DragonfliiMama
03-02-2009, 09:45 AM
I am looking for different thoughts on this, maybe some insight from experienced moms. We are trying to decide whether or not to renew the lease on our apartment. We love the complex, we have friends close by in the building across the driveway, and it's close enough for dh to walk/bike to work in good weather. And we are both sick and tired of moving. There's also the timing - I'm due Aug 1, the deadline to give notice of not renewing is also Aug 1, and our lease ends Sep 30. If we move, I will need to spend the summer packing as much as I can early. Moving is an awfully big project to take on that soon after having a baby. But we do have a LOT of very supportive friends and family who will help out with every step, all I need to do is tell them what I need, and that helps a lot.
On the other hand - the apartment we have is pretty small. It's a one bedroom, but it's a loft rather than an actual bedroom. This presents a couple of problems. 1) There's no bedroom door, meaning there's no way to separate the cats from the baby. I don't know if I will need to be able to do that or not, but it makes me a little nervous to not have the option. In emergencies, I can lock the cats in the bathroom, but that is not an ok solution for long periods of time or on a regular basis. 2) There's stairs. Not a big deal with an infant, but as soon as Feather starts getting mobile... We can put up baby gates though to deal with that. 3) Space. It's not that big a place. I can do a lot of decluttering and getting rid of things we don't use or don't need immediately available, but then I need to figure out storage for things we are keeping packed. 4) And one of the biggest concerns is money. We had basically decided we need to move because the rent is rather expensive. We have the option of transferring our lease to a different unit in the same complex, which would solve all of these problems and even allow us to move this spring instead of next fall, but our rent would go up and we really can't afford that.
But here's the thing that has me reconsidering again and wondering if I can make this place work another year. Here, we are thinking "this place is fine for an infant but will it work for a 1yo?" If we move, it will be a 1bed. I'm totally ok with having the baby in our room with us, and I've been told repeatedly it works better that way for about the first year anyway. Which totally make sense to me, so that's fine. But what about the year after that? If we move now, am I going to be asking the same question a year from now? "this place is fine for a 1yo but will it work for a 2yo?" I don't want to be looking at the exact same problem again next year!
Thoughts?
On the other hand - the apartment we have is pretty small. It's a one bedroom, but it's a loft rather than an actual bedroom. This presents a couple of problems. 1) There's no bedroom door, meaning there's no way to separate the cats from the baby. I don't know if I will need to be able to do that or not, but it makes me a little nervous to not have the option. In emergencies, I can lock the cats in the bathroom, but that is not an ok solution for long periods of time or on a regular basis. 2) There's stairs. Not a big deal with an infant, but as soon as Feather starts getting mobile... We can put up baby gates though to deal with that. 3) Space. It's not that big a place. I can do a lot of decluttering and getting rid of things we don't use or don't need immediately available, but then I need to figure out storage for things we are keeping packed. 4) And one of the biggest concerns is money. We had basically decided we need to move because the rent is rather expensive. We have the option of transferring our lease to a different unit in the same complex, which would solve all of these problems and even allow us to move this spring instead of next fall, but our rent would go up and we really can't afford that.
But here's the thing that has me reconsidering again and wondering if I can make this place work another year. Here, we are thinking "this place is fine for an infant but will it work for a 1yo?" If we move, it will be a 1bed. I'm totally ok with having the baby in our room with us, and I've been told repeatedly it works better that way for about the first year anyway. Which totally make sense to me, so that's fine. But what about the year after that? If we move now, am I going to be asking the same question a year from now? "this place is fine for a 1yo but will it work for a 2yo?" I don't want to be looking at the exact same problem again next year!
Thoughts?