)... This has improved to about 3 hourly, but still is a lot to keep getting up for! SO, eventually (in desperation) we moved her cot into our room and took the side off it, so I can feed her without getting out of bed. In fact, quite often these days I can re-settle her by just reaching over and holding her hand, whereas in a separate room she ends up calling out and waking up much more fully. Yikes, didn't mean to wax on - basically all I meant to say was, don't feel bad - in fact, you can make a virtue of necessity, as lots of people advocate sharing a room with your child! And I can hardly see that it'll give a kid a complex, babies LOVE being close to their mummies and daddies.

[paola]

Oh, and to answer Laura's question.

We sleep trained our daughter at 7 months, after the 4-6 month nightmare period of one sleep regression after the other. It took us about a month to get our daughter to sleep most of the night, but more importantly get herself back to sleep when she woke up (although there was a definite improvement after just a couple of nights) . It took my son two nights at 6 months old and he was back to sleeping the night ( but he is trully a freak case). Our apartment is over my MIL's and she was disturbed by all the carry on during my daughter's sleep training but then she's family. Our friends had to warn their neighbours in the appartment next door, but they cut their training short as they didn't want to give them an excuse to be evicted.

[kate]

We have a very small two bedroom apartment in a large city. My 4 year old sleeps with us in our bed, and our 2 year old sleeps on a youth bed next to our bed. We all like it this way, but they chose it. Their bedroom is more of a play/guest room. We never had a decorated nursery, and I admittedly felt bad about this off and on, too. But, in the end, the money we saved was put to better use for the kids, and I know that they will remember this family slumber time fondly. As they age, I suspect everyone will need space and the small playroom may become more of a bedroom which both will have to share with the bunkbed that we have already put in there. We find that the most need for space at this age, is space for the kids to jump around. So, almost everything is bang-upable. They can jump on the couch and bed. They can drive their cars and strollers all over the wood floors. And they can run down the hall playing tag. We streamline like wildfire. I toss clutter our like a machine. And we go to the park everyday. Many people I know do the one bedroom apartment thing, like Moxie said, with the parents sleeping on a pullout couch at night and kids getting the bedroom. We choose to live in the city, to avoid the commute and gain the benefit of a 2 minute walk to work and the kids preschools. Our city has lovely parks, museums and nearby lakes which makes it very worth the loss of a yard for us. Do I yearn for a yard when the kids are crawling all over themselves and us sometimes? Sure. But things settle and equilibrium restores itself again.

We did some sleep training with the first child like this....Knocked on all neighbors doors that surrounded us, told them that their would be some crying over the next two weeks, offered them all earplugs that we had purchased, and then gave it a go. Everyone was understanding. And I felt so much better after doing that. Even now, when we have a crying night, I do not feel like I am walking on eggshells.

[L]

Definitely don't worry about the size of the space you live in. Children remember relationships and what you did together, not the size of the house. Better a small house/apartment and a loving, nurturing, caring family than a big house and no relationship. Maybe later your needs might change, but as a good friend of mine says - worry about things when they are a worry.

[Carrie]

We live in a two bedroom apartment and have chosen to have our crib in our room. We have rarely used it since we co-sleep. When he was born I felt enourmously guilty about not turning our library/guest room into a nursery but he's 2 1/2 and he doesn't care at all about having his own space. We will be buying a home this summer so he will get his own room. I have no idea how we will get him to stay in it.

We had a set of really bad neighbors when he was a little screaming lump of flesh. They would pound on the ceiling when he would get worked up and it was just ugly. Didn't they know we hated listening to the crying just as much as they did? I have no wisdom on the sleep because we had such a terrible sleeper and no good solutions.

[Kristie]

We have a separate room for Moosey but never use it. She sleeps on a mattress on the floor beside our bed because she wakes so often and this is just easier.

For some more perspective, I live in Asia and where co-sleeping well into the preschool years is the norm. When my Chinese friends come over and see the baby's room with her crib (the one we don't use, heh) they are shocked and start sending out this "you're going to damage her by having her sleep alone" vibe. Similar to the "you're going to damage her by letting her sleep with you" vibe that I get from my mother. Hopefully this can at least help with the guilt.

[Kate]

We've never "sleep trained" in the traditional sense, but we live in an apartment.

My daughter had a lot of tummy/gas problems in months 6-12. We'd go into her room and rock/soothe her in the recliner. She still screamed her head off, but she wasn't alone and we felt that we were doing all we could. At some point we got a note under the door from the neighbors who shared her wall--"we have kids who have to go to school in the morning, etc....oh and if you're Ferberizing you're doing it wrong." I was pretty appalled at the idea they thought we were just letting her scream unsupervised or whatever, so we moved her back to our room, gave up entirely on the crib, co-slept until she insisted on taking up 70% of a king size bed, and tried to figure things out.*

She moved to a toddler bed on the other side of our room at 14 months and back to her room at approximately age 2, in a regular bed w/safety rail. Recently she has been experiencing some random nighttime fears (only on nights when she has to get up and use the bathroom), so then she winds up on the floor of our room.

Our almost 2 year old son is still in our room. Mostly still in our bed, out of laziness more than anything else, although I would give my eyeteeth to get rid of the 4am nursing. (He is a much more polite co-sleeper than she was.)

But the plan is to move him in with her sometime in the spring. He's very quiet in the middle of the night--I don't even know he's awake until he's climbing into bed with me; she always cried until she got assistance--still does.

So I think my answer is "it depends on your child." And "the books" to which Laura refers have a lot of assumptions that don't necessarily match reality. Sprinkle salt liberally, is my conclusion on that.

I personally get frustrated with city living because I don't feel like we are taking advantage of the city. We live in an Outer Borough of NYC, so we are paying the high taxes and high car insurance rates and own a co-op and I don't have enough closet/storage space and we don't have a yard. (Although 1200 sq. feet is plenty of room for the 4 of us--we just need 2x the closets. A 3rd kid, IMO, would be a squeeze, but there are 3 families in our apartment line--of 6 floors--with 3.) But we never use any of the cultural institutions, etc. that make city living worthwhile! Based on our mortgage we will probably have to move in the next 3 years or so--whether we will stay in the city, move to the suburbs, or move abroad is totally up in the air.

Heh, this seems to be on my mind a lot :-)

* It was a dairy sensitivity. Eliminated all dairy from 11-18 months and she was much, much better.

[heather]

Funny how in North America we are so sold on owning a house with a big yard and 2-car-garage and 4 bedrooms and so on. Families in most of the rest of the world can't imagine this and yet most kids don't grow up resenting their parents. I grew up in Europe and Japan and didn't always have my own room or tons of space. What I remember most about growing up are the fun things and the relationships, not the lack of space.

[swissmiss]

Check out Brooklyn Girl's blog - she just went through this.

[hedra]

I wanted to point out something Moxie said here, as well. (and that was also already highlighted but deserves repeating)

The big issues are more to do with the relationships than the space.

We have relatives with a huge family (11 kids, I think. Maybe 12, I lose track). For a good long time, they lived in a 3 bedroom with 1 bath. They have since moved into a farmhouse, and have five bedrooms - one each for the eldest still-at-home boy and girl, one for the rest of the boys, one for the rest of the girls, one for the parents. They place a priority on managing their relationships within the family, because ESPECIALLY with the space issue, it's essential. But it's really what makes it work.

Likewise, sibling issues, only-vs.-sibs, city-vs-country, type of schooling, etc., etc., many of the things we end up hating have more to do with how the family functions, compared to what the actual situation was.

Another example - boarding school. I know two guys pretty well who boarded. One was miserable, one really loved it. The miserable one had miserable parents with zero boundaries and zero respect for the child as an individual. The one who loved it had decent, thoughtful (imperfect, but healthy, respectful, and normal) parents who valued their children as individuals.

I don't know if anyone here watched the PBS show 'Frontier House', where they took modern couples and families and put them into a genuine frontier situation - building their own cabins, having to scrounge to survive, etc. The family with the big house back home seemed to repeatedly notice how much closer they were when they were physically closer in space, jammed into a tiny space forced the intimacy on which they built their relationships. It can highlight where the relationships have serious problems, but it also provides huge opportunities. Once released into a vast space at home again, the distance generated isolation.

And speaking also as the wife of an architect, space definitely does affect the process of the family, as well as the process of the family affecting what comes up under the influence of the space. Small, low spaces tend to enhance focus and task-orientation, large or high spaces tend to enhance creativity (try doing the bills under a cathedral ceiling, it's harder to focus). Flow and movement, clutter and storage, total square footage, arrangement of spaces, purpose and use of spaces, they're all part of it. But they're part of it in relationship to the people, not separate from the people.

Oh, I also agree that teens in our culture tend to appreciate separate spaces. We're unlikely to be able to offer that, even after we put our (hoped for, planned for) addition on the house. It will still be two bedrooms for them, one for us, at that point, though at least we'll be able to dorm by gender without too much grumping, because of the 2 boys/2 girls split.

(oh, and we have storage issues, too - whoever designed the house we live in apparently was a guy who never did a blessed thing for housekeeping or maintenance, because the kitchen was absolute hell, and the closets are miniscule and limited. And unfortunately the minor addition that was added later was done by drunk monkeys on crack - the closets aren't deep enough for a hanger to hang straight - and that's the least of the assinine shit they did. ARGH. We've added wardrobes from IKEA everwhere we can.)

[Geeks In Rome]

Co-sleeping was a perfect solution for our small city dwelling. We wanted to co-sleep for other reasons, but it did ease the pressure on us to try to make an extra room. I never tried to sleep train, but I just imagined that I'd rather have a fussy, whiny, milk-demanding baby right NEXT to me, than down the hall in another room. Also consider the baby has to scream way more loudly if it's in another room and needs assistance than when right next to you. My son only had to whimper and he got whatever it was he needed.
This all changes when a number 2 comes along, but we just took it one day at a time. What worked was new baby and I slept on the couch bed and hubby and son in the bedroom. Now 3 1/2 yr.old son was ready for his own room and we cleaned out a tiny space just for him. Baby, hubby and I are back in the bedroom.
My (divorced) mom and I slept in the same bed until I was 9!! Winters were brutally cold and only her room had extra heat with a Franklin stove in it so we piled in there with the cats. When summers came, our bedtime routine was so nice: reading in bed together, talking about our day, plans for the next... I have great memories of sharing space with her, but of course that is not going to work with a married couple!!! Just to point out the whole one-child/one bedroom is a cultural bias that is not writ in stone! Good Luck!

[Marguerite]

Oh wow, i just sent a similar question to you yesterday moxie ;-)! I was specifically asking for advice on when to move our 8mo twins(currently in our bedroom which we would like back!) into a bedroom with the 3yo big brother, I'd appreciate any thoughts/shared experience on this issue, since the sleep topic is a touchy one.

[Helen]

I don't have advice on the sleep training, but I wanted to add my two cents on living in a small space.

I shared a room with one of my sisters all through my growing up until I went to college. In my view having private, personal space for each person in the family is not necessary, even for teenagers. I might have liked having my own room, but I surely was not harmed by not having one. And the one of my two sisters who did have her own (ver small) room was always in the room I shared with my other sister, anyway. I think she would have liked for all three of us to be in the same room.

Now my husband and I live in 550 sf, one bedroom, one bathroom. Our daughter has been in our room since birth, and she sleeps there now. First she did overnight sleep in a co-sleeper, then in a baby hammock. Now she sleeps on a mini (child-sized) foam fold-out couch.

We are moving to a two bedroom because we are having another baby this summer. But we intend to keep both kids in our bedroom for a while, and later transition them to sharing the other bedroom when the little one is 18 months or so. (Unless the baby screaming keeps the older one awake, in which case I and the baby will move to the other bedroom and our daughter will stay with my husband.)

Where people sleep (and other household arrangements, for that matter) is determined by culture and wealth. In the US (and maybe other wealthy countries, I don't know), giving children their own bedrom is considered important. I, for one, don't think it is -- even though I am American :). There are lots of arguments for living in a smaller space, not the least of which being the smaller carbon footprint you leave.

Don't let your friends or the books make you feel guilty about not having a room for the baby! Having a separate room for the baby is absolutely not necessary. I think my husband and I would have had our daughter in our room even if we had another bedroom.

My husband and I actually like living in a small space. We like having less stuff than some folks who live in bigger places. And we love city living, and are not willing to give it up to have a larger home.

But everyone is different. For some people living in a space that seems too small would be intolerable. You have to figure out what works best for you. But I agree with anyone who says to hold off on any decisions right now. No matter what size your home, and where the baby sleeps, your baby may have a tough time getting the sleep thing together right now just because the baby is so young.

[shirky]

I always feel bad about not having a yard.

but we live in a 6 unit and we just went through some 'controlld crying' at night. The neighbors never mentioned anything but I had a fib lined up, I was going to tell them he was sick. i figured after a week or so it'd be over and they'd survive and won't hate us too bad. If your neighbors have kids too, if they are awakened by crying, when they realize it isn't theirs, they will be so relieved, so really you're doing them a favor. Also maybe turn on a fan, that helps.

[Amy]

Moxie posted a similar question for me about this time last year... small house, 2-bedrooms, 3 kids--how long can everyone share??

Well, the older kids are still sharing (8 and 5.5) and still loving it. As they are different sexes, this can't go on forever, but it's working for now. I'm toying with moving the baby in with them. We have a little room downstairs that serves as the "play room" for now and *can* be a bedroom when push inevitably comes to shove (literally!). But it isn't ideal and I'm hoping we'll move to a larger home before that comes to pass.

Your guilt over the nursery is what really struck a chord with me. When my first was born I spent a lot of time planning his nursery. I lived in a larger house back then, and space was not a problem. I went all out on a crib, bedding, glider, paint, you name it. I didn't do much for the second baby, but then again, I already had all that stuff from the first. But I didn't do *anything* for baby #3. We had moved to this smaller house, he's in our room. I didn't organize a changing table, didn't buy him matching bedding, no dresser to call his own. When I look at the PB kids catalogue I'm sad that he didn't get that. But, honestly, a nursery is so much more for us than for the baby. In *his* perfect world, he wouldn't even have a crib!

I agree with the others who have said his childhood will be much more about his relationships than about his space.

[Helen]

Hi Laura, I live in a true loft, so no walls at all except for closets and bathroom. My daughter is now 21 months old. From birth to about 4/5 weeks, she slept in the co-sleeper next to our bed, until I realized "hey, I'm healed from my c-section and can now lay down to nurse, woo ha!" Then she started coming into my bed. Much more sleep was had by all vs. trying to decorously arrange oneself with a nursing pillow, then transfer a dozy baby to the co-sleeper. We had a flirtation with the Amby bed when she seemed refluxy, and she started sleeping from about 8-5 in that. Amby bed was awesome because she'd stir, and it would rock her back to sleep instantly.

Then we slammed into the 4-6 month lousy sleep stretch, and it was back in the bed. If I'm going to be up 3-4 times a night, I might as well do it with minimal effort. I roll over, stick a boob in the mouth, go back to sleep. We tried a sidecarred crib at about 7 months, but we realized we liked co-sleeping better. I am one of those people who needs a lot of sleep or I feel positively insane, and co-sleeping was just so much easier to get me to that goal. Plus we have a relatively small space, and cribs do not match our decor, shall we say.

I would say not to sleep train now. I am not a huge fan of sleep training, but what I have read in the latest revisions from Ferber (be sure you have the absolute newest edition) is that he basically says forget it before 6 months anyway. We considered it around 9 months (it's like my kid saw a Wonder Weeks powerpoint in the womb, as she know exactly when to spazz out), and uh, it was kind of pointless. She cried like her heart was breaking and sounded like she was about to barf (all within the space of maybe 3 minutes), and I felt like the biggest asshole standing 15 feet away (in our living room, haha) ignoring her. Would I have felt better about it with a wall between us? I don't know. It is a funny concept to me to be a few feet from your child but consciously not meeting their needs. Here is where everyone kicks my butt, but that's simply my feeling. It does not mean the collective you should make other choices than the ones you feel are truly right. However, if it feels wrong deep down or you feel quick to snap at anyone who proposes an alternative, you might want to think about where that comes from. There is a lot of societal pressure to sleep train, but other approaches do work out as well.

My daughter is a clear tension accelerator anyway, so even with more space to detach, I don't think it would have flown. So back to co-sleeping it was. Did I mention I love sleep? We have continued doing that, and it's still working fine for us. She started sleeping through the night after a year on her own. I've never put her down awake on purpose until she started doing that on her own.

My husband and I find other places to be intimate, as that's probably your next question. No, she does not fall out of bed. We put her down in the middle of the bed with buffers until we come to bed. Getting rid of the crib has freed up a lot of space, ahhhh.

We hope to move in the next year, but the market is not looking great for selling our loft. As far as what we do next, we are considering rearranging furniture in another area to make room for a full-sized bed we have in storage. Then she'll go into that. One benefit of co-sleeping is that she already knows how to navigate "big" beds, so there's no toddler bed shuffle. I like that she'll have a bed large enough if one us needs to lie down with her to resettle her in the event that she does wake.

So far, she shows no signs of hating us for living in a loft. We have access to green space right outside, so it's like having a big yard we don't have to take care of ;) And we have a walkable downtown, and we make use of all of that. She loves seeing our neighbors and their dogs. She has access to the entire living space at any time, and she is both curious and respectful of areas that we tell her are off limits. She has a zone that is just for her toys. Maybe she'll find some way to throw all this at me as a teenager or something. Where there's a will there's a way. We've rented houses for vacation and stayed with relatives and so forth, and honestly having more space and rooms doesn't make a huge difference.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

[SarcastiCarrie]

HEDRA: As I was reading this, I kept thinking of the Frontier House program! When the family from the big house was done with the show and moved back home, they stopped using half of their house and all gathered in the living room to spend time together. Oh, and the Dad stopped hiring a lawn service and started cutting their postage stamp of a yard himself since he was no longer afraid.
Whenever I yearn for the 4-BR, 2.5 BA house with 3-car attached garage (and bulter's pantry and 1st floor laundry!), I think of Frontier House and realize that it's not my house that will make me happy, it's the people in my house. Everyone always winds up in the kitchen anyway!

[hydrogeek]

I'll just add my data point to many of those above me. We had a separate nursery, all decked out and beautiful. My daughter did not reliably sleep in there until well after she was a year old. I think if her crib were in our room, she would be just as happy, and it would be easier on me. She just needed a little more space to sleep than our bed around the time she was a year old.

Also, that 4 month thing sucks. Bad. Just keep reading Moxie and thinking "This too shall pass." I think you'll find that after it's over, sleep training might not be needed.

Aside to Moxie: I found this site by googling when we were in the middle of the 4 month hell on earth. LIFESAVER. Thank you.

[goosemama]

A couple of things to add to other comments:

Google the apartment therapy website. it contains lots of excellent ideas for making small spaces work.

The books out there are generally geared towards suburban moms with space and money. If you're lacking one (or both) of those things, don't feel bad. There are major pluses to growing up in the city. I grew up in a big suburban house and HATED it, felt alienated from my family and hemmed in by the suburbs....

Lastly, smaller space = smaller carbon footprint.

[goosemama]

A couple of things to add to other comments:

Google the apartment therapy website. it contains lots of excellent ideas for making small spaces work.

The books out there are generally geared towards suburban moms with space and money. If you're lacking one (or both) of those things, don't feel bad. There are major pluses to growing up in the city. I grew up in a big suburban house and HATED it, felt alienated from my family and hemmed in by the suburbs....

Lastly, smaller space = smaller carbon footprint.

[flea]

I live in a freestanding house, and you can hear the crying baby when you walk by on the sidewalk (with windows closed), and I am sure our neighbors can hear him too. (I am sure because I can damned well hear them playing video games at 3 am sometimes.) Apartments don't have a lock on worrying about bothering the neighbors! Since our neighbors on the bedroom side of the house are fraternity brothers, I don't worry about what they think, since they have never shown much consideration for my family. If the sleep-training works, it usually works fast, so I say go for it.

I currently live in a 3-bedroom house and each child has his/her own bedroom, but once Dillo is sleeping through they will go in together. Casper is very excited about the idea of future bunk beds; I think a lot depends on how you spin the space choices you want to make when you present them to your child. "Let's have a fun adventure and you can share with your brother" works better than "Our house is too small so you have to share with your brother."

We also never did a "nursery" - we have a hand-me-down crib, a repurposed kitchen island table as a changing table, and Dillo's clothes are still kept in rubbermaid boxes under the table. As far as I can tell, no child under 5 is concerned about the aesthetics of a nursery space. For us it's a combination of graduate school finances and cheapness/environmentalism driving our choices; people who want to judge us based on our lack of a color coordinated Pottery Barn nursery weren't going to be our friends anyway. I can barely get my socks to match.

[paola]

@marguirite

We have just put our 14.5 month old in with her 3 year old brother. We had been meaning to do it since she was 9 months old, but every time along came a sleep regression and threw everything out the window. She is just at the end of her 64 week sleep regression and sleeps pretty well most nights although sometimes howls at the top of her voice in the middle of the night or wakes up a little earlier than usual, but wakes everyone except her bro. I was really worried that if she woke say at 6.30 (he wakes at 7.30 usually) that he would be woken up too as it was almost his wake up time, and then I'd have two instead of 1 on my hands, but it seems he really is a heavy sleeper and so far hasn't even stirred. It really does depend on both kids I think. Does the younger one still wake up at night?
And if so, how solid is the older one's sleep? Is s/he likely to be woken by the yougner one's cries??

In hindsight, I think I would have put them in the same room earlier if I'd known how well my elder one was going to cope.

[Moxie]

Marguerite, I moved my younger one in with the older one when he was past waking up and crying in the night (for the most part). We also had to completely rearrange bedrooms, so there was a long delay on that so it ended up being around 15 months. But we could have done it earlier had it not been for that bedroom issue.

I'm guessing most others wait until they crying is tapering off to make the move?

[michelle]

Oh man! We are in a very similar boat. We have a 1 BR apartment...with 2 kids. I can't put the baby in my toddler's room because he wakes up at least 3 times a night howling and there is NOTHING worse than living with my toddler if she gets woken up. So we have a crazy system where the baby sleeps in a portable crib in the living room and I head out to the couch to nurse him at night. I haven't sleep trained him because I am really worried about the neighbors- oddly over-worried, perhaps, but I can't help it. My plan is to warn all my neighbors ahead of time and start sleep training on a Friday night (in hopes that there will be less crying by Monday). But I haven't done it yet. :)

As for the small space...I really think your kid will be happy if you are happy. I suspect you and your husband might feel that you need more space once the baby gets a little older, aquires a lot more stuff and starts getting into everything. But maybe not if you and DH are true urbanites.

[cheryl]

What a timely post. I had my pregnancy hormonal freak-out this weekend about where #2 was going to sleep in our 2 bedroom house.

We do not, will not, and can not co-cleep. None of us sleep if we even have to share a room (like in a hotel or when staying at a friend's. Our first actually slept in the living room, with us carrying on our normal activities of TV, dishes, phone, reading, etc. for the first two months. We sleep trained starting at 6 weeks for naps and around 2 months for nights. At that point she slept in a basket so she moved around to whatever space or room was unoccupied. At 6 months we converted Hubby's home office to a bedroom for her.

I had a lot of guilt over not getting her a room at first, but once we got a set-up with a change table and the basket I started to relax (damn nesting instinct). A benefit of that is we designed her room for use for a kid, not ideal nursing location.

Now I am at a loss for what to do this time around. Will the little one be as good of a sleeper? Is it wrong to put him/her in the bathroom to sleep? I have no problem with them sharing a room, but won't the baby wake up the little one? Where do I change the little one in the middle of the night?

[cheryl]

Oh, and living in a house is no guarantee you won't piss off the neighbours with a baby crying. When the Monster was just a newborn and would have some fits Hubby would take her outside to rock her on the porch swing to try and settle her. We have a very bitchy neighbour and if she was outside would start storming around and slam her door as she went inside. Baby 1: Bitchy neighbour 0.

[Tamar]

I really believe a small space of all things does no harm to a child! We're not in the same situation right now, but I'm also not American so I don't have the "separate room for each child" bug. I grew up living in apartments and then a small house; I shared a bedroom with my younger sister until I was 12 or so and we never had more than one bathroom for everyone. Did I want my own room? Well, yeah. (Less so at bedtime.) My mom helped me to have my own space by setting up a desk for me, when I started school, in the corning of the dining area. I loved this and really felt it was my own.

OTOH, and I meant to say this in the "unexpected sleep" post, I really wanted and expected my son to sleep in our room and/or with us for some long unspecified period of time...and of course, he is such a light sleeper, we've found that moving him to our 2nd bedroom has been the only way he's slept longer than 2 hours at a stretch. Of course, now I worry that the the nursey we *do* have is somehow damaging to him.

I think I need to remember what my mom is always telling me: a loved baby knows it! The rest is just details.

[Mar]

We lived in a 600 sq ft one bedroom apartment in NYC for the first 11 months with our son and I too was annoyed by the assumption in every book/magazine/catalog that a nursery was a given! For us, the 1 br worked fine until we moved to a house just outside the city (for a variety of reasons -- space was only one factor). Baby slept in his bassinet/crib from day one and we never had a problem with regressions/training, etc. Either we just got lucky wtih a good sleeper OR he actually benefited from sharing the space with us -- I imagine he heard us breathing when he woke up in the middle of the night and was able to soothe himself back to sleep. By the time we moved at 11 months, it was getting a little tougher since he'd wake up more easily if we needed to turn a light on etc.
As for furniture/storage, we put a pad and changing supplies on top of the dresser that held my clothes and kept his clothes etc. in creative storage elsewhere in the apartment. Not ideal and nowhere near as attractive as the P0ttery Barn catalog I imagined everyone else living in, but it worked quite well.

[snickollet]

I live in a two-bedroom, one bathroom with my 21m b/g twins. I have a lot of space compared to some people who have posted, but not much by US giganto-standards. We have a big deck, but no yard to speak of.

I love living in a smaller space. Benefits as I see them:

1. It's physically impossible for us to own a ton of stuff. Nowhere to put it! Our space forces us to be mindful of what we own and what we buy.
2. No yard maintenance. I hate yardwork. We live in a relatively urban area with parks in walking distance and we take full advantage of those.
3. No wasted space. We use every inch of our living space every day.
4. Less to clean.

Obviously, the twins share a room. It's fine for now. If I feel like they need their own space as they get older, they can each have a bedroom and I'll take the futon in the living room. But I don't anticipate that happening for quite a while.

[fahmi]

We were in a 1 bedroom apartment when our son was born (it was nominally a 2-BR, but the second bedroom was actually a closet converted into a "room" - we used it as a storage closet because a bed didn't even fit in there) so he slept in the crib in our room.

When we began sleep training at 4 months, we hung out in the living room for the first two nights, and after that, we came back in the bedroom. We kept the room dark and were quiet when we came to bed, and he slept through it fine. The arrangement worked well until he was about 10 months when he could sit up on his own and had object permanence, so he knew that we were right behind the bumper.

This should buy you some time to look into a larger 2-br apartment, if you can, or at least move things around to create a sleeping nook for now, and when older, who knows?

I grew up in a 1-BR in Tokyo first, and then later a 2-BR in NYC and I adored it. My brother and I shared a bedroom, my parents had a different one. There were no doors between the bedroom and living room, so my mother used curtains to make a sleeping area. We basically grew up playing in the living room, and sleeping in the bedroom. So in that sense, a nursery is unnecessary.

[Rachel]

I think it is a North American concept that we *need* to have so much space. Truly, your children will not suffer if they live in a small house/apartment with or without a yard. It is the ways that we love our children and how we make them feel about themselves and our family that are important.

That being said, we moved from a small house to a fairly large one last June. I thought our kids would be thrilled with all the room. Our 6 year old hated his new bedroom b/c it was "too big" and would cry for his "cozy, little" bedroom. The new yard is also way bigger and has a playhouse and swings etc but they didn't want to play in it. Last summer all they wanted to do was go back to our old house where the only room to play was on the tiny front lawns and sidewalks. They could have cared less about the space b/c all that they loved and was familiar (except for us, of course!) was back in our "old house". Now that they have made friends and are more familiar here they like it much better.

Our friends live in a tiny apartment and solved a similar space problem by converting a closet into a little nook for the baby. They took off the doors and used it as a tiny "bedroom". That gave them all a little bit of space and helped their baby sleep better (he was a light sleeper and being so near them woke him up). They moved the contents of the closet into a wardrobe and under the bed boxes.

@ Amy: I didn't do anything for our third either and have had some moments of guilt over it! He slept in our room until a month ago when we had to move him so we could all sleep better. Now he sleeps at night in hubby's office, naps in a playpen in our room during the day and has his dresser etc. in our eldest son's room. Bit transient that one but so far he doesn't seem to have noticed!

@ Helen: "It is a funny concept to me to be a few feet from your child but consciously not meeting their needs." I totally hear what you are saying and have felt that myself. I've been thinking about this and feel like sometimes, not going to them right away can in fact be meeting their needs. For example, if rocking and soothing and feeding etc is not helping them sleep then sometimes, letting them fuss or cry it out, is the very best thing that you can do for them in the long run. I have been trying to keep our long term goals in mind (ie. a well rested child) when going through these tough parenting challenges and that has helped me wade though some tough stages. Just my $0.02!

[hill]

Relationship trumps space! Totally agreed on that. We live in big but open space, no rooms at all. My only qualms:
- Noise level issues. She's used to ambient sounds, music, talking, etc. while she sleeps. But I refrain from cooking up a storm or doing the dishes ok making that kind of noise once she's in bed. Which means more to do before hustling off to work in the morning (or on the weekend to catch up).
- Quiet sex required.
- Wake-ups. When I go to bed and wake her up just by walking past her crib. Ah, that sweet smell of Mama (er, milk).

But again, you're surely giving your son so much more than a living space, albeit a small one!!

[Nicole]

I haven't read through all the comments yet, but wanted to add my SF input. Laura, you might consider looking for an apartment in areas you thought were undesirable prior to having children- there are a lot of reasonably priced (if you can even say that in SF) places out by Monterey Ave., City College, the outer Sunset, etc. I don't know the specifics of your situation- where you're living, what your rent is, if you even WANT to move, etc., but just thought I'd throw that option out there as a possibility.

[Amy]

I remember very well the feelings of guilt about my mothering choices in the beginning. My daughter is now fifteen months old. The thing to keep in mind is that if you give your child love and security, that is the best thing you can offer.

You don't have to be the mom you are "supposed to be" or that you always thought you'd be. I mother very differently than I planned to. Of course it helps to have a supportive partner.

You can flip it all around in your head so that you are actually a better parent than those who sleep far away from their child at night. Besides, think of all the savings on baby monitors and such.

This sentiment is echoed above, but one thing to think about is that children don't need their own space. What they need is a sense of security and love. You can provide that better being closer.

Good luck Laura.

[jules]

hey there, haven't read all the comments but wanted to say that one of the key recommendations of a major (NZ) study on SIDS prevention is to keep baby in same room til s/he is at least 6 mos. Everything has a tradeoff.

[J]

I live in SF too. When we were pregnant, we had decided to remain in our small one-bedroom apartment and just to make it work. However, when she was three months old, we opted to move to a small 2BR house in the Sunset district instead (for the same amount of rent per month, it should be noted). The reason wasn't that our little one needed the space, but that *we* needed the space! We just started to have a hard time with the little things that come along with sharing a bedroom with a baby - worrying about waking her up, losing that opportunity for intimacy (few and far between either way), etc.

So, I concur - it's not that the baby needs the space. If you're happy sharing that small space with your little one, then go for it! If you feel you need more space, then go for it :-) As our little one has gotten older (7 mo old) we have found that she sleeps better in her own room away from us. It's such a joy to go in and have her smile at us in the morning these days. But again, that is for US - not her!

I think often once we become mothers we stop thinking about what WE want, and start only doing what we think our BABY wants. I agonized over our decision for so long because I wasn't sure what was best for her. Ultimately I had to come to grips with the fact that she would be ok either way - it was about her dad and I.

[Mary Joan Graves]

I raised my three older daughters in Manhattan apartments. In my experience you just spend more time outdoors in playgrounds, visiting city attractions, etc. when you have less space. Young children like to be where the action is. I think it is good for young siblings to share a room. After all, it makes college dorm living so much less traumatic!

[janel]

We live in a 1 br in Brooklyn. When our son was born, we felt a little sad that we wouldn't be able to set up a nursery. But over time we realized this is just a cultural thing that would be fun for us, but would mean nothing to the baby. Our son is 13 months now, and I think having him in our room has been a wonderful gift. It gives us more time as a family, and I can see how secure our son feels when we're in the room. We're hoping to move to a 2 br in the next 6 months to a year, and part of me is already feeling a bit sad (and guilty) about moving our son to his own room then.

And we, too, went through a really rough sleep stage from about 5 through 6 months. Night waking can be made worse by having the parents - and especially the mom - within smelling distance. We spent a few weeks camped out in our living room and my husband would go into him when he woke up. It did help some, but it was still exhausting and didn't solve the problem. What finally helped was the modified sleep training program our pediatrician gave us. Like Ferber, we would let him cry 5 minutes, go in for one, then 10, then 15, but never more than 15 at a time. Also, we only did this routine the first time he woke at night, rather than upon every waking. This felt more palatable to us because we don't really like to let him cry, and also seemed kinder to our neighbors. Amazingly, we got results really quickly and he began sleeping through the night. (Which didn't last, but when he does wake up it's usually only once a night.) But like Moxie said you probably don't want to undertake this at 4 months. I would probably wait until 6.

You also really have my sympathy because I know how exhausting and stressful it is. I can remember feeling like I could barely function at work. I found myself resenting my husband (not logical, but I was too tired for logic) and I think he was resenting our son (also not logical - see above). We did get through it though, and so will you.

And FWIW, we have friends who live in an alcove studio with a 22 month old. They just recently put up a divider so that the alcove part is a miniature bedroom where the baby sleeps. The parents are on the sleeper couch, and it works fine for them. Also, I used to live in Hungary, and there it was very common for the parents to sleep in the living room and the kids (and even grandparents) to share whatever bedrooms are available.

[Annika]

I didn't have my own room until I was nine. We had a family bed and I have no resentment at all. We were also a very close family, lots of time spent together and good relationships all around. I realize nine is quite late in general, but it worked for us. (My sister is three years younger, and got her own room at the same time. Well, she shared it with a step-sister, but that is a totally different issue.)

My son doesn't have his own room. He does have his own bed, a sidecar crib that we are transitioning to a freestanding toddler bed (he is almost two), but he will stay in the bedroom with us. I personally can't imagine what a baby or toddler would DO with his own room (other than sleep, obviously), but the most important thing is that the arrangement work for YOUR family.

I have felt a little guilt over the nursery thing and it makes me MAD because it is 100% outside-influenced. Why are there all these expectations on families to do everything the same?

[Carly]

I don't think I'd be as focused as much on him resenting you, as much as how much sleep improves when we have our own space.

(I am obviously not a proponent of co-sleeping, so let's just get that out there)

We kept our daughter in our bedroom for the first four-ish weeks she was born. We got up at every rustle, changed breath, fart, you name it. Once she was in her room -- still within clear hearing distance -- she not only started sleeping longer stretches (due, I feel, to not hearing US), but we did, too.

I like Moxie's idea of giving her the bedroom, and you and hubby setting up shop in the living room. But I've no idea what your actual space is like, and whether that is an option for you, or if you feel comfortable doing so.

Just relaying what worked for us.

[Brooke]

Our two year old has always slept with us. It just works out well for our family. We've always had two bedrooms (first in a house and now an apartment). I want more space. Partly because we got spoiled having a house and partly because this apartment is so poorly designed that it seems smaller than it is. I really, really miss having a parking spot, a compost pile, a garden, a drying rack, and a basement for the litterboxes. The biggest issue for us is that we don't have a good spot to put guests when they come to town.

We are looking to move, and I'd like to get my daughter her own bed when we do. Even though she is a pretty mellow sleeper, I'm not sure I can handle having a toddler and a newborn in bed with us all night.

[Charisse]

SF here as well--kind of what snickollet said, we have a flat that's pretty big by SF standards but small by US standards, and no yard...and no sleep training for us, as we have a tension-increaser, who always slept fine unless some little thing was wrong...which is a pain, but at least you know there's something wrong. Any, that's a digression--she's almost 4 now and sleeps like a regular person. Anyway, Mouse does have a room, but we don't have a playroom, an outdoor space, a sidewalk with safe bikeriding (steep hill) or any large indoor toys.

Lots of friends with 1-BR apts. The ones who've done sleep training have needed to placate their neighbors a bit and create some separation between baby and parents for the beginning at least. Most have initially moved to the couch and left the baby in the bedroom--a couple have done really creative things with turning some of those weird SF apartment "features" into little kid nooks--a pantry, a fainting room, and a closet have all been used this way in my immediate circle.

I too have always felt that most books are aimed at suburban families, with a lot of info on handling kids in cars and zero on walking and public transit. So we'll have to get the MoxieMom bat signal going in SF so you can ask your urban moxie friends for tips. I also think Kate has a great point--if you're living in a metro area with the high prices but not in range of any of the advantages, it really seems not worth it. OTOH if you're within a couple blocks of a nice park, have a corner store, accessible transit, library, and a couple of memberships to zoos/museums, it can be really fun! Once I looked around, I found it quite easy to meet other parents in my neighborhood--they were all out walking to the coffee shop, the corner store, etc. Mouse met lots of her early friends just around. You do spend more time out and about if you have a small space, but that's fine by me--it doesn't hurt any of us to walk a couple miles a day (and yes, that includes the almost-4).

So I'd say there's a lot to embrace if you're up for it, and if you guys like city living, then you'll show your son your enthusiasm for it and he'll be happy as you're happy. Don't feel guilty--lots of people make it work!

[pixie]

ditto about waiting till a bit after 4 months. We tried at 4 months and it went so badly i wated till 6 months and it went much better. She cries 15 to 20 mins each night and then is down for the night, which is preferable to waking and crying 3 times a night. I would let your neighbord know and try to get her/him to bed by or before 8.

[Cloud]

Just adding my data point- We lived in a small two bedroom apartment for Pumpkin's first 5 months. We didn't attempt to turn the spare room from an office/junk room into a nursery. Pumpkin slept in a moses basket next to our bed (or in the living room with Hubby who was trying to let me get more sleep) for her first 6 months. Then we transitioned her to a crib in her room (we'd moved to a house by that point). The reason we decided to buy was not that we worried about Pumpkin needing space- she liked sleeping near us. We did it for parental harmony- we needed some space so that Pumpkin could sleep, Hubby could watch TV, and I could read all at the same time. I think that if you and your Hubby have a discussion about how to make your small space work, you'll be OK. And the baby won't care for quite awhile yet, so don't worry about that.

As for the neighbors- when we were in the apartment we just talked to the people who shared our walls and said we'd try to keep the baby quiet but babies cry sometimes. The only complaint we ever got was about the bathroom fan we used to try to calm Pumpkin. We fixed the fan, and the neighbor was happy. Of course, we lived in a bit of a party neighborhood, so we knew that our baby wasn't the noisiest thing around. I'd say that if you decide to sleep train, talk to you neighbors first and maybe even offer to postpone the start a day or two if they have a big meeting coming up or something. Thinking about our time in the party neighborhood, I never minded the party noise as much when the neighbors warned us it was coming.

[OBXmom]

Wow...this post is so timely. I'm getting ready to move from my 3 bedroom suburban home (1 master, nursery and an office) to a large city. I am so excited about not having to drive everywhere and entertainment being so readily availble, but I have been stressing a little over the shift from suburban life to city life. I lived in a city right out of college so its not new, but now I'll be doing it with a family instead of single.

I appreciate all of the ideas here. And while this is slightly off topic I am wondering how those who live in these smaller spaces handle guests. Do you have them? Do they do hotels? What do you do?

[k]

Remember, most of the books, magazines, and newspaper articles are trying to sell you something. Even if it's just a dream they think you want to buy. Try to let it all go. Most of the world does not have 5 bedroom homes. Most of the things our newspaper advertises as things that "everyone does" are things that my family (which when I stop to think about it is pretty well off) can not afford. I don't know who those people are or where they find them!

[allison]

Data point: My parents and I lived in a tiny, rundown one-bedroom house until I was about 3 years old. I don't remember it and have never had any negative effects from living in cramped quarters during those early years.