Baby Room Essentials

When planning a baby's room, you may wish to contact an interior designer or proceed using your own imagination. You may even wish to pursue an online interior design degree. Below are our top baby room essentials:

Furniture

Furniture is one of the biggest things that will be in the baby's room. As this is such a large part of the room, this is often a good place to start.  A crib, dresser, and changing table are nursery standards. Try to purchase a new crib to ensure it is up to the most recent safety standards, and look for one that has slats no more than 2 3/8 inches apart. You will also need a crib mattress, waterproof cover, and bedding.  You will also want to look for a bassinet or cradle for the first couple of months.

You will also want to set up an area in the nursury for you to feed your child or rock the baby to sleep. A rocking chair or glider that has good back support is suggested. A journal may also be a good idea to help you keep track of your baby's feeding.

Safety

Safety is an essential part of a baby's room, and there are several things you should purchase to help keep your baby safe. One of these is a smoke and carbon monoxide detector, to help warn you of a fire or dangerous gas leak. A baby monitor is another essential; you can even purchase a model that has a camera. Outlet covers should be on every outlet in the room. You may also wish to put a nightlight in the room. This can help your baby sleep, as well as prevent tripping over something in the dark of the night.

Personal Touches

Babies need to be stimulated, and putting color in their room is a good idea to do this. You can purchase inexpensive wall decals or mobiles to help entertain your baby while introducing a more decorative element to the room. Books and toys are also great things to help your baby develop. Finally, consider a bouncy seat or baby swing to help keep your baby happy. Storage devices, like sturdy memory boxes and open cubbies, are great to store your baby's toys, books, and clothes. If you're interested in helping moms-to-be in their journey, consider becoming a sonogram technician.

Our Weekend: Emily's Nursery and Hangin Out

Our weekend was great! On Saturday my friend Brittany came over to paint something in Emily's nursery. She did suuuch an amazing job. We love it!

Here are the before pictures and I included her bedding so you can get the idea of what it all looks like:

And the after pictures:

Isn't it gorgeous?! And she just started painting, too! Never even had a class!

Kelli came over on Saturday to hang out too...

I made dinner and we hung out and watched Cake Boss :).

Yesterday we went to church and enjoyed our day together until Michael had to work. He has so much overtime, I hardly see him!!

I hope you guys all had a great weekend!

Crib Time

Emily has an adorable nursery but so far she only takes naps in it. She takes her naps mostly in her swing, right next to her crib but every once in a while we can put her down in her crib for a little while until she wants to be picked up again. The picture above is (I'm pretty sure) her first time in the crib the week we came home from the hospital with her. The video below is of her actually enjoying a little time in her crib as she watches the projection mobile my mom bought for her. She makes all sorts of cute noises!

35 Weeks, Nursery, Keeping Busy

Michael and I have been busy doing things to prepare for the baby! It's really beginning to sink in that we could have Baby Girl any time now so we are doing everything and anything we can to get ready now.

Here I am at 35 weeks...

This is what we've been able to get done with the nursery so far....

I don't know if you can really tell what the colors are from these pictures. The walls are a mint green and my mom made the valance...

She also quilted this blanket! We are now waiting for her to finish the bumpers that match the two. I am soooo in love with the colors and patterns! Pink and green with flowers and polka dots.

I'm keeping my eye out for a good, inexpensive, comfortable chair for the nursery too. I also want to put up some maternity pictures and possibly have a friend paint something pretty on a wall.

We are almost completely ready! The rest of what I want to do is just extra stuff. We have everything we need to have. I just washed and organized all of her clothes and blankets with her special baby laundry detergent. I will be getting my hospital bag ready to go this week. Doing things like this get me so excited to have her. I'm ready! I'm hoping for an early September baby :).

Other than doing all that baby prep stuff, we have had some time to do other things on Michaels days off this week. I used that thing called an oven a little more.

Some examples...

This is a potato cheese casserole.

Chocolate cake with ice cream.

We went to see The Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was intense and we liked it!

{image}

I finished reading Hunger Games to Michael and now we are well into the second book of the series. It's fun to read them to him.

Went to the chiropractor for another adjustment. Seriously? Best thing I've done to keep my sanity through the aches and pains of pregnancy.

We visited family in OC on Wednesday night and then Thursday night I hung out with my friend Kambree.

We've been so busy this week, I haven't had time to blog until now! I hope everyone had a great week and that you have an awesome weekend!

27 Week Update

I'm 27 weeks now and definitely feel like it! Baby girl is very active lately. Sometimes my stomach rolls like a wave from her moving around in there. Other times she pushes against two sides at once...I imagine that's her stretching out. I love feeling her move around in there! The hardest things right now are back pain and sometimes my feet hurt when I stand or walk a lot. Oh and I just started noticing my toes get swollen when I am on my feet a lot! That's kind of funny to me.

I had my blood taken to test for diabetes and anemia. Luckily I don't have gestational diabetes but I was told that I will have to take an extra iron supplement because I am slightly anemic. It's pretty common in pregnant women. I have been anemic before but after I started taking vitamins it went away. Now with the baby and me BOTH needing iron, I guess the prenatals weren't enough anymore. But that's okay! I would much rather have to take an extra supplement daily than have to eat a strict diet. I love my desserts!

We started setting up the crib in the nursery and it's exciting to see it slowly come together! If it were up to me it would quickly come together but...that's okay. ;-)

Target Tuesday: Baby Registry

It's time for Target Tuesday again!

First, I just wanted to thank you guys for all your support and excitement from me announcing my pregnancy. Thank you! It's been really fun to make it public knowledge and see your reactions to our news. I hope you continue to be around and show your love and support in this adventure!

Now...Target Tuesday time! You may remember way back in June I blogged about not being pregnant (at the time) but that I had actually started a registry to keep track of stuff I wanted someday. Since then, I've changed my thoughts a bit on what I think we might want for our nursery and this is the perfect chance to show you!

I've always known that I want white furniture for the nursery. Here's the crib that I like...

And since we don't know yet whether we are having a baby boy or girl, I registered for both :-). Here's the bedding I like right now.

I'm not totally sold on the turtle print but I really like the pink and brown!  That's it for my Target Tuesday! Short list this time!