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Stay at Home Moms
Marymak07
member
Any moms in an apartment?
Marymak07
member
Our son was a surprise - we were planning on kids AFTER the hubs finishes grad school. However, since having him, we both decided we wanted me to stay home, and God totally provided for us (we had saved up money to pay for school, but he got a full ride). So, I get to stay home, which I am SO thankful for, but we'll be in an apartment (on a super tight budget). I'm nervous about apartment life with a baby (we were in a townhome we owned before, but we sold it, for me to be able to stay home). Anyone else done it? I'd love to hear that it works ok....
SAHM to Eli, born 11.26.11
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Any moms in an apartment?
We live in an apartment with a small patio area. We have plenty if parks nearby to visit either a short walk or drive away.
My DH is also in grad school (PhD) and we have lived in apartments for 5 of the past 6 years including all of DD's life. We moved into a small house just last month since we needed more space for LO#2 and were basically done with apartment living. We don't have the option to buy a house as we are in the UK for school but plan to move back to the US once he is finished (and will then buy - I can't wait!).
I don't have anything to compare it to but living in an apartment with one baby/child is really not a big deal. There is less to clean and you can usually see baby from just about anywhere in the place. You don't need a ton of stuff when baby is under 1 so there is no need to clutter up the space you have.
We have always lived in university towns which are primarily walking communities. Whenever we move to a new area we just find the local parks, libraries, book stores, etc that are within walking distance and we spend a lot of time outside. It helps to meet up with other moms with kids of similar ages that you can meet out or have over for coffee.
Is there something specific that you are not sure about?
m/c at 13 weeks - March 23, 2011
With just one baby I think it would almost be better. We live in a small townhome and would have been fine in an apartment with DS1. It wasn't until we had DS2 that I really wanted a bigger house.
An apartment will be nice for the first couple of months when you are trying to BF or making bottles and everything is right near you. You can hear/see the baby from anywhere and no stairs while trying to recover. As long as you have local parks/trails to get out and walk you should be totally fine.
Natural M/c 12/13/08 at 8w5d
We were in an apartment for ds's first two years, then in a town house the year after that which was when dd was born. In the apartment, we were lucky enough to have great neighbors who never complained about ds, and he cried ALL the time. The lady above us was old and very hard of hearing, and I'm not sure if the ladies next to us were hard of hearing too or if the apartment was set up well or they were just being nice, but we'd asked them many times if he bothered them and they always said they couldn't hear him.
The townhouse, we could hear everything the neighbors did and they could hear us, but my child crying was better than the fact that I could hear them having very loud sex often, so I really didn't care if we bothered them.
As far as space goes, it was easy until ds got to about 2.5 and had lots of toys and bigger things. Having an infant in a 2 bedroom, 950sq ft apartment wasn't an issue at all.
This is how I feel. It's not idea, but it can work. We weren't planning to have kids for a few years either but I'm so glad our little one is with us now. I get stressed out about our lack of space and places to store things but it's okay. We're looking for a house and I know this situations is temporary. It's doable and getting out is key. We don't have a lot of places to go but even just heading to the supermarket or going for a walk seems to help. Keeping things cleaned up and organized (as much as possible) is also important. If the apartment is messy I get stressed out.
We were in an apartment for 5 years and finally left apartment life this summer. There were positives and negatives but we survived. DH was in the middle of applying for PhD programs when we got a surprise BFP with our first and I couldn't find a job that paid enough to cover the insane cost of daycare where he was in school (NYC, daycare for one infant started at $2K/month) so I was a SAHM. I have absolutely no regrets as what DH is doing will provide well for our family and getting his PhD is the only way to follow the career path he wants (he wants to be a Professor).
While I didn't love apartment living with children, we had no choice and made it work. The kids had no idea our home was small and money was tight, they knew they were loved and that their parents were happy (because the money was a small stress but we both are very happy with what we're doing).
Yup - SFHs in our neighborhood cost >$1 mil, so we will always be apartment/condo dwellers. DD is just going to have to deal. : )
Seriously, though, home is home. Tons of people all over the world raise kids in apartments. I actually like having smaller than average living quarters - we don't accumulate so much cr@p. I feel like in the long run it will be helpful in teaching the difference between wants and needs. And I always have the excuse that DD's grandparents can't buy her the latest hideous plastic monstrosity because there just isn't room.
Cam 6.6.10 - Autism, Global Developmental Delay, Mixed Receptive/Expressive Communication Disorder
This. Ds will be 4 in December and we now have a 3 month old. We are in a 2 bedroom (960 sq. Ft.) and doing great. I actually love it. I dont have a big house to take care of so housework never gets too overwhelming. If anything needs repaired I just call the maintenance man and he is over here same day to fix it. I dont have to mow my grass or maintain bushes and I have a pool that I dont have to clean myself. When our lease is up we are going to move to a 3 bedroom though just so we have a little more room to spread out and get and office.
This, minus that we actually live in a 500sq one bedroom (our bed is in a corner of the living room.) Would we like more space? Yes. Do we need more space? No. While pregnant I spent a lot of time purging extra stuff and I'll keep doing it as the LO collects more stuff. And I've made it clear to friends and family that we won't be accepting extra toys and knick-knacks we don't need.
We plan on staying here for a few more years because with a dog a 2 bedroom apartment would run us about $1400/month or more. In our neighborhood a 4 bedroom would cost at least $800,000 and probably closer to 1 million so we will never be buying a home. We have tons of parks and museums close by and the beach and woods are 30 minutes away so I don't think we'll be wanting for things to do.
We lived in an apartment the until DD1 turned 1 and we moved to a new state. We would have stayed there a lot longer otherwise. We loved our city apartment so much. There was always something going on outside our windows and it was fun to watch with DD and talk to her about what was going on (living on the top floor helped for privacy and noise reduction).
The only thing that bugged me was lugging the stroller and baby up and down three flights of stairs every day. I built up my biceps though!
BFP #1 9/7/10, EDD 5/14/11, Violet born 5/27/11.
BFP #2 4/9/12, EDD 12/16/12, M/C Rory 4/24/12.
BFP #3 10/6/12, EDD 6/16/12., Matilda born 6/17/13.
Hey, we're neighbors! And we're in an apartment too.
You'll be fine, just make sure that as baby gets older you go to parks, etc. so that LO gets fresh air. That's the major downside to apartment life. I'm glad we're moving soon but apartment living has never been an issue with DS.