tting up your first nursery can be exciting; not only do you get to fulfil one your first jobs as a parent, you get to see your baby grow up alongside all the wonderful items you have chosen. Yet at the same time, you may have a million thoughts running through your head and the idea of trying to figure out what you really need can be a little daunting.
What baby furniture do I really need? What nursery furniture should I buy? How much should I spend on baby furniture? One look through a baby sales catalogue and you can understand why some new parents spend up to $8,000 on nursery items, and that’s before the baby has even been born! Some might think that’s going a little overboard, but others would argue that they want to welcome their newborn into the world with the most comfortable and sensory-stimulating designer nursery possible. This leads me to my first step.
Beautiful Manhattan inspired designer nursery
Step 1: Don’t let your nesting and parenting urges rule your purse. Be practical with what your baby needs and what you can afford. It’s easy to get carried away with thinking you need that nice European designed cot with matching bed line, but your baby doesn’t really care where the cot was designed. Have a budget and try to stick to it. If you can afford the best nursery furniture then go for it; some of the new designer baby furniture looks amazing and is often extremely versatile, has more functionality and is high quality. Baby furniture tends to hold its value far better than other items that tend to get discarded after one baby, such as car seats and high chairs. It’s also wise to consider how many babies you might plan to have. Is this the first of many children you want to have or is the thought of going through childbirth twice enough to send your husband to the snip? As with most things, you get what you pay for, so spending a little more on a well-made cot, drawers, change table or bookcase could reap benefits years later and save you from buying something that broke after a few years.
Step 2: Cover the babies’ needs. With so many new baby furniture products on the market that have been designed with two or more functions, it’s easy to get confused with what nursery furniture you actually need. Your baby has only four basic needs: Sleep, Play, Eating, and Changing. By the time you’ve mastered these, you can start preparing for the teenage years!
Sleep time: A baby needs three forms of bed styles in the first few years. Timings below are a rough guide only and will change from baby to baby.
•0-3 months: Moses basket, baby bassinet, or pod
•3- 24 months: Cot (called a crib in the US)
•24 months+ : Toddler bed, or children’s bed with side rails
Play time: It’s important to keep your baby stimulated to encourage learning and positive social behaviours. So while it is important to just spend time with your baby and make funny noises at them, some of the items for your nursery to consider might be:
-Play mat or rug
-Baby rockers and bouncers
-Mobiles
-all art
-Wall colours
-Books
-Toys, toys and more toys
-Soft blankets or teddy bears
Food time: In the early months, a baby will be doing a bit more drinking than eating so whether you are breastfeeding or bottling could impact your choice in furniture as well.
– During the early days the baby will be on fluids and you’ll need somewhere comfortable to feed the baby in your arms. This might be a comfortable chair you already have. Otherwise you could look into a specialty adult rocker designed to feed your baby and rock it to sleep.
-From 6-8 weeks you will want to move your baby into a high chair. This can either be a single purpose and cheap high chair that you throw away afterwards, or you can pay a little more and get a high chairs that you can modify into different positions to suit the baby as it gets bigger.
-After about 18-24 months your baby will have outgrown the high chair, but they will still be too small for a normal chair. Now you need a booster chair! Lucky these aren’t too expensive and as mentioned earlier, some high chairs have different positions and configurations to do this.
Change time: ‘Ahhhh, the fun part!’ I hear you say. Yes, everything that goes in must come out – and in a baby this happens a little more often than an adult. Babies need to be changed every 2-3 hours or as soon as you notice any soiling. This not only adds up to a lot of diapers, but it is a process you will get used to very quickly. A change table is an extremely useful addition to your nursery because not only can you add some storage to your room, but you can also change the baby at a comfortable height. While it’s not essential to have a change table – many people buy a change mat only and change the baby on the floor or on the bed – not everyone will want this. Look out for change tables that securely sit on top of dressers or cots if you are keen on space and money saving items.
With the 4 essentials covered above, the rest will be up to you and how far you want to go when designing your nursery. Some have a flair for design and will relish the opportunity to spend hours researching all the products. Others may wish it was all done for them. If you fit into the latter group, you may want to search for baby furniture packages. There are some companies out there that specialise in piecing together nursery packages with matching baby furniture and décor, and all you need to do is browse the designs to find one you like. This option can definitely save you time and money, but at the end of the day you need to find furniture that is in your budget and is something that you are comfortable with. Good luck!
