Thursday 14 April 2011

Life on a Second Floor Flat

Life on a Second Floor Flat isn't great, especially when there is no lift for us to use. Here's a picture of Gadget Dad pulling Baby Al in the Britax B-Smart up the stairs.


And here's a picture looking down from our main door to the ground floor.


A long way down, right?

Anyway this has become the norm for us and lived with the fact we bump the buggy down the stairs and then pull it up until we finally get to the second floor. It does feel like forever some days and man you can break a sweat from doing it. My mom (who I know reads my blog, hello!) tried to help me but bless her she couldn't as she suffers with problems with her leg and shoulder. She can't get over the fact I do this at least three times a day, one of which I tend to have Gadget Dad with me and that would include our weekly food shopping so not only do we have a pushchair to take up the stairs but we also have heavy bags of shopping.

Been doing this since day one. I use to take Baby Al out nearly every day but a week after Gadget Dad's 2 week holiday ended I was on my own and suffered with back pains just from taking the travel system up and down the stairs every day. I found myself stuck in the flat for a few weeks in pain and the idea of pulling the pushchair up those stairs made me groan.

Some of you may be thinking "Why not leave the pushchair downstairs?" and you'd be right in thinking that would save us a load of aches and pains. However this is where the mailboxes are so parking it there and leaving it gets in the way of the mail boxes, plus it's in our contract with the management company that own the flats we are not allowed to leave anything outside our flat and if we do they are legally allowed to remove it. I don't think I want to have my B-Smart taken away from me!

So I would like to ask if anyone else does what we do? Do you think I'm crazy for living like this? Or maybe you have an idea for us that we can try out.

10 comments:

Helen said...

I don't envy you doing that, I remember what it was like when we had our first & lived on the 2nd floor too. Why don't you take Al up first, pop him in his playpen & then nip down for the buggy, its got to be easier to carry it empty than with a 1yr old in?
x

Hayley said...

I used to live in a 2nd floor flat when J was 18 months to 2.5yrs. It was a nightmare! We werent allowed to keep buggies downstairs in the foyer as it was against the lease etc. Sometimes if I wasn't in a rush I used to take J up first, pop him in the lounge or somewhere safe, shut the door, come back down for the buggy and then take that up, but if you have shopping too then it was 3 trips! Not fun.

Answer, move to a first floor (as I am now) or even better a ground ;-)

Deep In Parent Sharing & Support said...

OMG I can't believe that you have to do that every day, you'll be able to enter Strong Mum competitions all over the world!

I feel crappy just moaning about carry Beanie Boy in his car seat from the car to the house now :(

Unfortunately I don't have any answers for you though!

@MummyMatters

Jacqui Paterson said...

I did this with Big Sis, and then Lil Sis as well (thank goodness Big Sis could walk up stairs by herself by then!) until November of last year.

I use to fold up the pushchair, carry Big Sis in one arm, lug the pushchair in the other, then lock it to the stair railing outside our flat door.

Sometimes I would leave her safely in the hallway of our flat and run down for the pushchair/groceries, etc.

Thankfully, by the time I was preggers with Lil Sis we had rented a storage shed and could leave the pushchair down stairs.

It was a complete pain in the arse, and you have my sincere sympathies!!!! xx

Anonymous said...

Some kind of lift from the window?! Nah, don't suppose that would work either. I don't know, but I bet you have strong muscles!!

CJ xx

Melaina25 said...

I saw a pushchair lock advertised on PushChair Trader's FB page if that's any use?

Helen said...

Helen: Now that I have a playpen that he enjoys being left in I can do this, but leaving stuff downstairs is always a concern.
Jax2000: When he was little I'd put him in his bouncer and he's be content for hours. Now he's bit too big for that but we do now have a playpen which has a few toys in it, though he'd rather grab onto the rails and try and turn the XBox on!
Crystal Jigsaw: A lift in general would be nice! All our windows here are secure so that no one can get in or out through them. They open enough to allow air around the building but that's all.
Melaina25: As I said we can't leave things downstairs. They will break locks if they need to and have done so in the past. And because the space downstairs is so small it would get in the way of people tryng to check their mailboxes. Whoever designed this place was an idiot because couriers can't leave a note to say they tried to deliver due to having a coded door BEFORE the mailbox!

New Mum Online said...

That's so spooky, just the other day I was going to do a post about flats and pushchairs....
Haven't got round to it yet though.
And that's not even what brings me here now.
I realised I haven't been visiting my "comment group" enough so thought I best get a shimmy on. xx

New Mum Online said...

p.s. why don't u have food delivered? x

Helen said...

Liska: we live so close to 3 supermarkets seems daft to get it delivered, plus we enjoy getting out on a Monday together and keeps Baby Al entertained :)

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