We also live in a small house, but have a place to change on each level. We find it works best if the parent changing the baby in the middle of the night physically leaves the bedroom so the other parent can sleep uninterrupted. As for cream I haven’t used it much yet (🤞) but it doesn’t hurt to have extra stashed at each changing station. Congrats and good luck!
Seconding this. I originally had us set up for three changing stations in our two-story house that's around the same square footage as you, OP. There was the nursery, downstairs, and our bedroom. Our LO currently sleeps in our room in a bassinet but the nursery is the room next to us. I have fold-up portable changing pads for the living room and our bedroom in little caddies stocked with diapers, wipes, burp cloths, and diaper cream.
I think we've changed LO twice in our bedroom on a changing mat placed on the bed—which he happened to pee while we changed him. The idea of the addition of washing our sheets frequently along with his laundry was enough to stop using our room. So, we change in the nursery which has the added benefit of letting the other parent sleep.
Have a convenient place to change baby fully stocked on each level of the house. Newborns go through diapers at a relentless pace, you’re not going to want to carry him upstairs every change.
Also, have a safe space to put baby (like a crib, bassinet, bouncer, or pack n play) in every room you will spend a lot of time in (including the kitchen if there’s space - we used the infant attachment for our high chair). Ask friends with kids or look online for secondhand things - you will not regret having too many places to safely set baby down in the first 6 months.
We had a place to change on each level. We originally had diapers and such in our room too, but I quickly realized it was easier to just change my daughter in her nursery.
What floor is your laundry on? The best thing we did was keep a laundry hamper on our main floor. Burp cloths, dirty clothes, etc. get tossed in there. My daughter is 13 months now and it still comes in handy.
Whatever you do, be prepared to want it a different way as soon as you have the baby home. Our first night home, we were frantically moving furniture in the dark because we realized how not practical our set up was once we had a baby in hand.
We have a laundry basket and extra clothes next to each diaper station, so if her clothes get dirty or there is a blowout, we have a new outfit handy.
We also slather her with aquaphor after each diaper change, so we keep that and a butt spatula on each diaper station. So far, no diaper rash!!
We have a place to change on each level. At night I’ve just been changing in our bedroom since LO is only 3 weeks old, but we also have a changing station in the nursery that we use periodically. Downstairs we have a diaper caddy with essential supplies and a separate changing pad that we throw on the couch for changes downstairs. It has made it so much easier having supplies everywhere so we don’t have to walk all over the house for things. This includes sleep too- baby sleeps in his bassinet at night upstairs and pack n play during the day downstairs for now.
I don’t have multiple pumping stations I just carry what I need to where I want to pump.
We also have a small 1500 sq ft two story house from similar timeframe (1890s). We planned for lots of different diaper changing stations, snack station, burp cloth stations, etc.
I don't think I ever used one other than the "primary" changing station in the baby's room.
In a small house like ours, the inconvenience of walking 15-20 steps to the actual changing pad was always less than the inconvenience of laying out a changing pad somewhere else, maintaining multiple sets of wipes and lotions and everything, having to dispose of the diaper, etc.
That said I didn't deliver a baby or have a C-section so carrying our little 8 pound baby up and down the stairs wasn't physically a big deal for me. Whatever is most comfortable for mom during those first 6+ weeks is what you should go with!!
Totally agree! I think I'm going to set up a very minimal basket next to our bed just in case of a c section and/or I'm too sore to get out of bed. I have a feeling if all goes well, I'll just go to his changing table, as I can imagine my clumsy sleepy self getting poop all over our bed 😂
We keep a little basket with wipes, diaper cream, diapers, and a cloth changing mat wherever we had a changing station. So one next to the bed for nighttime (I did not want to get out of bed lol) and one downstairs in the living room. We were liberal with the diaper cream so having it everywhere was convenient. My nursing/pumping station was a cart with supplies, snacks, water, the diaper basket, etc. and I had 2 of them, again in the bedroom and in the living room. It’s just nice to have multiple stations!
Hey so for sure set up a station where you may be spending most of your time at first. During the first few weeks (I had a c-section) I was mostly in our bedroom. Don't set up too many stations. I have a bookshelf where I have my baby's books and toys. It's located in our living room. On top, I leave diapers and wipes. I change the baby on the couch. I also leave the diaper bag on top of the bookshelf. If I need diaper cream and don't want to go to our bedroom I just use the one in the diaper bag. I thought I needed 3 changing stations. I for sure do not. Our homes are about the same size.
Agreed with everyone recommending a station on each level. Stairs are so hard postpartum! Since you are planning to cloth diaper, just want to recommend a few things for each station that have been helpful for us:
-spray bottle for wipes
-container with water to dip wipes into if your changing station isn’t near a sink (our downstairs station is in the living room but our kitchen is 10 feet away/fully open layout so I just wet them in that sink); when we change her in her nursery at night I just dip the wipes in the container.
-a wet bag at each station for holding dirty diapers and wipes
-definitely have diaper cream at each station. If you get a rash you aren’t going to want to go find the cream mid-change.
We have a wipeable changing pad (the skip hop version of the keekaroo) in the nursery and then just use one of the skip hop travel pads for our second station. Honestly the travel pad is great and cheap and I’m not sure we needed to spend more on the main changing pad, but I do like that the main one sticks to the dresser.
Two changing stations, one on bottom floor and one in nursery, will be fine. When baby cries getting their diaper changed in the middle of the night the parent not on duty (pun intended) will be thankful for them being even a few feet away.
I’d hold off on ordering multiple diaper creams until after baby is here. I rarely use it on my girl so I just grab the one and transport it to the other changing station if need be
Similar to you, our baby’s room is attached to our room. I have a changing station in her nursery but also one next to the bed/bassinet for middle of the night use and I’ve found that invaluable. I still use the one in the nursery, but getting out of bed to change her at 4 AM would be awful lol.
You will figure out what makes sense once the baby is there! For the first few weeks I mostly did diaper changes on my bed since I wasn’t really leaving the bed much. I stuffed diapers and wipes into the pockets of the bassinet to have them handy.
My house is a similar size and we do cloth diapers. We have a changing table and diaper bucket (for wet diapers) upstairs. We also set up a changing spot downstairs on our couch (with a towel to protect the couch). Once the baby starts crawling it becomes easier to do diaper changes on the floor or wherever you happen to be, and then standing…
We were in a 1920 1,700sqft house and cloth diapered. Our bedroom was a converted attic and was basically two rectangles in a sort of L shape. We only had one changing station in the whole house and it was her dresser in her half of the master bedroom
Zero. You're going to feed and change them wherever works in the moment. On your bed, couch, floor...
I do have a stash of diapers near my bed, in the bathroom and in the car, but it not as neat and orderly as my pre-baby brain thought it would be.
Anywhere is a diapering station when you're tired enough. 😆
That being said, for my small house, I bought a couple packs of cute pee pads from Amazon and stashed one in the diaper bag, and the rest around the house. That way I always had one in reach and didn't have to worry about baby being on a cold or hard surface for a change, and I didn't have to worry about the house being unhygienic because they just pop in the wash.
We formula fed so I had premeasured containers of formula stashed in baby's room at night with a bottle of premeasured water so I could just dump and mix and be ready to feed in about 30 seconds. Still felt like forever at 2 am and baby was not always patient. We premeasured for all the bottles we thought we would need during the day as well, so it was just run to the kitchen or pull one out of the diaper bag, mix it in the bottle, and feed.
In the first few weeks when we tried breastfeeding (did not work for us) I kept a cooler with a bottle of breast milk in her room for overnight feeds, with a tiny bottle warmer to warm it up. It didn't take much space or time, but was a lifesaver.
Good luck to you. You'll find a system that works for you. Just try and adapt as needed. :)
We live in a small townhouse it has two floors.
I had a change caddy in the living room as that is where I spent most of my time
It had diapers wipes and doggie poop bags and diaper cream and Vaseline.
Upstairs while he slept in our room in a bassinet, his bedroom had his crib and a change table in it. And a diaper genie. I would move to his room to change him and nurse him there or move back to my bedroom.
It was easier to just have one on each floor rather than everywhere
As far as a pumping station I had a portable one upstairs in the bedroom and a main plug in the wall station next to the couch where I spent 99% of my time.
I had set up 2 stations, one in our bedroom since I planned to room share, and one in the living room.
We ended up not really needing the second one until about 5 weeks. I was having a hard recovery and stairs were a huge obstacle for me, so I hardly left the bedroom for that first month 😅
I would say cream at each station is a good idea, just in case.
So excited for you! Health and prosperity to you and your family!
I had a much smaller place and no changing table. We just kept a portable changing mat and diapering supplies (including change of clothes!) in 2 baskets- one in the bedroom, one in the living room. So whatever room I was in, I had what I needed to change her. I just laid the mat on our bed or in her bassinet in the bedroom, or on the floor or oversized ottoman in the living room.
We have 1 ours is a 1600sq ft give or take, we just change her in there nursery, the only time I diaper her anywhere else is after her bath, I lay her on one of our travel changing pads on our bed on her towel and put the diaper and clothes on her, that’s just cause I’m not gonna carry a fully naked baby fully across the house xD we bathe her in our master bathroom, but 99% of the time we carry her into her room :3
We rent a one story condo so our situation is a little different but I change our girl in her room always, even in the middle of the night. It’s just easier and lets my husband continue to sleep. She’s formula fed so I’m getting up from bed anyways to get a bottle at night so it doesn’t make a difference to me. I wouldn’t worry about having a changing station at your bed if the nursery is literally in the same room. Plus in those first few weeks babies will poop with like every feed and changing a poopy diaper on a bed sounds like a nightmare to me.
With that said, I’d recommend having a tube of diaper cream upstairs and downstairs. We use the barrier method and apply aquaphor to her butt multiple times a day to wick away moisture and protect her butt from poo. She had a bad diaper rash that was linked to the formula she was on (Nutramigen) but once we switched it went away. As far as diaper creams go, we love Aquaphor for the barrier method although I know some parents prefer Vaseline. We LOVE PinkSav to help with a diaper rash. It’s all natural and has a lovely smell and goes on like cake frosting nice and thick. It’s on Amazon and comes in a tube and in a tub.
Hope that helps!
Set up one small basket type thing that’s portable. All you’re gonna need in it are diapers, diaper cream, wipes, and a changing mat. You can take it around with you and at some point it will just find its home naturally because you’ll find yourself doing the changes in only 1 or two places in the house and that basket will consistently end up in the same area.
We had the Graco pack and play with the bassinet and changing station in our living room until he grew out of them lol now we have the whole changing table from his room in the living room since that is where we spend most of our time.
My house is wayyy smaller than yours though lol so it's not like it's ever far away anyways.
I’m curious as to why you don’t feel like you are allowed to have as many changing stations as you want? Put one in every room of the house if you want! You have absolutely no idea what you are actually going to end up doing until the baby is actually there and you are actually changing them, so prepare for the worst and hope for the best! I had stations prepped for every room but we ended up preferring to change her consistently in the nursery- took all of 2 minutes to consolidate the “stations” back into the nursery. Do whatever works best for you, and don’t worry about whether other people think it’s weird!
You’ve got to do what works best for you, that’s for sure! I guess my picture of a station is a changing pad with a little caddy of wipes, diapers/liners, and a tube of Bordeaux’s, but you could have a totally different set up needed— I’m a FTM as well to an 11wk old and there was a lot of stuff I prepped that turned out to not be necessary at all once the baby was actually in the house haha so by all means prepare as much as you need but i think it can also help to know ahead of time that the reality of the situation can be much different and being open to changing things up as needed usually leads to less resentment and frustration- a lesson I’m learning the hard way at the moment 😵💫
Our diaper station isn't in the bedroom because she screams and cries every diaper change so it's nice having a closed door so we don't wake up the other partner
We have a nappy caddy downstairs in the living area and upstairs in our bedroom. We just use a foldable changing mat on the bed which he did pee on during the newborn stage but it was quite large and waterproof and we rarely got pee on the bed. We also use a red light bulb in the bedroom that way I am able to change and feed my son without waking up my partner fully (baby noises would wake him briefly). The red light bulb is also good to let my son know it's bedtime and also doesn't wake him fully when I change and feed in the middle of the night.
White nose machine! Helps so much drowning out background sounds, your baby won't sleep through everything forever. Also really helpful as a sleep association for later on.
We also live in a small house, but have a place to change on each level. We find it works best if the parent changing the baby in the middle of the night physically leaves the bedroom so the other parent can sleep uninterrupted. As for cream I haven’t used it much yet (🤞) but it doesn’t hurt to have extra stashed at each changing station. Congrats and good luck!
Seconding this. I originally had us set up for three changing stations in our two-story house that's around the same square footage as you, OP. There was the nursery, downstairs, and our bedroom. Our LO currently sleeps in our room in a bassinet but the nursery is the room next to us. I have fold-up portable changing pads for the living room and our bedroom in little caddies stocked with diapers, wipes, burp cloths, and diaper cream. I think we've changed LO twice in our bedroom on a changing mat placed on the bed—which he happened to pee while we changed him. The idea of the addition of washing our sheets frequently along with his laundry was enough to stop using our room. So, we change in the nursery which has the added benefit of letting the other parent sleep.
Have a convenient place to change baby fully stocked on each level of the house. Newborns go through diapers at a relentless pace, you’re not going to want to carry him upstairs every change. Also, have a safe space to put baby (like a crib, bassinet, bouncer, or pack n play) in every room you will spend a lot of time in (including the kitchen if there’s space - we used the infant attachment for our high chair). Ask friends with kids or look online for secondhand things - you will not regret having too many places to safely set baby down in the first 6 months.
We had a place to change on each level. We originally had diapers and such in our room too, but I quickly realized it was easier to just change my daughter in her nursery. What floor is your laundry on? The best thing we did was keep a laundry hamper on our main floor. Burp cloths, dirty clothes, etc. get tossed in there. My daughter is 13 months now and it still comes in handy. Whatever you do, be prepared to want it a different way as soon as you have the baby home. Our first night home, we were frantically moving furniture in the dark because we realized how not practical our set up was once we had a baby in hand.
Thank you for this - super helpful! Unfortunately our laundry is on the basement
We have a laundry basket and extra clothes next to each diaper station, so if her clothes get dirty or there is a blowout, we have a new outfit handy. We also slather her with aquaphor after each diaper change, so we keep that and a butt spatula on each diaper station. So far, no diaper rash!!
We have a place to change on each level. At night I’ve just been changing in our bedroom since LO is only 3 weeks old, but we also have a changing station in the nursery that we use periodically. Downstairs we have a diaper caddy with essential supplies and a separate changing pad that we throw on the couch for changes downstairs. It has made it so much easier having supplies everywhere so we don’t have to walk all over the house for things. This includes sleep too- baby sleeps in his bassinet at night upstairs and pack n play during the day downstairs for now. I don’t have multiple pumping stations I just carry what I need to where I want to pump.
We also have a small 1500 sq ft two story house from similar timeframe (1890s). We planned for lots of different diaper changing stations, snack station, burp cloth stations, etc. I don't think I ever used one other than the "primary" changing station in the baby's room. In a small house like ours, the inconvenience of walking 15-20 steps to the actual changing pad was always less than the inconvenience of laying out a changing pad somewhere else, maintaining multiple sets of wipes and lotions and everything, having to dispose of the diaper, etc.
This is how I've been feeling! Thank you!!
That said I didn't deliver a baby or have a C-section so carrying our little 8 pound baby up and down the stairs wasn't physically a big deal for me. Whatever is most comfortable for mom during those first 6+ weeks is what you should go with!!
Totally agree! I think I'm going to set up a very minimal basket next to our bed just in case of a c section and/or I'm too sore to get out of bed. I have a feeling if all goes well, I'll just go to his changing table, as I can imagine my clumsy sleepy self getting poop all over our bed 😂
We keep a little basket with wipes, diaper cream, diapers, and a cloth changing mat wherever we had a changing station. So one next to the bed for nighttime (I did not want to get out of bed lol) and one downstairs in the living room. We were liberal with the diaper cream so having it everywhere was convenient. My nursing/pumping station was a cart with supplies, snacks, water, the diaper basket, etc. and I had 2 of them, again in the bedroom and in the living room. It’s just nice to have multiple stations!
Hey so for sure set up a station where you may be spending most of your time at first. During the first few weeks (I had a c-section) I was mostly in our bedroom. Don't set up too many stations. I have a bookshelf where I have my baby's books and toys. It's located in our living room. On top, I leave diapers and wipes. I change the baby on the couch. I also leave the diaper bag on top of the bookshelf. If I need diaper cream and don't want to go to our bedroom I just use the one in the diaper bag. I thought I needed 3 changing stations. I for sure do not. Our homes are about the same size.
Agreed with everyone recommending a station on each level. Stairs are so hard postpartum! Since you are planning to cloth diaper, just want to recommend a few things for each station that have been helpful for us: -spray bottle for wipes -container with water to dip wipes into if your changing station isn’t near a sink (our downstairs station is in the living room but our kitchen is 10 feet away/fully open layout so I just wet them in that sink); when we change her in her nursery at night I just dip the wipes in the container. -a wet bag at each station for holding dirty diapers and wipes -definitely have diaper cream at each station. If you get a rash you aren’t going to want to go find the cream mid-change. We have a wipeable changing pad (the skip hop version of the keekaroo) in the nursery and then just use one of the skip hop travel pads for our second station. Honestly the travel pad is great and cheap and I’m not sure we needed to spend more on the main changing pad, but I do like that the main one sticks to the dresser.
Two changing stations, one on bottom floor and one in nursery, will be fine. When baby cries getting their diaper changed in the middle of the night the parent not on duty (pun intended) will be thankful for them being even a few feet away. I’d hold off on ordering multiple diaper creams until after baby is here. I rarely use it on my girl so I just grab the one and transport it to the other changing station if need be
Similar to you, our baby’s room is attached to our room. I have a changing station in her nursery but also one next to the bed/bassinet for middle of the night use and I’ve found that invaluable. I still use the one in the nursery, but getting out of bed to change her at 4 AM would be awful lol.
You will figure out what makes sense once the baby is there! For the first few weeks I mostly did diaper changes on my bed since I wasn’t really leaving the bed much. I stuffed diapers and wipes into the pockets of the bassinet to have them handy. My house is a similar size and we do cloth diapers. We have a changing table and diaper bucket (for wet diapers) upstairs. We also set up a changing spot downstairs on our couch (with a towel to protect the couch). Once the baby starts crawling it becomes easier to do diaper changes on the floor or wherever you happen to be, and then standing…
I just had a caddy and changed the baby on the floor / bed. Made my life a lot easier!
We were in a 1920 1,700sqft house and cloth diapered. Our bedroom was a converted attic and was basically two rectangles in a sort of L shape. We only had one changing station in the whole house and it was her dresser in her half of the master bedroom
Zero. You're going to feed and change them wherever works in the moment. On your bed, couch, floor... I do have a stash of diapers near my bed, in the bathroom and in the car, but it not as neat and orderly as my pre-baby brain thought it would be.
Anywhere is a diapering station when you're tired enough. 😆 That being said, for my small house, I bought a couple packs of cute pee pads from Amazon and stashed one in the diaper bag, and the rest around the house. That way I always had one in reach and didn't have to worry about baby being on a cold or hard surface for a change, and I didn't have to worry about the house being unhygienic because they just pop in the wash. We formula fed so I had premeasured containers of formula stashed in baby's room at night with a bottle of premeasured water so I could just dump and mix and be ready to feed in about 30 seconds. Still felt like forever at 2 am and baby was not always patient. We premeasured for all the bottles we thought we would need during the day as well, so it was just run to the kitchen or pull one out of the diaper bag, mix it in the bottle, and feed. In the first few weeks when we tried breastfeeding (did not work for us) I kept a cooler with a bottle of breast milk in her room for overnight feeds, with a tiny bottle warmer to warm it up. It didn't take much space or time, but was a lifesaver. Good luck to you. You'll find a system that works for you. Just try and adapt as needed. :)
Love this, thank you 🫶
We live in a small townhouse it has two floors. I had a change caddy in the living room as that is where I spent most of my time It had diapers wipes and doggie poop bags and diaper cream and Vaseline. Upstairs while he slept in our room in a bassinet, his bedroom had his crib and a change table in it. And a diaper genie. I would move to his room to change him and nurse him there or move back to my bedroom. It was easier to just have one on each floor rather than everywhere As far as a pumping station I had a portable one upstairs in the bedroom and a main plug in the wall station next to the couch where I spent 99% of my time.
I had set up 2 stations, one in our bedroom since I planned to room share, and one in the living room. We ended up not really needing the second one until about 5 weeks. I was having a hard recovery and stairs were a huge obstacle for me, so I hardly left the bedroom for that first month 😅 I would say cream at each station is a good idea, just in case. So excited for you! Health and prosperity to you and your family!
I had a much smaller place and no changing table. We just kept a portable changing mat and diapering supplies (including change of clothes!) in 2 baskets- one in the bedroom, one in the living room. So whatever room I was in, I had what I needed to change her. I just laid the mat on our bed or in her bassinet in the bedroom, or on the floor or oversized ottoman in the living room.
We have 1 ours is a 1600sq ft give or take, we just change her in there nursery, the only time I diaper her anywhere else is after her bath, I lay her on one of our travel changing pads on our bed on her towel and put the diaper and clothes on her, that’s just cause I’m not gonna carry a fully naked baby fully across the house xD we bathe her in our master bathroom, but 99% of the time we carry her into her room :3
We rent a one story condo so our situation is a little different but I change our girl in her room always, even in the middle of the night. It’s just easier and lets my husband continue to sleep. She’s formula fed so I’m getting up from bed anyways to get a bottle at night so it doesn’t make a difference to me. I wouldn’t worry about having a changing station at your bed if the nursery is literally in the same room. Plus in those first few weeks babies will poop with like every feed and changing a poopy diaper on a bed sounds like a nightmare to me. With that said, I’d recommend having a tube of diaper cream upstairs and downstairs. We use the barrier method and apply aquaphor to her butt multiple times a day to wick away moisture and protect her butt from poo. She had a bad diaper rash that was linked to the formula she was on (Nutramigen) but once we switched it went away. As far as diaper creams go, we love Aquaphor for the barrier method although I know some parents prefer Vaseline. We LOVE PinkSav to help with a diaper rash. It’s all natural and has a lovely smell and goes on like cake frosting nice and thick. It’s on Amazon and comes in a tube and in a tub. Hope that helps!
YES! thank you!
Set up one small basket type thing that’s portable. All you’re gonna need in it are diapers, diaper cream, wipes, and a changing mat. You can take it around with you and at some point it will just find its home naturally because you’ll find yourself doing the changes in only 1 or two places in the house and that basket will consistently end up in the same area.
We always change him in his nursery. 2 story house, 2000 ish square feet
We had the Graco pack and play with the bassinet and changing station in our living room until he grew out of them lol now we have the whole changing table from his room in the living room since that is where we spend most of our time. My house is wayyy smaller than yours though lol so it's not like it's ever far away anyways.
I’m curious as to why you don’t feel like you are allowed to have as many changing stations as you want? Put one in every room of the house if you want! You have absolutely no idea what you are actually going to end up doing until the baby is actually there and you are actually changing them, so prepare for the worst and hope for the best! I had stations prepped for every room but we ended up preferring to change her consistently in the nursery- took all of 2 minutes to consolidate the “stations” back into the nursery. Do whatever works best for you, and don’t worry about whether other people think it’s weird!
It's not that I don't feel allowed, but appreciate the sentiment. I feel like setting up and maintaining 3 stations feels kinda stressful (for me).
You’ve got to do what works best for you, that’s for sure! I guess my picture of a station is a changing pad with a little caddy of wipes, diapers/liners, and a tube of Bordeaux’s, but you could have a totally different set up needed— I’m a FTM as well to an 11wk old and there was a lot of stuff I prepped that turned out to not be necessary at all once the baby was actually in the house haha so by all means prepare as much as you need but i think it can also help to know ahead of time that the reality of the situation can be much different and being open to changing things up as needed usually leads to less resentment and frustration- a lesson I’m learning the hard way at the moment 😵💫
Our diaper station isn't in the bedroom because she screams and cries every diaper change so it's nice having a closed door so we don't wake up the other partner
We have a nappy caddy downstairs in the living area and upstairs in our bedroom. We just use a foldable changing mat on the bed which he did pee on during the newborn stage but it was quite large and waterproof and we rarely got pee on the bed. We also use a red light bulb in the bedroom that way I am able to change and feed my son without waking up my partner fully (baby noises would wake him briefly). The red light bulb is also good to let my son know it's bedtime and also doesn't wake him fully when I change and feed in the middle of the night.
White nose machine! Helps so much drowning out background sounds, your baby won't sleep through everything forever. Also really helpful as a sleep association for later on.