Queen of Nesting
Nesting: (Wikipedia)
In human females, the nesting instinct often occurs around the fifth month of pregnancy[1][4], but can occur as late as the eighth, or not at all[citation needed]. It may be strongest just before the onset of labor.[1][5][6]
It is commonly characterized by a strong urge to clean and organize one’s home and is one reason why couples who are expecting a baby often reorganize, arrange, and clean the house and surroundings.
I am in nesting mode. AND I LOVE IT! I have been stressing for the last several weeks about ALL of the work that needed doing in our house. For those who haven’t seen our Project Changing Rooms vlog, we are in the process of changing virtually the whole upstairs in our house. What was our master bedroom is becoming Ella’s “Big Girl Room”. What was our guest room/dumping ground/main wardrobe storage area is now our new master bedroom. What was Ella’s room/nursery will be converted back into Bebe’s room. Phew! We’re knackered!
My Dad and Stepmom arrived last Friday and Sunday commenced work on the upstairs. By the end of today we will have transformed the 2 main rooms and will just have a few decorating bits and bobs to finish and a bit of nursery re-assembly in time for Bebe’s arrival in FIFTEEN DAYS! The best part of all of this (besides having family here to help and chat with) is that I have gotten rid of a TON of things that hadn’t seen the light of day for years! I have been pretty ruthless with the “rubbish” pile and the “charity” pile so a lot has gone by the wayside. We’ve been in a flurry of organising, storing and stashing and it has thoroughly fulfilled my nesting need. I have had the chance to sit on the bed amidst a pile of junk from the wardobe as the cutting and slashing occurred and it was wonderful. Very freeing- I highly recommend it.
Thanks to all the digging in our long ignored wardrobes, I managed to find a set of unused bottles and a microwave steam steriliser, various baby gadgets and bits and formula containers. I forgot that I had some of those things! I have also realised that the Moses Basket that we had for Ella is PERFECTLY fine for Bebe. It just needs a new mattress which is a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than getting a whole new one. I’m a bit unnecessesarily snobbish about “new” for babies which is stupid. Considering Bebe will only spend MAYBE 6 weeks in a Moses Basket, NEW is not necessary. These finds of mine through sorting and organising means that the frantic “Bebe” shopping that I thought I needed to do has become decidedly less urgent and frantic which is a very good thing indeed.
The nesting will continue for the next fifteen days but I feel so much better about where we are now. I can take my time, enjoy the process and stop freaking out. Bebe will appreciate that his mummy is not stressing and I might even manage to take a nap or two whilst Ella is at preschool in the next two weeks. Shock, horror. I leave you with a question for today:
What was your NESTING like when you were pregnant? Did you do silly projects, weird cleaning, or were you all calm, cool and collected? Share your nesting stories with me! I will enjoy reading them with my feet up! Oh, and I promise to bring you the “Project Changing Rooms: The RESULT” next week some time.
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Nesting was by far one of my favourite parts of pregnancy. I *insisted* that the husband pull the fridge out into the middle of the kitchen because I HAD to clean ALL OF IT. Never has my house been so clean and tidy…Boo arrived the next day mind you so you keep those feet up mrs!
My husband was respraying our vintage car (as you do, in your own garage) as I hit 8m pregnant. I was sharing my house with various bits of car and the assorted gunk that you put under an old car to stop it corroding. Bearing in mind I could barely walk with (undiagnosed) SPD the nesting instinct kicked in and I spent days on my hands and knees scrapping bits of this gunk off our newly laid wood floor. Completely ridiculous. For those of you thinking it would have got the Cheetah Keeper’s sister into an excellent position – think again, she hadn’t read that bit of the book!
I was so looking forward to the nesting period when I was pregnant with my daughter. I had loads of stuff that needed doing round the house. Unfortunately it never kicked in and I was too tired to get much done!! Maybe, this time eh!
What a fantastic blog! I went through a big nesting stage 6 weeks before I gave birth because we moved house and I had to get it just right for my newborn. I really got involved with every aspect of renovating the house and especially enjoyed the painting as I could quickly see the results. It was this however which inspired me to start my company. Up a ladder, heavily pregnant, paint brush in hand I started to question the effects the paint might have on me and my unborn son. I ended up doing lots of research and finally came up with the idea of natural paint based on soya beans which would be safe for mums to use during pregnancy and safe for baby to sleep in straight away. So my nesting has led me to be very busy! If you’d like a peek at the range pop over to http://www.nurserypaint.co.uk and good luck with your nesting x
I decided it was entirely necessary to sort out the loft. Picture a whale trying to climb a flimsy ladder and you can imagine how crazy that looked! It was worth it though as like you I found lots of things I’d forgotten I even had for Bubby D
I went nesting crazy in my 3rd pregnancy – not great as my son was only 13 months old when my daughter was born so I was still having sleepless nights.
Think my most ridiculous moment was at about 7 months when I decided I HAD to clean all the windows inside and out which I did with one baby strapped in a carrier on my back and the other sticking out about a foot in front of me!
I cleaned like a mad woman the day I had premature rupture of memebranes
Apparently I nested throughout my whole pregnancy, it did my husband’s head in! You go for it, you never get chance later down the line!
I got rather hooked on the smell of bleach when I was pregnant! If you run out of things to tidy I have a whole house of crap that needs sorting !!!
At 39wks pregnant with my 1st child I cleaned the tile grout on the kitchen floor with a Brillo pad, tile-by-tile. Very satisfying! I also discovered I could remove the knobs on the cooker to clean underneath them and I was ecstatic. I went into labour 2 days later.
I didn’t get the nesting urge with my 2nd pregnancy, I’m still waiting for it. I could do with some nesting hormones, my place is in desperate need of a pregnancy-level clean and sort.