I'd say absolutely by far the biggest is zoned for public schools you will send your kid to. I know so many couples whose kids are approaching school age who are in terrible school areas and they are all freaking out because they don't want to move again so quickly. Mostly people who bought before getting pregnant or thought "eh - it's so far off, we'll make it work when we get there!".

Second would be proximity to work - every minute of every day is going to count when you have kids.

Third would be not huge mortgage. They always tell you to stretch as much as you can, but even if you think you're going to know you want to keep working, you might end up wanting (or needing) to stay home and if you do keep working, you'll add at least $1,500 a month for child care.

Everything else about a house is a matter of personal taste and is more of a preference than an imperative. But I like being able to see the kids playing from the kitchen, having lots of parks and playgrounds within easy walking distance, not a ton of stairs up to the house, separate floor for bedrooms, at least one bath tub.

Anonymous wrote:
Two story foyer with shiny brass chandelier

most expensive baby mobile ever, huh?

Level entry for strollers.

Bathroom on the main floor-makes pregnancy and potty training waaaay easier.

Several living spaces/playrooms and storage area for toys/strollers/gear.

Two story foyer with shiny brass chandelier

Anonymous wrote:I learned to love our rambler - having everything on one level made life so much easier in those early years.

How about noise? My parents have a one-story house and you can hear everything, everywhere. I am not a "tiptoe around the baby" type person, but my kid is a light sleeper - an older cousin shrieking or playing pretty much ends naptime. When I'm visiting them, someone washing dishes or putting dishes away (my dad is an early riser) wakes me up for the day. We are house hunting and for that reason aren't considering one-story houses, but maybe my parents just have a bad layout?

I actually like my main-floor laundry area. Previously I had to go to the basement. This makes it very easy to wash/dry all the laundry on my telework days.

1st-floor family room AND living room were a priority in my current (2nd) house. I wanted one room that could stay nice and clean and the other room that could be toy central. I gave up a formal dining room for this, and have an open eat-in kitchen that flows into the family room. I have a nice big closet/pantry in my family room that is great for storing games and craft supplies out of sight.

I would love a real foyer and hall closet again - my last house had one. the hall closet in my current house is a joke. There are coats and accessories everywhere. I wish I still had a house without a walk-out basement. I liked being able to go straight from the main level to the deck and backyard without climbing stairs.

I love being closer in to work now. it's about a 10-minute drive to preschool. I also love being walking distance to a park/playground.

I learned to love our rambler - having everything on one level made life so much easier in those early years.

Anonymous wrote:I have a driveway but would have killed for a garage when mine were infants and I had to get them to and from the car in the rain, snow and ice.

I would do anything for a mud room or even an entryway. My front door opens right into the living room and I hate that.

+1

We had fall babies and the garage was also good for wind and cold. Being able to close the garage door and get the kids in and out of the car in the closed garage is/was priceless. Yesterday I had to pick up my wife and kids and the only place to park was a significant walk away from where I was meeting them. And it started to rain. Trying to get them from stroller to car and the stroller into the car, in the rain, reminded me why I love having a garage.

Anonymous wrote:2 story foyer

I'm sorry...but what the hell does this have with parenthood?

^and I would love a mudroom.

I wish we bought a house on the side of the street that had sidewalks!

A fenced, comfortable yard is great. We spend a TON of time in ours and love that we can do so w/o worrying about the kids wandering out into the street.

A mudroom / good entry area w/ space for lots of coats, shoes, backpacks, etc. is also great. Bonus if there is room for the laundry close by so you can strip your kids down and dump dirty, sandy, muddy, wet clothes right into the laundry.

My kids like baths but prefer showers, so we have loved having a large, accessible tiled shower stall for them to play in together. They'll sit on the floor of that shower stall for 30 minutes playing w/ toys, cups, etc.

As for stairs, we have 2 long sets, and they don't bother me at all. In fact I was kind of proud that my kids were agile on stairs at an early age (silly, I know, but so it goes)! I also like the separateness of them being upstairs, safe and tucked in sleeping, while we have grown-up time downstairs at night. But I grew up in a brownstone w/ 3 sets of stairs, so that's probably a familiarity thing for me.

A family room adjacent / open to the kitchen so you can watch your kids while you cook, etc., is great. We have one in our (just sold) current house and are sacrificing it in our (just bought) next house. I think we're going to miss that, but there's always something you give on.

Mudroom

We love our open floor plan, but it does make child-proofing difficult. We have very few walls to use baby gates on and the ones that we have are at angles so that they don't match with the nearest ones, so again, no way to use baby gates. We solved that by getting a large assortment of Playards (specifically, we use the North States Superyard XT's). We now build large pens for our twins to keep them contained and away from non-baby safe things. The playards allow you to customize the size of the play area to fit the room and still maintain safety. It's also good when your kids play area is a multi-use room that is hard to childproof.

A basement. I didn't think we needed one because we have a nice large family room, and I just generally hate being in basement rec rooms/laundry rooms etc. But not having a basement is my biggest regret about our house, and one we cannot fix (not that we can afford, anyway). We don't need a finished basement, though it would be wonderful to be able to have a dedicated room just for the children and their toys. But we desperately need the storage. An attic and small backyard shed simply do not cut it. It really upsets me, because we love almost everything else about our house, and the location and yard are absolutely perfect.

2 story foyer