Nesting in pregnancy is an extremely common instinct. Take advantage of your overwhelming need to nest with these top tips on decluttering before baby arrives.
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The Nesting Instinct
Nesting in pregnancy is a natural urge to prepare your environment for your new arrival. It happens in the animal kingdom and the instinct is extremely powerful when it takes hold.
Nesting in pregnancy is very common and mostly occurs close to the time when your baby will be born. You may feel the overwhelming urge to clean, organize and ensure that everything is ready for your baby. This may just be felt as an urge to spring clean but for some women it can get quite obsessive
Take Advantage Of Your Need To Nest During Pregnancy.
Use this urge to your advantage. Let the nesting instinct take hold and use that energy to have a good clear out, and organize, and declutter before baby arrives. This is the perfect time to get your house in shape before your baby arrives. Believe me, you aren’t going to want to do this once you have a newborn.
If you get everything done now while you feel the need to nest you will have more time to get the rest you need once your baby is born. The prospect of having a tiny human to care for can be overwhelming but with a clean, tidy, organized, and clutter free home you will feel more prepared and content.
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Tips For Nesting In Pregnancy And Decluttering Before Baby’s Arrival
Plan And Prioritize
When the nesting instinct takes over you may just want to dive straight in without any kind of plan. You know what needs to be done but without a proper plan you may not make much headway. You may not have time to go through the whole house, or it may just be too much especially if you are heavily pregnant.
Go through your home and decide which areas are the most needy. Where the most clutter is and where you need more space. For example, if you are storing things in the room that is for baby, and places like the kitchen and living room where a lot of baby things will need to be stored.
Once you know which areas you are going to declutter you can work out a plan of action. One room each day or each week if that suits you better. Have a time frame in mind, so you know roughly how long it will take you and when you should be all finished. With a clear plan in place you are much more likely to stick to it.
If you are feeling the urge to declutter and organize but are struggling with knowing where to start then this free organization challenge could be just what you need.
Using 5 words as the keys to organization the challenge will lay out steps to take for a more organized home. It will give you the motivation to make the changes necessary to make your home and life run smoother, make your home more inviting, and give you more time to enjoy with your family.
Know What You Need To Buy And Where It Is Going To Go
A way of helping you make your plan is to think about all of the extra things you are going to bringing into the house. Babies come with a lot of stuff. Even with just the basics there’s no getting away from how much you are going to need for your little one.
Make a list of all the things you are going to need for your baby. Now go round your home and work out where everything is going to go. Imagine how your home is going to look one the baby’s things are there. This will tell you which areas will need to be cleared. Then as you begin to declutter you will know exactly where to make room for the baby stuff.
Set Yourself Goals
Now I don’t know about you but if I am going to undertake a particular task I need structure. I need a plan, and I need to set myself little goals in order to complete each part of the task. I’m just much more productive this way. If you are like me and need a bit of motivation then this could really help.
Try setting yourself goals for each day or each room you declutter. You could aim to clear out a certain number of items from each room, say 25 or 50. With me it was more like 100 but it really depends on how much clutter you have.
You could even give yourself time goals, aiming to spend so many hours each day clearing stuff out. However you decide to do it as you reach each goal you will feel a sense of accomplishment, and know you are achieving something.
Be Ruthless
Now I know this is easier said than done but you are going to have to be brutal when choosing what to keep and what to dispose of. Items of sentimental value are excluded as we all have things that we just couldn’t get rid of, gifts from loved ones and things with special memories attached.
You really are going to have to be strict when it comes to everything else though. There are lots of methods for doing this but only one really worked for me.
Before you begin set up 3 bags or boxes or crates. Label them with Sell, Donate, and Trash. When you come to each item ask yourself three questions.
1. Have I used it in the last 6 months?
2. Do I really love it?
3. Does it improve my life in anyway?
You have to be completely honest with yourself when answering. If you can’t answer yes to at least one of those questions then the item goes in one of the three boxes. Of course if anything is broken or badly damaged then you don’t even need to go through this process.
Go Through Your Regular Clothes
This is something I absolutely had to do while I was nesting during my pregnancy as my clothing had spilled over into the closet into the room that would become the nursery. I had shoes, and bags on the shelves, there was just clutter everywhere. The thing is I never actually went in there looking for something to wear, so the stuff was just sitting there taking up space.
Chances are you aren’t wearing your regular clothes right now so it’s the perfect time to go through your closet. Get rid of anything that definitely isn’t going to fit after baby is born, just remember to keep some loose comfortable clothing to wear in the postpartum period.
Be honest with yourself, if you haven’t worn something in the last couple of years then you probably aren’t going to. If you tend to hoard clothes then you will probably find stuff that are no longer to your taste. Let it all go.
Throw out anything that is stained, torn, or just generally beyond repair. Everything that is in decent condition can be sold or donated. You will probably find it much easier to find the stuff you actually wear when it’s all done.
Paper Clutter
You are going to have records pertaining to your baby that you are going to want to put your hands straight on. When you hoard a lot of papers things can get lost in the clutter. When you have important documentation you need to know where it is.
This is probably one of the biggest problems in our house. I’m terrible for throwing letters, leaflets, forms, and documentation in drawers and cupboards. The end result is that I can never find anything without fifteen minutes of emptying drawers out on the floor and flinging papers around. I am trying to be better about this though.
This one is definitely not just a one time nesting thing. Sort through your papers on a regular basis, and recycle what you can. If anything contains personal information you can buy a small shredder to take care of it. A useful tip is to dispose of any junk mail as soon as it comes through the door rather than letting it build up. This sounds like a no brainer but I find a surprising amount of junk mail in my messy drawer!
Other handy tips for reducing paper clutter are switching to online bills and bank statements, and scanning any papers you are keeping for information purposes. You can also get a couple of folders to keep important papers together, organized, tidy, and easier to find.
Sort Out Your Personal Items
Go through any bathroom cabinets, and areas where you keep personal items. We are all guilty of hoarding shower gels, foam bath, and body lotion that were gifts from Christmas three years ago. I have wicker baskets that I keep all that stuff in and I have to go through them every couple of months to avoid things getting out of control.
Go through any first aid items you have to make sure everything is still in good condition and in date. You will need to make room in your bathroom for baby’s things and any first aid items you need for them.
The Kitchen
Whether you are breast or bottle feeding your baby you are definitely going to have extra equipment in the kitchen. Have a good sort through your kitchen cupboards to make room for bottles, formula, pumping equipment etc.
Larger items may need to stay on your worktops. So imagine where everything is going to go and make some space. If you have items on your worktops that you don’t use every day then put them away. Only have out what you actually need to avoid clutter.
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Look For The Positives
So you may be filled with dread at the thought of throwing half your stuff. The best way around this is to focus on the good things that will come from you having a clear out. Try not to focus on the things you are going to lose and think about what you will gain.
Once you have sorted your stuff into the tree piles you are probably going to have some things to sell. That’s extra money for the baby fund and you will be able to get stuff that you need and will actually use.
If you are donating some of your items then be glad that someone else, who may need them is going to get use out of them. The ten winter jumpers that you haven’t worn for five years are much better off with someone who desperately needs them rather than being stuffed in the back of your closet.
As for all of the rubbish, well it was cluttering up your home. It didn’t need to be there. In exchange for throwing it all out you get a tidy and well ordered home, a clear, calm and peaceful space that will leave your mind much less cluttered as well as your home. Once more your urge to nest will be satisfied.
Don’t Try To Tackle Everything At Once
Your pregnant, possibly in the third trimester you will need to pace yourself. This needs to be done but you also need to rest. You should have a plan in place and you need to stick to it but don’t expect to get everything done at once.
The nesting instinct may be strong but you need to know your limits. Enlist help if you need to and of course avoid heavy lifting.
It’s probably going to be a lot of hard work but you will reap the benefits of the instinct for nesting in pregnancy when it’s done.
