Nursery with no window?

Is it okay to have a nursery without an outdoor window? The room we’re considering is fire safe because it connects to either side to rooms with windows (our bedroom on one side, living room on the other side). There is also an internal window on a third wall, but it is pretty high up. There is a ceiling fan. The rest of the apartment gets a lot of natural light, and I assume the baby would spend most of the day with me in the other parts of the apartment. Are there any issues with this arrangement? At what ages would this be appropriate?

4 Answers

I think this is fine. Honestly, until my son was around 18 months old, he was never in his room unless he was sleeping or getting his diaper changed. Our son’s room is connected to our bedroom with a door (and then both rooms have doors onto the hallway.) I really can’t say enough good things about this arrangement. We kept the door open at night for ages, but if/when one of us got up with the baby, we could just close the door so the other person could still sleep. Now that he’s two, it’s usually closed, but when he’s a bit older we might start leaving in open so he can come get us in the morning.

You might consider swapping the rooms around when he hits 1 1/2 or 2 — especially if he doesn’t have a play room or something in another part of the apartment. Because then he’ll end up in his room a lot and it seems a bit bleak to not have a window. But by that point there aren’t really any advantages to having your room adjoin his anyway.

It’s better to have one without an outdoor window, because outdoor windows can let bugs in (you’d be surprised) and they will make it harder to regulate the temperature of the room (it will always be colder or hotter by a window) as well as letting bright light in when the baby is trying to sleep and noises from outside (that annoying bird that will chirp at 2 AM just outside the window, kids yelling in the next yard, etc.) will come in even through a closed window.

I would say it’s fine, if there’s an easily accessibly escape in case of fire or other emergency.

When we lived in our apartment I had our fire escape allll planned out lol. Lower Emma down in her carseat through the window or balcony and then we’d climb down ourself. Or wear her in the baby sling and climb down. A fire escape was always on the back of my mind.

By Law, a room has to have to exits, if the openings on both the other two walls are big enough to climb through, then it is, by law, okay.