I don’t know about you, but between Pinterest and Instagram, you probably have driven yourself crazy drooling over the perfect nursery only to somewhat disappointed yourself when 1. You just don’t have a creative bone in your body, 2. You don’t have the time and 3. You don’t have the $$$$ to buy all the fancy stuff.
Well, I am happy to share that I feel pretty dang proud of the nursery we did for our son, Martin Jr. It isn’t super fancy, but is functional, cute (at least I think so) and we really didn’t spend a whole heck of a lot. I should share that we didn’t know the gender we were having, so I needed to make it as gender neutral as possible. However, I wanted a room with color instead of the plain ole grey, white and yellow themes I was seeing on Pinterest and Instagram. I ended up using Blue and Coral. Blue if it was a boy and Coral for a girl. Although with the navy blue wall that we did – it was leaning very boyish and that is what we ended up having!
Essential to Spurge on:
Honestly, out of all the things in his room – none were all that expensive, but I would say we did “splurge” on the rocker/recliner. And I would definitely say that is the #1 thing you should splurge on! There are going to be nights when baby is up and you are trying to get them back to sleep. Rocking them and holding them and sometimes, having them sleep on your chest and you want a comfortable chair so you can get a little sleep as well. I made my hubby go shopping with me and try them out because it wasn’t just going to be me up at night. Hubby was going to take on that responsibility as well and the chair needed to fit him too. It fit both of us comfortably. We got it from Buy Buy Baby and I used the 20% off one single item coupon you get for being a first time subscriber/new purchase. You do want to plan this ahead of time as it took a good 10 weeks to get.
Picture of our little guy in the rocker. Please disregard the AC unit next to him. We don’t have AC and it has been unseasonably warm here.
Okay, I would say maybe there is 1 more thing to spurge on – and that is a really good baby monitor that makes you feel comfortable. I actually wouldn’t recommend ours as we have had issues with it (Motorola), but for me, it had to be a video monitor with night vision and app for my phone (so I can check in on him when I am at work).
There is one more item that I was on the fence about and that was the Owlet. It is a foot sock that monitors the babies heart and oxygen levels. In this day and age with SIDS, it definitely can help give parents peace of mind. My neighbors who have a son just 2 ½ months older than ours ended up getting it and they loved it! They said it actually helped them sleep better because they felt confident the Owlet would alarm if anything was wrong. I on the other hand would stay awake and stare at the baby monitor most of the night just to make sure he was moving or even sneak into his room and feel his chest – hoping I wouldn’t wake him up. Especially when he was sick or just after he received his vaccinations. I am strongly considering it for when we have baby #2.
For everything else, there really is no need to spend a lot of money on.
Essentials to Save On:
Do NOT waste money on buying a specific changing table. Use an old dresser you may have and put a changing pad on top. We ended up going on craigslist and facebook yard sale pages to find the coral dresser I wanted. I thought I would buy a vintage one second hand and paint it myself, but as we got closer to my due date and the fact that I probably shouldn’t be sanding and painting furniture, we ended up buying it premade. I spent a little more than I would have if I had done it myself because someone else did the work for me. But you don’t have to do that. An Ikea dresser will work just fine.
And I realize as I was taking pictures, that the walls look a little bare. I was so scared to hang anything above the crib or the changing table for fear it would fall on him in the middle of the night or changing his diaper. I probably can add a few pictures now……
The crib we actually received as a gift and was on our registry, however, it was only around $100 from Amazon. It had great reviews and I felt looked clean and modern.
For the crib bedding I searched Target and Amazon. We only have 3 sheets – we wash and rotate. You don’t need a whole “bedding” set. I do also recommend the mesh crib banner. It is in lieu of the outdated crib bumpers that can actually suffocate babies. I didn’t actually at it to the crib until he was more mobile and turning over more. His little hands and feet would get stuck in between the rails. Also, the crib top rail protectors. You don’t need those right away, but once your child gets their teeth and can stand up, guess what, they are going to chew on that crib. Even though the paint on the crib is non-toxic, no one wants their baby digesting paint and wood particles. Also, I want to reuse that crib for Baby #2 and would like to keep it in somewhat good shape.
Next, I would get black-out curtains. Super important for naps and at night for the early morning sun. I purchased mine from Ikea and they were actually too long, but I used the iron on hem tape to hem them. Not my best work, but it will do. We technically had “blinds” already, you know the long vertical slat ones, but those were not enough to keep light out. We added the blackout curtains and it made such a difference in extending his naps and not waking up at the crack of dawn when the sun peaked in.
The last “real” essential I would say to have is a Sound Machine. At first I was actually against it. I feel I am “old school” hard in a little way and thought – “baby needs to learn to sleep on his own”. Well, yeah, that went out the window when he kept waking up to every single little noise. Also, I do now truly believe that they are so used to all the “whooshing” sound of the womb, that coming out and expected to sleep in complete silence isn’t realistic. They need some sort of background/white noise. We still actually still use it today and he is almost 2. I know he can fall asleep now on his own because we have forgotten to put it on, but the second he hears the floor creak or the washer, he wakes up. The sound machine is now used to drown out all of the other house noises. It is small enough that we also take it with us when we travel. You never know what kind of noise you mind here where you are staying.
Other Items that Make the Nursery Nice, but not essential for baby:
His storage cube unit is also from Ikea and one that I had already. It used to be in my loft and I used it as a room seperator and to display pictures, but then it was moved into storage for a bit. It was perfect for a baby’s room and having to store toys and such in the cubes. The storage cubes themselves I bought on sale at Target. The two lamps and gold accent wall images I got on sale from Target as well.
The mirror was an extra one that I had from an old bedroom set. I was going to sand the frame and paint it gold, but again no time or energy towards the end of my pregnancy and I think it works.
No need to spend or register for that fancy diaper “genie”. I bought a small waste basket from Amazon for the wet diapers. For stinky, dirty diapers, we would put them in doggy poop bags (cheaper then the ones they sell specifically for baby) and would set them in the hallway at night and take them straight out to the trash in the morning. That was when he was still waking up in the middle of the night. Now, we just take them straight out to the trash bin outside. Yes, this is more effort, but why spend the money on the unit and all the bag refills when you can get your steps in for the day by taking out dirty diapers ? 🙂
Although I say you may drive yourself crazy with all the ideas on Pinterest, I do recommend having a pinterest board so you can start planning the look and feel you want. Then you can start hunting for deals at Target, Ikea, Amazon, Buy Buy Baby, Craigslist etc.
One Last Pic because he is so darn cute:
Xoxo,
Dominica