Beginning to think about how you’re going to decorate your nursery is an exciting time. There are so many possibilities, even if you don’t know the sex of the baby. One thing you want to do, is make sure that it’s the safest place for your baby to be, especially in those all important night time hours.

Placement of the Nursery

Thinking about where you’re going to place your furniture is something you should take into consideration before designing any other aspect of the nursery. Although at birth your baby won’t be able to grab anything too far away from them, they will soon start moving around. Keep anything that could fall on the baby or anything that they could choke on well away from the crib. Things even as simple as curtains could be pulled down and smother your child. For baby items in the home, go for a safe bet with a mamaRoo swing or a sturdy playard.

It’s best to place the crib against a wall in the center of the room with nothing that they can reach out and grab, even when they are old enough to stand. This way you can rest assured that your baby will be safe and can continue to develop in their precious sleep.

Paint

Did you know, that some paint available on the market can be harmful to your baby? Ensuring that you choose child safe paint is important for their development and health. Many paints are lead based which is dangerous. Also the strong paint fumes (even though you may have painted months before the birth) can trigger asthma in a small child. Read more on how you can decorate with child safe paint. That way, both you and baby can sleep soundly (within reason) and you won’t have to worry about any underlying illnesses that the paint could create. You could opt to go for a few colors to make the nursery a calming and quaint room to be in. There are stencils that you can buy to apply to the walls to add charm to the room, or even wall transfers which you apply very similarly to wallpaper.

Furniture

As lovely as the thought is of using the same crib you lay in when you were a baby, it’s always best to buy new. I am normally all about saving money, but your child’s safety comes first. If you absolutely can’t afford to buy new, then make sure you reinforce the structural integrity of the crib. Again going back to paint, if you decide to repaint the crib to freshen it up, make sure to use child safe paint.

With pieces of furniture like chests of drawers, be sure not to have anything to heavy stored in or on top of them, so that when baby does start exploring there’s no risk of them pulling it onto themselves by accident.

Applying all of these bits of advice to your nursery will allow you to rest assured that your baby is safe in their bedroom. Enjoy the new addition to your family, they’re not babies for long!