How to decorate a nursery for the infants room

Bringing a new baby home is exciting and frightening. And you need to be prepared ahead of time. The main preparation is usually the nursery, the room where your baby will sleep and eat and be stimulated. Obviously, you should have a place for the baby to sleep, but a nursery is much more than just a bed. It can be a soothing room where hunger pangs are comforted and fears quieted in a mother's warm arms. Here's how to decorate it.

First, you need to evaluate your space. Do you have a large room? You can afford to spread out the furniture a bit, then. But if your only baby space is small and cramped, that's ok, too. After all, babies themselves don't take up much room and their stuff doesn't have to either.

Now decide what furniture you will need. This depends largely on what is available in your budget range and what you recieve from friends and family or have left over from the last child. For a small room, you'll want furniture that serves more than one purpose. For example, a dresser with a edge on top to serve as a change table. You can always add shelves on the walls above furniture, just be sure to stay away from the crib and change table so things won't fall on the baby.

Often used baby furniture can be found at thrift stores and garage sales. Just make sure it's safe for your child, since some older furniture didn't have to be inspected. Turn down anything that's painted, has loose joints, holes or cutout shapes in the headboard, or bars more than 2" apart. All these can be harmful to your baby, causing suffocation, injury, poisioning or strangulation.

That said, you'll want the basics, a crib or cradle for the infant to sleep in, somewhere to store clothing and baby supplies (shelves can serve this purpose), and somewhere to change diapers (a bathroom counter can double as a change table).

Now for the fun part, decorating! You'll want to paint well before the little one arrives so the paint fumes won't bother him. The most common colors for nurseries are pastels and white. Choose a color theme and stick with it. You can go with primary colors, subdued fashion colors, whatever suites you.

After painting the walls, consider creating a theme in the room. You can add a few sponge-painted clouds to a blue ceiling for a outdoors look, or a wallpaper border around the walls. And don't rule out stencils. There are plenty of whimsical shapes available at craft stores that would be suitable for nurseries. If you are artistic, you can paint pictures right onto the walls. Characters from storybooks and fairy tales are a good start, but you can also work with murals, either from books on painting, or your own design.

A mobile hung over the crib adds character to a nursery and can be either store bought or made at home. You can integrate whatever you find appealing into your decorating. If you see a fun mobile at a garage sale, go ahead and buy it, the baby won't mind if everything isn't brand new!

Pictures and stuffed animals arranged around the room add a nice touch to the room. If you have a baby shower before your baby arrives, you should have lots of material for decoration. And if you have a really cute outfit that won't fit for a year or two, try hanging it on the wall! You get to enjoy it while the little one grows into it.

The bedding you choose for the crib adds a lot to the room as well. If you have a theme, continue it in the bedding. You might choose to buy a cute blanket from Sears, or utilize an older baby quilt that your great-grandmother made. Whatever you select, it will mean something in the years to come.