How to Set Up a Fully Functioning Baby Nursery Room: 9 Checklists to Follow

Designing a nursery room takes time and preparation, from planning the layout to choosing decors that will make a perfect nursery room. A nursery room will keep your baby safe and comfortable while helping to keep the house tidy and clean. Styling your baby’s room is considerably important as a thoughtfully decorated nursery room boosts mood, reduces stress, and improves well-being. But aside from that, setting up everything in place is one of the most important things to do. Here are our nine checklists to help you set up a fully functioning nursery room.

1. What is a nursery room?

2. What are the benefits of a nursery room?

• Familiarize your baby to sleep on their own: When your baby reaches a certain age or is old enough, you can teach them to fall asleep on their own. At first, it’s going to be hard but as time goes on, they will be able to sleep by themselves and for hours at a time.
• Helps parents to sleep better: Parents need to be aware of their baby. But you need to take a rest as well to get the necessary energy to take care of your baby. But if the slightest sound and movement will wake you up, having a nursery room can help you.
• Helps baby to sleep better: What if you, or your spouse, are heavy snorers? It will likely have a negative impact on your kid’s sleep quality. But it can be minimized by moving your baby to the nursery room.
• Set up the perfect environment: What if you need a different temperature or lighting than your baby to be comfortable? Having a separate room like a nursery room, can help you and your baby to sleep comfortably by setting up the right temperature and lighting for each room.
• To avoid messiness: Cleaning your beloved newborn after pooping is a challenge, especially for new parents. And it gets significantly worse when your baby has a loose stool that gets on everywhere. A well-equipped nursery room with a changing table can reduce messiness and keep your home clean and hygienic.
• Preps for room upgrade: In most cases, a baby room is eventually turned into a kids’ bedroom. It is like laying a foundation for the room that has yet to come.
• A safe space for nursing: A nursery room provides a safe and comfortable space for mothers to breast-feed or bottle-feed. Furthermore, it is an important bonding moment for both parents and babies who need a quiet, private, and calm environment.
• Playground: Babies learn mostly by their senses, especially by touching. When they start to crawl, you can make the room their playground to help them develop and train their motor skills. To keep them safe, you need to babyproof the room and avoid anything toxic or dangerous. And the good thing is you are generally safe by babyproofing the nursery room instead of the whole house.

3. What to put in the nursery room?

• Get a crib or bassinet: Sharing a bed is dangerous for your baby. The most common risk is suffocation due to parents or pillows accidentally rolling onto the baby which can be fatal. It is easily prevented by letting your baby boy or baby girl sleep on his or her crib.
• Set up a changing table: it is an essential piece of furniture for a baby’s room. A changing table is usually equipped with various storage to put all of your babies’ stuff such as diapers, wipes, medicine, cleaning products, and more, to clean your baby easily. A good changing table is more than just a place to change dirty diapers, it is also a great help for parents to reduce the risk of lower back pain. It is designed ergonomically so that parents don’t need to overly crouch or bend down when changing dirty diapers.
• Swaddle: A comfy wrapper-like blanket to keep your baby warm and secure. It is believed to calm and help the baby to sleep.
• A rocker or glider seat: You need to be comfortable too. You will spend a good chunk of time there so you need something to help you feel comfortable. A nice soft rocker or glider seat is what you need to be comfortable while bonding with your baby.
• Bedding essentials: Create a comfy and soft sleeping space that includes a firm mattress and fitted sheet,
• Mini fridge: This is a luxury. However, it makes night feeding easier as you don’t need to walk far to get your stored milk in the fridge, especially if your fridge and your nursery are not on the same floor.
• Dresser: It is where you will put your baby’s clothes, gifts, and other things that you need for your baby.
• Baby monitor: An extra protection to keep your baby safe by alerting you of potential danger. In addition, it also transmits live video where you can check your baby from another room.
• All-purpose baskets: You can put the bin near the crib to put toys and other necessities near and reachable. Additionally, you can stow and organize them easily after use.

4. How to decorate a nursery room?

• Dreamy accent wall: Turn the wall where the crib is on with an accent wall. An accent wall on this side of the wall will bring the focus to where the crib is and make the space feel special.
• Super soft rugs: Fluffy carpets and rugs will enhance the softness of the room. Additionally, it helps balance the harmony of the space too.
• Baby table drawer: Get a visually pleasing table storage drawer to help store all the necessities. It can be an open shelves drawer if you prefer open arrangements.
• Memory wall: Create a memory wall by putting a memorable picture of your baby as he/she grows up. It can be a picture when they say their first word, one-month-old, and more.
• Pick a theme: Choose a room theme for your nursery room. It can be a theme of woodland, moves, nature, dinosaurs, animals, fantasy, cartoon, space, constellation, outdoor, and more.
• Adorable decals and stencils: You can add a finishing touch to your nursery room by adding adorable decals and stencils, like a quote, plants, animals, and more. They are affordable and removable if you want to change them in the future.
• Install blackout curtains: It will make your nursery feel rich and premium as well as blocking lights. Light sources from outside like vehicle headlights and traffic lights can disrupt your baby from sleeping. With blackout curtains, the light from the outside can be minimized, keeping your baby from outside distractions.
• Nightlight: A dimmable nightlight to adjust the mood of the room for sleeping, napping, and nighttime feeding. If you like a more unique design, you can get a nightlight with a cute animal-shaped nightlamp, that will look gorgeous for your baby room.
• Open shelves: It is a great place to put up small decorations like small plants, stuffed toys, or even your favorite books. Furthermore, it keeps your baby safe by putting away items out of your baby’s reach.
• Plushies: They are so cute and fluffy and match well with most nursery room designs. Plushies, also known as stuffed toys, have a variety of shapes and designs but the most popular one is the teddy bear. You can put them on open shelves or on hooks to keep the floor clear.

5. How to keep the nursery room clean and fresh?

• Puzzle play mats: It is a great item to have when your baby starts to move and roll around his or her baby’s room. They are colorful and soft, making playtime safer and more fun. When choosing baby play mats, make sure to get the mats from a trusted brand that is non-toxic and child-friendly.
• Breathable crib mattress pad: It is of utmost importance that you have a breathable crib mattress pad to keep the sleeping area clean and comfortable. You don’t want the sweat, pees, and poop to seep into your mattress. They are smelly and harmful for your baby and you can easily avoid it by getting a mattress pad.
• Waterproof changing pad: To create a safe and clean surface when you change your baby’s diaper.
• Diaper pail: Say goodbye to the unpleasant smell, a diaper pail is the winner to keep bad smell from spreading all over the baby room. It comes with a sealant that can seal dirty diapers inside the pail. And then you can store them there until you can clear them out.
• Air purifier: Depending on the environment, an air purifier will act as an extra protective layer in keeping the optimum air quality.

6. What color to paint the nursery room?

Choose colors that assist your baby to sleep. According to the sleep expert, a bedroom that is painted in blue, green, or white are three colors that promote calmness and relaxation. Blue bedroom color helps to get longer average sleep, green helps to relax, and white lessens distraction compared to a colorful room. Whichever you choose, any of these colors are beneficial in helping your baby by setting up an ideal sleeping environment for a good night’s sleep.

7. When should you start setting up a nursery room?

Most people usually start setting up a nursery room starting from the second trimester of pregnancy which is between 13 to 27 weeks of pregnancy. You should start slowly and little by little to not overwhelm yourself. You may feel tired at times but you can still start choosing, positioning, and decorating the room. As for big stuff, like painting, you can do it while you have the energy and feeling motivated. Otherwise, you can ask your husband to help you.

You need to wait before you move your baby boy or baby girl to his or her baby room. A nursery room can be used after a baby reaches a certain age. An expert from Harvard said that a baby should share a room with their parents for 6 months minimum while 12 months will be better.

8. How to make a nursery in a small room?

The key point to making a nursery in a small room is keeping the essentials. There are three basic items that you need to have in a nursery room:

• A crib or bassinet: a safe sleeping space for your baby.
• A changing table and dresser: As you have limited space, consider having a mix of changing table and dresser to safe space but to keep your nursery functional.
• A rocker or glider: A comfortable seating space for parents.

Match your decorations with your room size and layout. Consider having smaller décor like stencils and decals but keep it stylish by having a themed nursery room. With the essentials and little decorations, you can turn a small room into a pretty and fully functioning baby room.

9. How to design baby boys’ room and baby girls’ rooms?

Traditionally, a baby boys’ room has a blue-themed room while a baby girls’ room has a pink-themed room. Lately, gender-neutral nurseries that ditch blue and pink stereotypes are trending and becoming popular. Instead of a common blue or pink-themed nursery, parents start to design their nursery room with neutral colors and elements like white and grey colors, rattan decors, and whimsical wallpaper.