Hello, it’s been a while! In this post, I’m going to show you how my house looks like nowadays after having a baby. Or you can also watch the video for more detailed views here:

It seems like it has been forever since my last post here. In fact, I have not posted anything at all last year. I hope you still remember me if you’ve previously followed this blog.

So the past two years have been a little eventful for me, especially last year. A lot of things happened that kept me busy and then I found out I was pregnant. I was really excited but also tired all the time. It was overwhelming being pregnant and for some reasons, I decided I wanted to take a break and just focus my time and energy on my pregnancy.

But that was last year. Long story short, the baby is now here and suddenly my home is not exactly the same anymore compared to the last time it was shown on this blog as we made quite a bit of adjustment here and there to accommodate our new bundle of joy in our apartment.

To tell the truth, I’m a little bit reluctant to show how my house looks like nowadays because honestly, I feel that it’s always in a constant mess. Looking back, I also don’t think I plan it very well in the beginning as everything seems like all over the place now. However, I still want to share it with you anyway in hope that you may find this post useful as some sorts of references or lessons for you to learn from.

To give you some background, we live in a typical 4 room HDB flat in Singapore with a floor space of around 92sqm. Our flat comes with 3 bedrooms including master bedroom but we have converted one of the rooms into a study or home office. Before the baby’s arrival, we used the other room as our gym room. 

This was how our gym room looked like before we slowly turned it into a nursery for the baby:

When the pandemic started two years ago, we decided to get a treadmill and a gym bike so we can exercise at home. I practiced yoga here as well. It lasted for a good two years before we found out I was pregnant so we had to give it up to make space for the baby.

The Nursery

After saying goodbye to the gym room, we planned around with the space that we have to fit in baby’s furnitures. We didn’t really set a specific theme in mind when we planned for the nursery because I want my child to be able to decide it for himself when he’s older if he wants to. For now, our main focus is to make the space comfortable and efficient as well as flexible enough for future adjustments if needed.

But still, I can’t resist to add some decorations here and there to spice up the room a little bit. But nothing permanent, tho, as everything including the wall stickers we put up are removable.

To save space, we use a long drawer cabinet that doubles as a changing table and storage. Above that, we put up wall shelving to store small items like books or toys, and also hang things like the white noise machine for the baby.

We also squeezed in a sliding wardrobe into the room to keep bulky items like diapers and random boxes of baby stuff.

Initially, we thought that my mother and her helper will be coming to stay in our house to help with the baby, so we decided to get this bed with that comes with an underbed for them. But with the whole covid situation, they couldn’t come. I still use the bed during the day to breastfeed my baby but unfortunately the underbed remains under utilised until today. We’re actually thinking of replacing this bed with something more appropriate for our baby once he sleeps by himself because the bed may be a little too high for him. But for now, it stays like that.

The crib is currently being used as a nap bed during the day because our baby sleeps in a bassinet in our master bedroom at night.

Newborn Nighttime Setup

From the newborn period, our baby has been sleeping in the same room with us and this is how we arrange our small bedroom to make space for the bassinet.

We pushed our queen bed to one side of the wall and placed the bassinet on the other side. Our bassinet can be attached to the bed as a co-sleeper but I decided to just placed it beside the bed so I have to get up to pick up the baby. This way, I’ll be more awake during the nighttime duties and it’s also safer for the baby.

We only bring necessary items into our bedroom and leave the rest in his nursery or play area in the living room so not to overcrowd the room.

After we put the baby to sleep for the night, we make sure to bring the diaper caddy and Haakaa pump into our bedroom to minimise the amount of time we leave the room for nighttime feeding and diaper-changing duty.

The setup will be different if the baby is taking formula, but the idea is just to tone everything down and keep our bedroom as mellow as possible without too much toys, colours, or anything else that will overstimulate the baby. This way, hopefully, our baby can learn to associate bedroom and bassinet with sleeping time and get a good sleep each night.

Play Room

We placed a playpen with a soft mat in our living area as a place for our baby to enjoy his daily activities and tummy time session. As our dog, Momo, is always so curious about the baby and our baby is still in the loves-to-grab-everything-and-put-into-the-mouth stage, this playpen is necessary to keep both of them safe. As of now, I only let Momo be near to our baby when me or my husband are around to carefully watch them.

Since I also look after the baby by myself most of the time, a playpen is very useful when I need to quickly do the housework or other activities during the day. Sometimes my baby also naps inside the playpen.

I try to make the playroom practical and comfortable for our baby’s daily activities. Recently, we also installed an air conditioner to our living area to cool down the space because my baby easily gets hot, especially during the day. If you’re interested to know how our air conditioner is being added to our flat, I plan to make a separate post on that and share it here soon.

Kitchen

This is how I organise baby milk bottles and breast pump parts. I store all of my baby feeding related stuff in the corner of my kitchen so everything is in one place.

Before I get my current steriliser, I used the one without the drying function and I totally recommend that you avoid that if possible. Steriliser that comes with a dryer will save you lots of time and space because you won’t need additional drying rack that will cramp up your surface. Not to mention, in Singapore weather, it will take very long for the bottles or small parts of your breast pumps to dry.

I also added portable light to help brighten up the storage area. When it’s bright, it also makes it easy to see if the bottles are clean or dirty.

In our freezer, I put a dedicated storage baskets to store pumped breastmilk and homemade baby food. I arrange the bags so that the newer batch is on the back and the older batch is on the front for easy access.

During my confinement period, we installed temporary baby gate to keep Momo in the kitchen when my in laws came to help bathe the baby in the morning. This gate is the one we used to potty train him when he was still a puppy last time. We left the gate open most of the time but since the door has an auto-close system, we use S hook and suction hook to keep it open.

Storage Room

Living in an HDB flat, sometimes I wonder where do parents keep their baby’s stroller?

In our flat, we built a small entryway as a space where we wear our shoes before we go out, but it’s not big enough to put our stroller there. I decided to keep ours in the household shelter a.k.a bomb shelter. Before keeping it, I wipe the wheels in the entryway and fold it before carrying it into the storage room. I try not to push the stroller on our vinyl floor to keep our living area clean. I also put a floor mat underneath the stroller as a dedicated parking space so we will remember not to put anything else there.

Laundry

In our laundry room a.k.a service yard, I added a small plastic drying rack there to hang small baby clothings. I also add another wall shelving on top of the washing machine so we can put our baby detergents there.

Bathroom

Nothing much changed in our bathroom except that now we have a portable baby bath tub for our baby. We choose the tub that can be folded so it helps to save the space.

And that’s it.

I hope you find this post useful or helpful somehow. Mom-life is busy but I will try to continue posting more homemaking projects here! Henceforth, I will also start adding baby-related contents because that’s basically what my life revolves around now.

As for doggy-related posts, yes, those will still be created too. When I shared snippets of my baby and Momo on Instagram, I have been asked about how I prepared my dog for the baby’s arrival and how I introduced the two and eventually make them get along. Right now I’m compiling tips about that and will be posting them soon.

So look out for future posts and see you there 🙂