Monday 2 November 2015

Baby nursery ideas

Baby nursery ideas 
Well it has happened, the nesting instinct has finally kicked in and this week we have been busily tackling and finishing off the baby's nursery. 

Normally when I want inspiration and ideas for anything I turn to the Internet, but for creating a babies nursery there is such a thing as too much choice and too many ideas. 

In this post you will find everything that we've purchased to create our perfect baby's nursery. There will be additional posts to follow covering baby preparation tips including, what to put into your maternity bag, as well as birth plan suggestions and other baby related items. 

Creating your baby's first nursery is a really special time and we have really loved creating ours. After much procrastination we decided on a monkey and giraffe jungle themed bedroom. 

Baby nursery
Baby Nursery
The stickers from StickersWall (£24.99) are a lovely way to brighten up, decorate and transform a babies room. The only thing you will require is two people and patience to put them up and best of all when you are tired of them you can easily peal them off.   

Within the design we tried to create a room that would grow and develop with our baby into an active toddler (hopefully not a cheeky monkey). So we additionally added some educational numbers (£12.95). 
Baby nursery
Alphabet stickers from Decowall London (£10.95). 
Baby nursery
Instead of a Moses basket we've opted for the Stokke Sleepi Mini (£445) not only is the Scandinavian design absolutely beautiful but it is also amazingly efficient in size, meaning that we can have it in our room for the first six months. 
Baby nursery ideas
The cot has adjustable height positions too so we have the ability to adapt it as the baby grows, along with extra extention packs that can be purchased to fit a child up to 10 years old.

To protect the mattress we have purchased from The Little Green Sheep an organic mattress protector for the Stokke (£17.95) and organic jersey fitted sheet (£13.95). 
Stokke mini sheets
The wonderful animal mobile is from TinyLove "Magical Night" (£44.99). Now I am not going to lie, turning this on bought a huge smile to my face. 
Baby Mobile
The mobile has three musical settings: Lullaby, Classic and Nature. Whilst the music is playing it projects animal scenes and rotates. You can see it in action here: 
We have also purchased some additional things so that the little one feels a sense of security and is snug in the cot for the early days.  

To begin with we will use the Sleepyhead portable baby pod (£99) 0-8 months in the Stokke. 
Baby tips for sleeping
This might seem like a very expensive pillow but looks can be deceiving, any new parent will tell you how the first few months of sleep deprivation are hell. This is our attempt at trying to reduce this. 

The Sleepyhead is a complete bed in itself so perfect for travelling, can be used for tummy time and as a changing station. You only need to read the wonderful reviews for this product to see that it is money well spent. The only downside is that for many the Sleepyhead is outgrown well before eight months. 

I'm not sure that we will use this Mamas and Papas sleep bag (£24) from birth, I guess it will depend how big the 'little' one is.  
Baby nursery
Keeping with the animal theme we have also purchased the following: 

Monkey rug (£14)
Baby nursery
Mama and Papa two by two changing mat (£14.95)
Baby nursery
GroEgg - digital room thermometer (£13.49)

Baby nursery
Taking the stress out of knowing if the baby's room is too hot or cold. We personalised ours as a penguin with this additional topper. 
Finding the right baby monitor I found incredibly stressful. I knew that it was an important purchase and one that I needed to do plenty of research on. 

There is just too much choice. Do you go for audio only, one with video, what about sound and movement sensors. One word STRESS!

The only help I can give is to have an initial look at the options available, have a think about your living situation, what will work for you and then what is most important to make you feel confident in the product you have purchased. 

After lots of research we opted for the Angelcare Movement and Sound Monitor AC401 (£69.99). 
Baby monitor
We went for the one with two parent units which is more expensive, but this is because we wanted an additional unit for different locations in the house. If you don't then John Lewis at the time of writing this post cannot be beaten on the price. 

Whilst we don't have a small baby to test the monitor on yet; one pearl of wisdom I will share is to set this up prior to the baby arriving. Whilst easy to set up you want to make sure that you have done it right, especially if you have chosen a movement pressure pad. Setting this up after birth having had little sleep and under pressure is not advisable. 

I promise when the baby arrives I will do an updated review on how I think the monitor performs in real life.

Another purchase we made was the Tommee Tippee nappy disposal bin. Now nappies and which to choose is very personal so I am not going to get into this on here. But one thing that is shared regardless of the nappies you choose is the average newborn will need their nappy changed twelve times in a day.
Tommee Tippee nappy disposal bin
That's a phenomenal amount of nappies and to be quite frank the potential of a very smelly flat or house. The Tommee Tippee is a great way to lock in odour, we purchased ours on Amazon (£12.49) which comes with one cartridge.

Additional cartridges can be purchased separately and retail at about £10 for three cartridges. 

Our final baby purchase was a night light so that I could see my way in the corridor between the nursery and our bedroom.
Baby nursery
Whilst not essential, I thought that this might help prevent me breaking my neck when I am in search of nappies, baby wipes etc. 

I hope that this post was interesting to read and helpful. If you have any questions do ask in the comments below. 

If you were to design your dream nursery how would you decorate it? 
Baby nursery

 photo foodieforce_32.jpg

20 comments:

  1. Love the monkey rug!! I bet you're loving putting together the nursery.
    Lots of love,
    Angie

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    1. It's been good fun, the challenge is that you want to leave it just in case but then when you do get round to doing it your a bit to big to do it justice Lucy X

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  2. Ahh! I'm so excited for you to have your baby! When are you due again and will you be posting photos?? If not you need to at least e-mail me some :) :)

    I don't usually care for baby type posts but it's a bit different when it's someone you've followed for a long time! I'm happy/excited for you!

    Corinne x
    www.skinnedcartree.com

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Corinne due the end of the month so not long now, will definitely share some pics Lucy x

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  3. Those wall stickers are so cute! It looks like you've got everything sorted (not that I know anything about this kind of thing haha), your baby is very lucky :) xx

    Toasty

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    1. Not sure we are well planned time will tell ;-) Lucy x

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  4. Such an exciting time! Can't wait to hear the good news when it comes :) :) :) xxx
    Lucy @ La Lingua Italy

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    1. Have the labour to do first then hopefully the exciting times start Lucy x

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  5. I love the monkey and giraffe theme, how clever that you can peel off the stickers afterwards. The colour changing thermometer sounds handy too

    Suze | LuxuryColumnist

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    1. Just hope the mini safari doesn't frighten the life out of me during night feeds. The penguine thermometer is so sweet x

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  6. Wow you've really put so much thought into your nursery it's lovely. Orlaith didn't have her own room until she was one, so all I did was get a moses basket for her when she was born :) We're moving next year some time and I absolutely cannot wait to decorate a brand new room for her !! :) Kids rooms are so fun.

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    1. With your beautiful art work I bet you could make Orlaith a wonderful room. Decorating for children is so
      much fun Lucy x

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  7. wowww Lucy, this is so exciting!!! Thank you very much for this post. I love it and I am inspiring from you hehehe. Wishing you a lovely weekend, Liuba x

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    1. Hope you had a lovely weekend lovely Lucy x

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  8. I'm loving the monkey theme Lucy! So cute and very exciting! :)

    Marie x
    www.titchytombie.blogspot.com

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    1. Thanks Marie it's all getting rather real now Lucy x

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  9. Wow, you are much more organised than I was at this point! We ended up getting a lot of stuff after Elsie was born, we have the sangenic, the gro egg thermometer (with penguin too-so cute!) and use little green sheep sheets too, all are great! We also have something similar to the sleepyhead, it was a godsend in the early days, Elsie wouldn't sleep without it and still takes all her naps in it down stairs. I love the theme you've chosen, so adorable! I'm looking forward to finding a house and being able to decorate a room for Elsie, i've got a special board of ideas on pinterest because i just can't decide what to do yet! Enjoy these last few weeks and take it easy, you will need your energy when Yaya arrives! xxxx

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    1. It look us ages to decide on the theme we wanted but I am really happy with the end result. Probably wise to buy things after birth as that way you know you will use what you buy. When you have your house think of all the wonderful things you can craft Lucy x

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  10. Hi,

    Really enjoyed the blog thanks for sharing! Does the sleepyhead deluxe fit in the stoke sleepi mini ok? I think that’s the combo we are going for but can’t see any pictures of them working together. Thanks!

    Katy

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    Replies
    1. The sleepyhead fits perfectly in the stoke mini. It made our little one very cosy, we didn’t bother with a Moses basket because of this. The stoke can be wheeled around too and is small enough to be moved between your room and eventually theirs when six months without dismantling. They also don’t need to acclimatise to a new bed which keeps their routine the same. The sleepyhead can go with you on holidays, visiting friends too and they have the consistency of the same bed. Definitely the best buy we made. Just be aware that the sleepyhead no way fits the baby to six month, at a push you could get to five. My son is now in the grande and loves it too. Lucy

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