The Savior of Small Baby Rooms: How to Choose the Right Furniture

If you're preparing a baby room for the first time, we imagine you've gone shopping with joy and returned home feeling a bit thoughtful. You're not wrong. Baby furniture stores offer pieces large enough to furnish a teenager's room. Leaving aside whether all these items are necessary for a baby, the question of where to fit everything awaits us.

However, with a little creativity and a few tips, you can choose more functional pieces instead of buying a complete baby furniture set. First, let's do a little planning. Then, learn the ways to prepare a tiny, warm baby room.

1. Playpen or Crib: Which is Right for You?

Wooden baby furniture adds a natural and warm atmosphere to a room. For this reason, you might dream of buying a rocking bamboo bassinet or a crib with wooden railings. However, let's remember that functionality is as important as beauty in choosing a crib.

Especially when it comes to rocking cribs, don't forget they can be more tiring to use. Because their railings often don't lower, it can be difficult to pick up your baby, especially at night. As an alternative to a traditional crib, you can opt for a playpen (also known as a pack 'n play).

Of course, you don't have to completely eliminate the wooden crib from your options. Depending on the size of your room and your usage habits, both the playpen and the wooden crib have their own unique advantages. Here are the differences between a playpen and a crib:

• Portability: A playpen can be easily moved thanks to its wheels. When you want to create a large play area in your baby's room, you can move the playpen to the master bedroom or living room.

• Convertible Cribs: A "grow-with-me" or convertible crib can also provide a space advantage in small rooms. This crib model has a dresser attached at the foot of the bed. It can be used this way until your baby is about 4 years old. This way, you don't need to allocate a separate space in the room for care items like diapers. When your baby grows, you remove the dresser and convert the crib into a toddler bed. In this respect, a convertible crib saves you both space and money.

• Storage: Since playpens do not have an area like drawers, they can only be used as a bed. Cribs, on the other hand, often have a trundle bed or storage drawers underneath. You can use these areas to store your baby's items like bedding.

• Play Area: If there is no play area left for your baby after placing a bed in the room, you can choose a playpen. A playpen can be easily used for both sleep and play. Thanks to models with mesh sides, babies can see outside and feel secure.

2. The Changing Table Dilemma

Changing diapers is not a very pleasant time for babies. Therefore, they often can't stay still and get fidgety. For this most active moment of your baby, you need a comfortable place to change them easily without straining your back.

When you look at baby room decoration ideas, you've probably seen a rectangular changing table. Yes, the changing table is one of the trendiest baby furniture items lately. However, this doesn't mean the changing table is the only option.

Especially if you are decorating a small baby room, a changing table can be more of a hassle than a convenience because it takes up too much space. Our suggestion is to choose a changing pad instead of this piece of furniture. You can easily use the changing pad on top of a piece of furniture in your baby's room or in your own bedroom. When you're not using it, you can put it away in a closet and have a tidy small baby room.

3. Wardrobe or Dresser: Which is Better?

We've come to the most confusing part of the question, "what should baby room furniture for small spaces be like?" Even though your baby is tiny, they have many items that are used almost every day. Bath supplies, skincare products, diapering items, layers of clothes... Therefore, it might seem like a large wardrobe is needed to keep the room tidy.

A wardrobe can be bought for larger baby rooms with the thought that it can be used in the future. However, babies don't really need a wardrobe until they are almost two years old. Almost all their items are foldable and made of soft material.

Therefore, especially in a small baby room, you can choose a dresser instead of a wardrobe to avoid taking up too much space. To find what you're looking for easily, you can pay attention that the dresser drawers are not too wide or deep. If you are decorating a very small baby room, you can opt for a small-sized dresser. In this case, you can put materials like diapers and creams in baskets in the bathroom.

If you have already bought a wardrobe, it's in your hands to use it most effectively, that is, to design useful baby furniture. For example, you can remove the closet doors and use the wardrobe as open shelving. This way, the space doesn't shrink when the doors open. Also, to organize the closet, you can remove the hanging rod if there is one and add shelves here.

Bonus: Tips for Utilizing Small Baby Rooms

The most suitable baby furniture for small homes is undoubtedly the one that takes up the least space. To both meet your baby's needs and prevent the room from looking crowded, you can apply these tips:

• Instead of toy baskets, you can utilize the walls. For example, you can stick a tree trunk-shaped decal on the wall. You can mount small shelves around the decal that look like branches. This way, you don't need extra space for your baby's toys and first books, and you get a cute look.

• Lights that don't come from overhead, like floor lamps, are one of your biggest helpers when feeding your baby at night. However, since the legs of a floor lamp take up space, you can use wall sconces instead.

• You can use light-colored wall paints like cream to make the baby's room look bright and large. You can also choose baby textiles in these neutral colors.

• You can minimize the need for baskets and shelves by hanging multi-pocket storage organizers on the wall, behind the door, and on the side of the crib.

• Instead of putting a rocking chair in the baby's room, you can sit on an armchair in the living room and get support from a nursing pillow.

• You might want to ensure the baby room rug is thin, without tassels, and has a simple pattern. This can make the room look more spacious.