One of the most common questions we got after announcing that we were pregnant was “are you going to buy a house?” Even though we live in a fairly metropolitan area, it seemed to be a common theme that baby = house. When we said no, we had no plans to give up our condo, we got a lot of raised eyebrows and questions about how we were going to fit in such a small space.

When we originally decided to buy a home, having kids wasn’t anywhere near our radar. We had a limited budget in a very high cost-of-living area, and our priorities were keeping our commute reasonable and to buy a space that wasn’t high maintenance. Neither Mr. Carrot nor I had any experience with home ownership, and our busy work lives, travel schedules and limited finances didn’t jibe with spending much time on figuring out how to do major renovations. Within these parameters, our best option was to buy a condo.

We bought a two bedroom unit in an older building rather than new construction, because the square footage was actually comparable to many houses in our area, whereas most new construction units were half the space. We assumed that if anything ever changed on the subject of kids, we at least had an extra bedroom to work with, and we’d figure out everything else. Now that Baby Carrot is a toddler and we are in full throes of being overrun by baby “stuff,” we’ve found some tactics to make our smaller space work for our needs, and discovered some benefits we hadn’t considered to condo living over owning a house.

1) Walls and corners are amazing organization (and baby proofing!) tools. I admit, I can be a bit neurotic about keeping our living space organized, so when Baby C started getting mobile and her activity needs increased beyond just a play mat, I was really nervous about tripping over toys and having no space to house her stuff. However, putting her toys around our wall spaces and corners ended up being a two-fold benefit – nothing was in the middle of the room AND we could hide some of the things that aren’t so baby safe but are hard to do without.

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A small play zone in our master bedroom doubling as disguise for an electrical outlet

One of the biggest challenges in condo living is that usually there’s a lack of central lighting and floor lamps are your only option for larger rooms. Floor lamps are also the hardest thing to babyproof against without setting up gates that block them off or nailing them to the wall with straps. Most of our floor lamps are hidden behind couches, but in some cases, there’s no way to cordon them off. We found, however, that setting up toys around them tends to distract Baby C from grabbing at them.


And now, for a game of find the lamp post…

I must add a caveat/disclaimer that I don’t advocate for this approach to baby proofing, especially if you have a kid that is intensely curious and will seek out the danger zones. In our case, Baby C definitely attempted to reach the outlet and the lamp posts a few times, but after a couple no-no’s, she seems to have realized that the surrounding toys are way more entertaining. We do have the standard outlet covers and door locks everywhere that we can’t surround with her things, but in these scenarios, the win-win of an organized space and hidden trouble spots works great for us.

2) Limited babyproofing and an all-access approach: When we first started reading about babyproofing, most of what we read talked about creating “safe zones” for kids to play in where they can be left unsupervised without any danger spots. With a condo, there’s not much flexibility to create a space like this, nor did we want Baby C to be limited in her own home, so we created play zones in every room in the house, including the kitchen, babyproofed whatever we couldn’t cover up, and tried to maintain an adult space as well as a safe baby space.


A space for all ages

Our living room, for example, has a typical coffee table with sharp corners, and off to the left is an etagere with glass shelves and breakables on them. Baby C has her play mat and toys all around the space. There’s a small piano and some books on the etagere’s bottom shelf, which distracts her from trying to hang off the higher ones and drag down breakable items. The etagere is also heavy enough that even my own full weight couldn’t bring it down, so we kept it there with that in mind and moved soft and unbreakable objects to another unit. We didn’t soften the coffee table corners, and actually put toys under the table and books on the bottom shelf so that Baby C could practice getting them and thus learn to avoid the dangerous spots.

3) Amenities galore! One of the things we hadn’t realized about condo living is the range of amenities that we have that make our lives and Baby C’s that much more comfortable than owning a house would. We have 24-7 access to a maintenance department that can fix most minor issues within 24 hours’ notice, if not faster, for a small fee, grounds that have a playground we can use any time, and a pool where Baby C is learning to swim without us incurring any extra costs for lessons or access to a community pool. The condo complex itself is a playground in some ways – on rainy days, Baby C runs around the long hallways and the open atrium in our building, and loves to explore benches, plants and other decor that she doesn’t see otherwise. She also loves to hang out on our balcony with her ball, and look out our huge windows after her naps – a recent favorite (and supervised!) activity.

I do find myself occasionally thinking that it’d be great to have a yard for Baby C to play in, and if we decide to have another child (a few years down the line, at the earliest), we would have to move into a bigger space, but for now, we’re finding that condo living is giving us the best of many worlds.

How do you maximize smaller spaces for kids?