With San Francisco rents through the roof, I’m seeing more and more friends and acquaintances having babies in one bedroom apartments. You would not believe how common this has become. Moving into a 2-bedroom really isn’t an option anymore unless you want to double your rent, likely into the $4,000-$5,000/month range.

I recently asked a friend to weigh in with questions about how to raise a baby in a one bedroom apartment. This was the (obvious) first question: “where will the baby sleep???”

Easy answer: anywhere!

Let’s talk through your options. Thankfully, San Francisco has some totally random real estate, with Victorian/Edwardian apartments full of alcoves and sink rooms and long hallways and doors galore and oddly humongo closets. (It goes without saying that the space should be one safe for a baby.)

1) Does your apartment have an office or small room that doesn’t technically qualify as a bedroom but is large enough to fit a crib?

This was our option. We have a 5×5 ft room off the kitchen, with a large window. The person who lived here before us used it as an office. We then used it as a cubby dining spot. When Bean was on the way, we drywalled it and use it as our micro-nursery. It doesn’t have a door, but a gate works just as well.

2) Do you have a walk-in closet that could fit a crib?

Several friends have converted walk-in closets into micro nurseries. It’s totally doable, and everyone has reported being very happy with it once the baby was born.

3) Do you have an alcove or nook that could fit a crib?

SF apartments really have a lot of nooks. Could you put a room separator down a part of your living room, to wall off a nursery? We know two couples who had alcoves in their hallway, previously used as office space, that they converted to micro-nurseries.

4) Would you mind sharing a room with baby?

A totally obvious answer, and one that most people do at some point, is having the baby sleep in their bedroom, either in a bassinet or in their own crib off to a corner. This can work into the toddler years too. One of the biggest parenting secrets is the number of children sleeping with their parents. IT IS SO COMMON and people generally don’t fess up to it.

5) Get a crib on wheels

This is the last option I’ve heard. Some cribs come with wheels (like the adorable Stokke Sleepi bed), and so baby can fall asleep in your quiet bedroom. When it’s nighttime and you want to go to watch tv in bed/sleep without waking the baby, you can wheel the crib into the living room. Might seem odd, but people swear by this.

So, doubters may say the problem is that these aren’t permanent solutions. Very true. But, they are temporary solutions that could save you $2,000 or $3,000/month until either you figure out a longer term solution, or you decide this one-bedroom living is actually perfectly fine.

But what happens once baby outgrows her micro-nursery? Well, you keep figuring it out. By that point, you’ll likely know whether this micro-nursery system is working for you or not. You’ll know whether to go full-murphy-sofa-bed-in-the-living-room-Manhattan-style-living, or whether it’s worth it now to pay more for a 2-bedroom or whether you’re headed to the East Bay or Marin. The micro-nursery buys you time, to figure out your new lifestyle as a family with children and what works for you.

The reality is that before having a kid, none of us really know what we’re getting into or how we are going to react to it or what we’ll decide is an absolute necessity. Some friends have freaked out by the lack of space, and other friends have been totally stoked that they can continue living in SF with cheap(ish) rent.

And really, we’re ALL wading into unknown territory, whether you live in 650 sq ft or a massive house.