The baby furniture catalogue assumes you have a spare room. We have a four-room flat in Punggol, and what we had was a corner, and the corner already had something in it.
The thing I worked out somewhere around Richard's second month is that a changing station is a function. Once you see it that way, the function fits almost anywhere, and you stop shopping for the wrong object.
What it has to do
Three things. Hold the baby safely at a height that won't wreck your back, put everything you need inside one arm's reach, and wipe clean. That's the whole specification, and everything past it is preference. The one-arm rule is the safety rule. From the moment they can roll, which is earlier than you expect and always for the first time while you're reaching for something, one hand stays on the baby. If you have to take two steps to fetch a wipe, the station is badly designed. I say that as somebody who designs things for a living and still got it wrong the first time.
The options, ranked
Four of them, and the most expensive isn't the best one in a flat this size.
A changing mat on top of a chest of drawers you already own is the right answer for most flats. It's the correct height, the storage is underneath where you need it, and in two years it goes back to being an ordinary chest of drawers. That's what we did for both boys and I'd do it again. Total spend: one mat, about S$40.
A changing mat on the bed or on the floor is free, completely safe on the floor, and hard on your back on the bed. Plenty of families do this for the first months and never buy anything at all, which is a perfectly good outcome.
A dedicated changing table is the correct height and purpose-built, and it's also a single-purpose object in a home with no spare square metres, redundant inside two years. A cot-top changer makes sense in a small room if your cot is rated for one, though it does turn the cot into a workspace as well as a sleep space, which I didn't love.
Whatever you choose, set up a second smaller version wherever you spend your evenings. A basket by the sofa with a mat, a few diapers and a cloth in it will save you more walking than any furniture decision, and newborn changes aren't an occasional event.
What happens at the mat
What belongs within arm's reach
Arm's reach means without moving your other hand, and that's the entire test. It rules out most of what people put on a shelf. I'm not sure our second station passes the test. It's close.
Diapers in the current size, stacked so that one comes out with one hand. Warm water and soft cloths, or wipes, since water and cloth is gentler and cheaper at home while wipes are what you take out of the house. Barrier ointment with the lid already loosened before you start, which sounds fussy until the first time you need it.
A change of clothes for the baby, because optimism isn't a strategy. A lined bin with a lid, close enough to drop into without turning away from the mat. Two or three muslins, which will be used for something other than their intended purpose within the hour.
Mentioned above
Bamboo Wash Cloth 4pc (Rustic Rainforest)S$25.00Shop now
Bamboo Swaddles (2 pc)S$49.00Shop nowWhat to skip
All of this is sold as essential and none of it earns its footprint in a flat this size.
Wipe warmers, first. Room temperature here is already warm, and this is a solution to a Scandinavian problem. Diaper stackers and decorative caddies, because a drawer does the same job and doesn't need dusting. Talc and scented powders, which have an inhalation risk and offer no benefit. A second changing table for the upstairs of a house you don't have.
Two things specific to flats here
Humidity is the first. Anything cloth left damp near the changing area will smell by tomorrow, so give wet cloths somewhere to go immediately. A lidded pail or a wet bag, never a pile on the corner of the drawers. I learned this the slow way in our first year.
The second is that most of us aren't the only person doing the changing. Charles is with his grandmother on weekdays while I'm at work, and that changed how I set the station up completely.
Everything visible. Nothing in a drawer whose logic only makes sense to me. Labels where a label helps, in both languages, and the current size of diaper on top of the stack so nobody has to guess. A station that only works for the person who built it is a filing system, and somebody else is going to be standing at it at eleven in the morning while you're at your desk.
Reading
This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions. It is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.