Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

I was curious if anyone lives in the city and living in a 1 bedroom. Or LI in a 1-bedroom apt.


If you already have a child how did it work out for the time you had to live there.

My DH & I tried to sell our nyc apt this yr with no luck..we wanted to move to the burbs. Now they we got out BFP a few wks ago we decided we would stay here and wait till 2011, After my little bean is born and a few months old then we will look to buy a house.


Anyone who has already experienced this or is planning to do the same...

What is your plan?

How did you get all the Baby necessities to fit in a 1- bedroom apartment??

Did you find it easy to get around in the city with a newborn?

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

We live in a 1 bedroom coop in Queens and will be staying here at least through 2010 (baby is due May 2010).

Our 1 bedroom is on the larger side. We will have a crib in our bedroom and we will empty one of our dressers for baby clothes (already started doing this). Then the rest of the baby stuff will go in our foyer and living room (swing, bouncer, stroller, etc).

I think it will be fine until baby is actually mobile and wants to move around etc.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

my sister is in a 1 bedroom apt. in the bronx (looking to move soon)

crib is in the bedroom, swing and other baby things are in the living room, changing table in the hall between living room and bedroom. Luckily, they have a large closet where they can store all of sophie's things!

i know its tough, but they make it work!!

Message edited 12/12/2009 5:34:23 PM.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

we live in a 2 room apartment... 1 bedroom and 1 livingroom / kitchen combo. with a small bathroom in the middle.

Its VERY VERY VERY tight. but it works for now. abbys 5.5 months and we have officially outgrown our space. there is baby stuff EVERYWHERE ... sleeping stinks.. the crib has to be in our bedroom and so we cannot have a bedroom life at all or ti wakes her up! i mean we cant even turn the TV on if shes sleeping. so its VERY stressfull!

were in the process of buying a house. but the process takes forever so were very stressed waiting. we also live upstairs and the stairs are extremely hard to block with a baby gate since theres really no doorway (we live at my parents) so when she starts movinwe are in big trouble!

but It works... we are on top of each other. we learned to live in a messy clutter filled apartment.. but its what we can afford for the time being!

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

Message edited 12/12/2009 5:57:29 PM.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

I consider our 2 bedroom a 1 bedroom, because as long as I let DH keep his pig stye/office/man room, he wont mess with my other rooms. It keeps me sane. And our bedroom is huge, so it makes sense, since I would like to keep baby near me for the first months.

We plan on moving in about a year, but until then, I have set aside an area of the bedroom for the crib, cleaned out some dresser and closet areas. Putting a changing table pad on top of dresser and I think we are set.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

We have good friends who live in a loft/converted 1 br in the city. It is soooooo tight. They put a dresser in the l/r for clothes and diapers. They used the bassinet in their bedroom for a while and kept the swing in the l/r. They eventually had to put a crib in the l/r too...and sent the swing and bassinet over to his parents' house. The stroller stays in the foyer. It is the smallest apt I have ever seen, but they reallt made do with JUST the essentials. The baby bath hangs on the back of the bathroom door. The baby is about 9 mts and they are actually moving this week to a bigger place. It was ok in the beginning.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

My husband and I live in a very small one bedroom COOP in Nassau County- our bedroom is a full size bed, not even a queen. We are expecting TWINS in July and planning on staying here. Seriously, I told my family to out on the shower invite "gift cards appreciated". We'll try it just with the essentials. But we do want to move into a house, preferably beforehand, but if not, we 're going to stay put and wait, while the twins are still infants.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

We rent a 1BR condo in DC. We are hoping to move either right before or after. That is if we can find a house w/ love that we can afford. If not we will most likely have the option to stay where we are now until July 2011. If we stay in the condo we plan to just manage with the space we have. It is going to be tough, but we will figure it out.
Going to put a crib in our bedroom, we are lucky to have room to fit it. Then we are going to get a dresser w/ the changing table on top. So it will serve two functions. I figure the dresser should be enough storage if we just keep seasonal clothes in it. We will do what we do with out clothes for the rest, space bags in storage. Those small plastic drawers are great too. Will prob get one of those for in our walk in closet, and the bathroom.
I am going to just try to keep things organized by the room we will need them in. Towels, robes, and that sort of stuff in the bathroom. Bibs in the kitchen. Hopefully that works.
We are lucky to have a storage space in the basement of our building. Things like the pack & play will stay in there for when we travel. We may be putting our over sized living room chair in storage to make room for a glider. We might have to rearrange the living room furniture also. I am going to keep the stroller in the trunk of my car so I don't have to drag it down the stairs when I want to go for a walk.
I think it won't be so bad at first, as the baby gets bigger and we use more stuff like the highchair, and play stuff it will get tougher to fit it all. I think it can be done if you are creative. Just use all possible space for storage. Under the tv stand, behind the couch, under the bed. Space bags are great.

eta: I also saw a tub that has a hook to hang on the shower bar. Little things like that help.

Message edited 12/12/2009 10:07:22 PM.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

We were able to convert our dining area to a bedroom for him with compression walls.

As for fitting stuff, anything not in use went to my mom's attic. We stored A LOT under his crib and got him a dresser and nighstand on legs so we stored stuff under there as well. We got a lot of spacing savings stuff (eg. travel swing) but Baby Bargains has a lot of tips for that.

Getting around isnt bad when they're in the infant car seat bc you can strap that in with cab seatbelts. And you can figure out what subway stations have elevators but I still found that difficult and tended to walk, take cabs or even drive.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

My friends had a one bedroom that they converted to 2 when the baby was about a year old. They have an L shaped living room so they made a bedroom out of the bottom of the L. They described how they set everything up before they had the bedroom but I can hardly remember. The new bedroom is small but the apartment is really perfect for them now and they do not plan to leave the city. They don't seem to mind whatever hassles come with living in the city. When I lived in the city there were a lot of people with young kids in my building. My husband would not want to live there with kids but I sure would!

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

We live in a (nice sized) 1 bedroom co-op and plan on staying here until after I graduate from school. We don't know where I will be working after that so we are not sure where to settle down and buy a house until then. Here are our plans:

-Using a co-sleeper for the first few months (maybe up to 6) and getting the crib later. The co-sleeper also has storage on the bottom for all the diaper changing supplies so we will be keeping them there. Once we get the crib we will have space for it in our bedroom but we'd rather not be cramped if we don't have to.

-We have a large entertainment center with books/dvds/pictures. We are storing most of it and buying baskets to store the extra baby things in.

-All of the things in our large storage closet that we are not currently using (Christmas decorations, luggage, out of season clothes etc) along with baby items we are not currently using/needing will be stored and my IL's house (they lives 5 minutes away) or my parents house.

-We are getting a tall dresser to put in the hallway for baby clothes.

-We are being very picky about what we are getting for the baby. Only the TRUE necessities none of the bells and whistles. Anything we get as gifts that we have no use for or no room for is going back to the store.

-Stroller is going to mostly be kept in the car.

Other ideas:
-Under the bed storage
-Over the door storage for closets
-Adding shelves for more space

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

We are in a one bedroom right now, its not even a real apartment - its just a converted attic. If we are still here, we are not going to have a crib/changing table or any of that stuff at first. We are going to keep a bassinet in the bedroom for the first few months and try not to set up any of the big stuff until the baby needs it.

Even MORE fun, is that if our renovations start on time we will actually be in my childhood bedroom -- me, DH, baby and dog -- for a few months LOL

My sister had TWO kids in a one bedroom until they were in school -- she actually moved them out to the living room so she could reclaim her bedroom and the kids had no issues with it! As long as it is an environment is loving, kids can adjust to anything! Its us adults that have all the issues LOL

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

Thank yoo so much everyone!!!

I got some great ideas.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

We have done it. Yes we were on top of each other and there were days I was ready scream with the clutter. But now that we live in a spacious soon to be three bedroom instead of two I miss it!!! No matter what you will NEVER have enough room, Trust me when the baby stuff is gone it will be toys. Just enjoy your child not the space. Don't let anyone make you feel bad for where you live people have done more on less. Look at the 50's people generally had 2-3 in apts that were the size of living rooms these days.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

We live in a 2BR coop in the city and although our space constraints are not major, we still have some. There are lots of ways to use up less space - the oval cribs take up less space, a pack 'n play is not necessary in a small apartment, you can start with a small bassinet and upgrade to a crib later, you could get a travel swing or wait until after baby is born to buy one of these (that way you can test it out in the store and see if your baby even likes it), you don't need a changing table - we're just using a thick quilted waterproof pad that I'm going to put on our bed (for me, it's a better height for changing than any of our dressers), we're not getting a baby bathtub - we're going to use our sink and got an infant holder that folds flat. There are other multi-use items - there's an exersaucer that's also a play mat and then later a play table so you end up with 1 big item rather than 3. We only went with one stroller - the baby jogger city mini - it folds flat and we thought hard about how we'd be using it and really wanted to just get one stroller - we're using the car seat adaptor in the beginning so we can use it as a snap 'n go with the infant car seat. We have room for a dresser for her but if we didn't, we would clear out some of our dresser and closet space - thankfully, baby clothes are pretty small. We also got a high chair that attaches to a regular chair though if space were tighter, we might just use the travel ones that attach to tables (we got one that folds flat for traveling). I think you just really have to think hard about what you need and try to stick to the basics - I found Baby Bargains to be really helpful on this and went to register with a friend of mine who's a new mom and really good at identifying necessities versus nice to have. This pi$$ed off MIL who really wanted to participate and be helpful but she doesn't know the meaning of minimal so that would not have been helpful at all to me. And then she pressured me into adding more stuff to the registry anyway - I definitely could've been more minimal than I was in the end. Good luck - it can definitely be done.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

We live in a 1 bdrm in Manhattan with a 10 month old. In the beginning it was fine, our bdrm is large enough to fit the crib, we cleared out a dresser for his clothes, it's also a lower dresser so we just threw the changing pad on top of it, you do not need a changing table, even if you don't have a dresser you can use, you can change the baby on the bed, couch, floor, etc. As he's gotten older and he has more toys and he's all over the place crawling, using his push carts, cruising everywhere it's become a challenge. But if you've lived in your 1 bdrm and/or the city before I'm sure you've already learned how to adjust with less space and make the most use out of the space you have. Our livingroom has turned into his playroom, but we got an ottoman that doubles as a chest so his toys go in there and it's soft so he doesn't hurt himself climbing around it. We didn't get a full size swing and a pack n play is completely unecessary in a 1 bdrm. We got a highchair/booster that attaches to the dining room chair. You don't need every toy that you're going to see people talk about on here, cause when it comes down to it, my son is more interested in making a mess of the flyers that come in the sunday Post, my tupperware, and cardboard boxes. Just remember, the only thing they NEED is you.

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

one bed condo in queens, it's tight but we do it. we originally converted our dining room to his room but he won't sleep in there (DS is one year) we moved his crib into our bedroom. our BR has 3 closets so one of them is his, and his dresser is still in the dining room. sometimes it gets cluttered but other than that it works out pretty well. we are putting away $ and just better off financially here right now. we want a house but too nervous

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

We lived in a studio from the time DD was 6 months to 18 months, then a 1-bedroom from 18 months to 2.5 years. This was by choice - we chose to rent in Manhattan at that time!

It's definitely doable. Babies don't require much space or toys for at least their first 6 months. We did without the extras like a jumperoo, pack n play, etc. Never missed them. We didn't buy a ton of furniture, just a crib and changing table with storage. They were Jenny Lind style because that style has a smaller footprint - every inch counts! DD's clothes were stored underneath her crib in baskets (clothes are pretty tiny for the first year - don't need much space!) with the exception of a few things we hung in our closet. There are space saving options for a lot of baby gear, like bathtubs and high chairs too.

We waited until she was ready for items like the exersaucer, high chair before we bought them. We sent things to storage once she grew out of them only because we planned on having another kid sometime.

It started to get a little harder after DD turned 2. She needed more space for bigger toys and we needed more space for comfort's sake. It wasn't until then that I really wished DD had a dresser because her clothes were getting too big for the baskets.

I totally would do it over again if I had to. It was cozy but nice at that age. In the city, we had met a widower that had lived in his 1-bedroom apartment for 50 years with his wife and they raised 5 kids in it. That puts things in perspective!

Re: Anyine live in NYC or 1 bedroom Apt With a newborn?? or planning to do so??

My cousin has a newborn in a 1 br in Queens. They have all the baby stuff in their room with them (crib, changer, etc) and a few things in the living room (swing. etc). It's a nice place and they are definteiy making it work.