16 April 2026 · Samantha Lin
Designer · Mother of two

A Changing Station for a Small Flat

An expectant couple folding a stack of muslins on a changing top in a nursery, beside a wooden cot and a hanging mobile

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.

Around Richard's second month I worked out that a changing station is about what it does. Once you think of it that way, it fits almost anywhere, and you stop shopping for furniture you don't need.

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. Everything else is preference. The arm's-reach rule is about safety. From the moment babies 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. Anchor it to the wall first, because a chest with a baby on top and drawers pulled open is exactly the kind of furniture that tips. That's what we did for both boys and I'd do it again. Total spend: one mat, about S$40, plus the anti-tip strap.

A changing mat on the floor is free and the safest option there is, since a baby on the floor has nowhere to fall. On the bed it's hard on your back, and a bed is a raised surface like any other, so the hand stays on. Plenty of families change on the floor 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 you can get it without taking your other hand off the baby. That rules out most of what people put on a shelf. Your reach, though, not hers: a baby on the mat grabs whatever's beside her head, so the cream, the sanitiser and the nappy sacks sit on your side, just out of her range. I'm not sure our second station passes, but 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$25.00

Bamboo Swaddles (2 pc)S$49.00

What 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 is in sight. Nothing goes in a drawer that only makes sense to me. There are labels where they help, in both languages, and the current diaper size goes on top of the stack so nobody has to guess. Someone else will be standing at that station at eleven in the morning while you're at your desk, so set it up for them.

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.

← More on diapering All 189 guides Shop: Little Rei luxury diapers →

Quick buy diapers