My baby sleeps in a windowless closet. For reals. Since we moved to a bigger house this past summer, he no longer shares his bedroom with my office, but he didn’t get any more space in the bargain. Let me take you on a tour.
Though it is a rather large closet, it is a terribly small bedroom. If you stand in the middle of it, you can touch every piece of furniture. To your immediate right against the wall is the full-size crib; but, don’t trip over the glider getting there. Beneath the crib, we have plastic bins for outgrown clothes and out-of-season-stuff. Behind the glider hides the perma-iPod that functions as a white noise machine and a video monitor aimed at the baby’s sleeping face (that we stopped using months ago).
Straight ahead is the small set of cubbies I bought from Target that holds books, toys, wipes, burp cloths, a coaster for baby bottles, and a small lamp (also from Target). As you can see, the stuff we need to grab for diaper changes is to the left and what we want for storytime is to the right.
To your left is the changing table. We keep all the diapers and supplies in the top drawer so they are within easy reach of the adult but not the kicking feet of the baby. Also? No need to mount any shelves on the wall. [Side note for interested germaphobes: I pretend that the froggy changing pad cover helps folks know which end the baby's head is supposed to be as opposed to his bum. I'm sure it totally works.]
Next to the changing table is the laundry bin and garbage cans. Because we compost diapers, we have one diaper pail for those and another trash for regular garbage.
And that’s it. Now we’ve spun all the way back to the beginning again. I tried to use my phone’s panorama perspective to capture the entire room at once.
This photo cracks me up because the super long perspective makes it almost look big. And the wobble around the boys shows how completely unable I am to hold the camera in a straight line. So, don’t worry, it’s a standard glider and the boys are just fine.
The noise-minimizing rug is 5×7 and almost fills the room. I added it to absorb some baby sounds; it kinda works. And I’m sure on some level the “no windows” is getting Sawyer to sleep later.
Do you have any more tips for my super little baby room?
I would have killed for a windowless baby room — especially during the tin foil on the windows to block out all light years.
I love it. A functioning and comforting space. Great reminder that not every child needs his/her own ginormous bedroom these days.
p.s. Adorable little models you have there!
@Wendy, I’ve been shocked at how it seems to make no difference in how late he sleeps. But I might be wrong.
@Crystal, Thanks! For a smaller space, I’d make use of a portable crib and small grown-up chair.
As parents we tell ourselves lies all the time. One of mine was probably, “This tin foil on the windows will surely make him sleep later!”
We have a DaVinci mini crib and I love it! It turns into a twin bed which is great because, really, how many people convert their full size cribs into double beds for their kids?
Our house is only a 2 bedroom but with only 1 child baby gets a large room with 2 windows….yet when I read this I thought to myself, gee, our baby’s room has 2 large windows but the blinds rarely get opened anyway. They need to be down for his two naps and the sun sets at 430…and frankly we spend most of the day in the kitchen and living room anyway. The kitchen also has patio doors which he loves since they’re at his level and he can also play peekaboo in the curtains
@Summersault, for my first baby’s room, we had curtains on top of blackout shades. It was a very dim room.
We took out a bathroom in our house to put our 2nd child in and it is now our 3rd child’s nursery. It fits a crib, change table with dresser underneath & bookshelf hutch above and a slanted toy shelf from Ikea. We have bins underneath our full size crib, as well, for holding the hand-me downs waiting for the next growth spurt. Now that our 3rd is out of diapers we no longer need the diaper pail and now there is a tiny bit of floor space open for who knows what but there is no room for a rocking chair of any size.! Since our tiny nursery was a small bathroom it has a window which I like for airing the place out whenever needed. I enjoyed seeing that others are being as creative as we’ve had to be in our 2-bedroom town-home in Vancouver, BC. Thanks!
@Carol, I applaud your creativity.
My blog is all about this type of creativity! I always say, you don’t need a McMansion to raise a happy, healthy baby – you just need different (smaller) stuff and lots of creativity and organization. You look like you have everything you need, and nothing you don’t (well except maybe the trash corner
) I have a bunch of other closet nurseries in my Pinterest board of small kid’s rooms if it makes you feel better about yours. http://pinterest.com/citybabyliving/small-space-kids-rooms/ I know this all sounds like shameless plugging, but really just wanted to share because I love this topic. One thing you could do is a bold color wall – sometimes bold colors actually make the room feel bigger.
Emily, I will check out your pinterest board, thanks. We are in denial about how long this temporary bedroom will be used so we haven’t even put up the decorative wall decals that I got.
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