Taking this in another direction, why does the bedroom need to be turned into a nursery? Is there a way to keep you in your own bed and make room for baby, too? We live in a small railroad, too, and we do not have a nursery.

if you do need a new mattress, we got a good deal last year from www.ccmattress.com
We went to a few mattress stores in the city, wrote down what we liked, and called C&C. They told us what was comparable, and we bought it for about half of what Sleepys was charging.

I agree with lb. You want all the quality sleep you can get with a newborn baby and all the life changes he/she brings. Therefore, I suggest keeping your bed as is and add a bassinet, (pack n play, compact crib, whatever) to the room. The baby will be perfectly content and you'll be thankful when you collapse on your mattress every night!

We originally planned to do just that -- I have an heirloom cradle/bassinet, beautiful but on the large side (if we want to use a bassinet, we need to use the family one -- politics). But it's a tight squeeze in our tiny bedroom, and would only work for a couple of months, max. Our living room could fit the crib later on, but only near the windows, and since we face the street on the first floor we think it's too noisy/dirty for a baby.

Make sure the heirloom bassinet meets current safety standards
http://www.birth.com.au/class.asp?class=6729&page=1#bass

If it doesn't then don't use it! And then you can get a smaller one that fits your room better.

Good luck on the arranging though. We live in a 590 square foot 1 bedroom with our 2 year old and we're starting to think about other arrangements to help everyone get more sleep. Currently he has a twin mattress next to ours and he slept with us for his first year.

Ariel -- good point -- we had found a new bassinet mattress for the heirloom but had not realized that the solid wood sides are not considered SIDS-safe. We vetoed it just based on the large footprint/short lifespan.

i'm with lb on this one too. (literally, i mean, i cosleep with lb 1). we live in a very small space and had the same dilemma about what kind of baby bedding to choose. the bedroom is so small that pretty much our bed can only fit in in only one orientation. we do the cosleeping thing because its our parenting style, but its also very space efficient.

my only advice is that when baby first arrived we got the bare minimum of baby gear (bouncy chair, bumbo, clothes, etc) and tucked it in precisely where it would fit and things felt very tight. it was very conceptual, like planning out blocks of space. and the baby kinda just lays where you put her, you know.

now the kid is a crawler and all over the place and the apartment is different. its small so we are sharing everything. its not so much sharing in the sense that we carve out nooks for her stuff, but that we have had to rethink the space on the whole so that its actively working for all of us. we all *live* there now. we all use the space. she has a chair at the table and space on the shelves where she can get down her toys, etc.

so i feel you on the sleeping issue, but urge you to look at your space as a whole and think long term. in our experience you need a bigger picture solution in a small space.

and yeah, that link lb posted -they were super knowledgeable and friendly. they saved us a ton of money on our mattress and have free delivery in the nyc area.

sue, to add to what karey says, you might find it a lot easier to think of how your space will work if you work it out after your baby arrives. before birth, so much of the conceptual "how will we fit" stuff is like mental gymnastics. and for most people we know (including ourselves) the plan has had to change and adapt with the child. so the perfect solution might present itself to you when you have your little one and can make decisions based on the actualities of your particular family life. it might just feel more organic that way.

We too live in a small space and urge you to reconsider. Consider a co-sleeper or a pack n' play for the first six months. (Your heirloom crib is unlikely to meet current safety guidelines.) Your infant will likely ignore both in the beginning anyway and even if you a nursery it will be for look. Consider having a dedicated small size clothing storage area (Ikea makes narrow dressers) or convert a closet. If you need a careseat, make it multiple function (Grace Safeseat, swing attachment, stroller attachement). Don't get hung up on the preparations or the space issue. Infants need very little besides an endless supply of snap t-shirts, food, diaper, and love.

After six months, evaluate what you need the space to do and then rearrange.

Back to the mattress question -- have you thought of the mattress pads at IKEA? They are quite comfortable and well-made (especially the top-end one).

As for the vintage bassinet, our second baby still uses ours at 7 months. You can use it until the pull themselves up independently to sitting or standing. (ours is a woven loyd loom).

Personally, I would not surrender my bedroom to the wee mite! Would a co-sleeper bed attachment fit in your room?

We're definitely in the "everything in its place" mode right now, but we know it'll be more communal once the little guy is crawling. We think we have the storage thing figured out (a minimum of stuff lots of built-in shelving), so the main issue is where he'll sleep ... a co-sleeper, even the mini size, can't fit in our bedroom because it's too narrow.

I'm not saying I'm waffling just yet, but do any of you have the crib in the living room, and how has it worked for you?

Like most people here, I don't have any good suggestions for the mattress pad, but want to put in my two cents about sleeping arrangements.

We co-slept until our son was about 6 months. At this point it no longer worked for us.

Our next arrangment was that he slept in his crib in our room (tight fit!) until he awoke to nurse (at about 11p.m.) after which I would put him in the port-a-crib in the living room. Our bedtime was limited to the time he woke to nurse. Otherwise we had to sneak in and not make a peep or he would wake up. And we couldn't talk, sneeze, cough or he would wake up, So much for my efforts to make him sleep through noise.

Two weeks ago we moved the queen sized bed into the living room to see how that worked (and if it didn't we were going to have to move to make it through our last year of school here). I was inspired by "Ron's Suite" from the SCC to just let our bed show, but to make it work with the rest of the living room. Since we are on a major budget, I still am working out a bedspread solution and a few other details. But so far, it's been great!

I like to answer people's questions but I don't have an answer to your mattress issue. However, I can't help offering my own experience.

We live in a tiny apartment - 265sqft - with our baby. When she was just born, she slept in a moses basket next to our bed, and often in our bed with us (although that eventually wasn't comfortable for any of us so she was back in the basket). Around 4 months, she was too long for the basket, so we got a mini-crib made by Cosco or Safety 1st (same thing... here is the Safety 1st one). It's a third of the size of a normal crib, fits nicely in our tiny (10x10) bedroom, and isn't heinous (mostly plain white metal.) Our baby is now 8 months and doing just fine in her mini crib.

Good luck with it all. If you decide to move to the living room, try to make it as comfortable as possible. You'll need good rest when you can get it. Congratulations!

hmm, narrowness. we co-sleep all in the same bed with a bedrail on the danger side (nothing sticking out). when she was a newborn we had one of those snugglenest things to alleviate fear of smooshing. now that she's big enough to smoosh back, she's just in with us. warning though, mornings look like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/margotmac/369194559/

a friend of ours had a story about rocking the cradle at the foot of her bed with her toe while half asleep. no foot of bed solution?

weren't there some pictures posted here a while ago, of a sunny apartment with the living room divided into baby sleep area and couch area by a screen of shelves? somewhere european if i remember correctly.

k raises a good point about noise issues. we are still struggling with them because our place is so small and baby goes to bed before we do.

my husband and i also have a small bedroom and space. we've decided to go with the snugglenest, which is placed on the bed, between the pillows. this saves us precious floor space, and surprisingly, does not take up too much room on the bed. it's also portable and does double duty as a changing table.