Bringing Up Baby in a Tiny Home

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Do you have a friend who seems to live an impossible life on social media? For me, that’s my friends Justin Smith and Melissa Smith. The couple has hiked from Mexico to Canada, cycled through Portugal and kayaked through Norway. When they’re home, they’re either building their own furniture, running marathons or making vegan food from scratch.

Melissa Smith (L) and Justin Smith (R) on Segla Peak in Norway during a kayaking adventure (Courtesy of Justin and Melissa Smith)

That intrepid lifestyle got Justin and Melissa onto the television show “Tiny House Nation” in 2015. The reality show built them a 128-square-foot house on wheels, an upgrade after living out of the trunk of Justin’s car. Their nomadic way of life is a choice: For these two, home has always been the backcountry.

As public school teachers, Justin and Melissa’s housing options were somewhat limited. But while they could have afforded something bigger, they saw their tiny house as an extension of their anti-materialist ethos. They parked their house in a trailer park in Folsom, near Sacramento.

“We just want to travel and explore, and we have, like, a fear of locking down to a mortgage,” said Melissa. “It’s really nice not to have that.”

That all began to change when Melissa learned she was pregnant. The couple was determined to raise their kid in the tiny house.

Melissa and Justin Smith live in a 128-square-foot tiny home in Folsom, CA. (Courtesy of Justin and Melissa Smith)

Had they prepared? Kinda.

“In the making of the tiny house we were just like, ‘Oh, we’ll just figure that out when it comes,’ ” said Justin.

Justin began converting a shoe rack into a diaper-changing station. They freed up some space in the kitchen to make natural baby food. And the couple planned on using cloth diapers – and washing the diapers themselves – in the same washer-dryer that they use for their own clothes.

If you’re thinking this plan is impractical, you’re not alone. All of our mutual friends had opinions. Depending on who you asked, Justin and Melissa were either planning a back-to-the-land tree-hugger paradise or a claustrophobic nightmare, with little baby Tarzan swinging around on a rope made from cloth diapers.

Fred Dreier, a college friend of Justin, has a theory: With all that time spent living in cars and tents and the tiny house, Justin and Melissa have adapted communication tools that many other couples don’t have. For one, they talk constantly, because they don’t have a TV.

“If any couple could make it work in a tiny house with a baby, it’s Justin and Melissa,” said Dreier.

Every night, Justin and Melissa play a game they call “Happy Silly Sad.” They recount the day’s highs, lows and silliest moments. Melissa usually starts.

“Hey Justin, what was your happy silly sad today?”

That game should come in handy in the coming months, Dreier said.

“Having a baby is going to produce a lot of happy silly sad moments,” he said. “The fact that Justin and Melissa already have these skills for communicating shows me that they’re going to be able to get through it.”

The challenges of parenthood began mounting during labor and delivery. Melissa’s labor lasted five days before the baby was born in March this year. She remembered bawling in front of her family.

“I was like, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t do this.’ And they were like, ‘You’ve done an Ironman, you’ve run an ultra, you can do this,’ ” she said. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, the longest was 14 hours. This has been way longer.’”

The couple named their newborn daughter Meru after the mountain in India that many consider the world’s most challenging climb. Meru also means the center of the universe in Hindi.

Early on, issues with her digestion kept little Meru up all night crying. The irony of the baby’s name — both the treacherous climb and the middle of the universe — is not lost on her parents.

“I laugh about that a lot,” said Melissa. “It’s like all the challenges and yet the reward and the beauty of it all.”

Justin added, “It’s like climbing a mountain every single day.”

The next time I checked in, it had been four months since Meru was born.

Melissa had recently gotten out on her own for a mountain bike ride. It was her first break from the family, and it didn’t go so well.

“After our tough labor and just battling the postpartum depression, I just felt like I was in a cloud, like I was not myself and I had lost my life,” Melissa said. “So I’m on the ride, and I embarrassingly just made a rookie move and flipped over the handlebars, and I immediately knew something was wrong.”

She had broken her elbow. The accident happened just as Justin qualified for an endurance race that required him to leave town for a few weeks to train.

So for several weeks, it had been Melissa, alone in the tiny house, with a broken arm and a baby. I asked her, at what point would she consider changing her living situation?

“Justin and I have had serious conversations about [moving],” she said. “I was brought to tears thinking, ‘I love this place.’ I really genuinely love living here and I know it’s crazy on the outside, but it’s home to us.”

Justin Smith with daughter Meru at home (Courtesy of Justin and Melissa Smith)

For now, the young family is enjoying their home. Meru loves to watch her mom cook. Outside, cloth diapers were hanging on a clothesline.

And recently, Meru started sleeping through the night. It might be close quarters, but this young family seems to have everything it needs. Baby Meru and a tiny house: It’s their center of the universe.

Copyright 2019 KQED