Smart Nursery Essentials That Make Life Easier for Busy Mamas:

Your baby has a lot of needs. They need feeding, they need burping, they need playtime and plenty of socialization, and they need lots and lots of sleep. And that’s just for starters! But what your baby really needs in the nursery is another matter.
RELATED POST: Designing Your Nursery On A Budget
To be fair, there are Baby’s actual needs, and YOUR actual needs as the parent(s) caring for Baby:

YOU need a place to change Baby, some organizational systems to store the boatloads of stuff that come with new babies, and hopefully some room to grow.
Honestly, though, Baby could’t care less about all of these! Ditto for the elaborate wall murals and ceiling art, the fancy throw rugs and tchotchkes, or the designer crib.

What your baby really needs is a calm, quiet place to rest and feed. That’s really about it. So with that in mind, here are some tips on making sure you’ve got Baby’s nursery essentials covered when planning out your dream nursery:

This is a collaboration post. However, please know I stand behind everything written here, and only include links to products/services/resources I’m willing to recommend personally.

Nursery Essentials List: Your Baby Essentials Checklist for Baby’s Nursery

Somewhere safe to sleep

For the first few months, Baby will probably be sleeping in the same room as their parents. In this case, you could use a bassinet, or a cradle that’s safe (think small openings between the bars and NO padded bumpers), or you could just start out with your portable sleeping spot (see below).

But eventually, Baby will be in their own room, and will need something a little more established. This is where your choice of crib comes in.

Cribs come in a wide range of price points. We opted for a basic model that did NOT convert, because we already had twin bed frames ready to go for our kids when their crib days were over. But many families nowadays prefer to spend more upfront for a crib that converts to toddler bed, and eventually full-sized bed. (This is what my brother Evan and his wife Alicia did for both my nieces; the nursery images in this post are from my younger niece Cammie’s first nursery, before their most recent move.)

Beyond these considerations, keep in mind basic safety tips:

In the United States at least, drop-side cribs have been banned because of too many safety incidents (this means as long as you get a crib built after February 2011, you should be fine). You’ll also want a crib with narrow openings between the slats (think no bigger than 2 3/8 inches, or 6cm), and NO crib bumpers (those padded things that some people used to think Baby needed to “pad” the inside of the crib between Baby and the slats; bumpers are actually a suffocation hazard).

Likewise, NO wedges, “positioners,” soft mattress toppers or pads, etc. should be used in Baby’s crib; these can all pose a suffocation risk. Ditto stuffed animals, pillows, blankets, etc. If your infant needs layers for warmth, put them in sleep sacks or wearable blankets. And finally, remember that Baby should always be placed on their back to sleep.

PRO TIP: Nursery collections from brands like Mother’s Choice often include cribs and other furniture designed for everyday family use. Just look for safe, practical options that suit your nursery space as well as your longer-term needs.

And while we’re on the topic of where Baby will sleep:

Let’s face it: It’s nice to think that Baby is always going to sleep in the nursery, but unless you’re in a tiny apartment, that’s not very realistic. There will be times when Baby needs to sleep elsewhere, and you need to plan accordingly. Something that can easily go from room to room is your best bet here.

Many parents prefer a bassinet for this purpose. Bassinets can easily roll from one room to another, especially if you live in a one-story dwelling. They’re also perfect for keeping Baby in the master bedroom at night during those first few months.

Other families – ours included – prefer a small play yard (pack’n’play). The secret here is SMALL; it needs to be able to fit through doorways, which most cannot. Here’s why we went this route:

We already had a cradle for use in the master bedroom; what we needed was a DOWNSTAIRS portable sleeping space, since our house has more than one level.
A play yard could easily fold up and travel with us to the grandparents’ house, to serve as a portable crib there.
A small play yard that would fit through doorways was loads cheaper than most bassinets on the market.
And the play yard was something we could (and did!) use for several years, as a play space/nap space/portable crib – something no bassinet can do.

Your baby has a lot of needs - but what your baby really needs in the nursery is another matter! Make sure you cover these bases when planning Baby's room. — We learned the hard way that most play yards would NOT fit through the doorways in our house!

The best model we found that fit our needs was the Cosco FunSport. Fortunately, a few other manufacturers have started making basic smaller play yards that will easily move from one room to the next (or even out to the front yard or back porch!).

A good rocking chair

If you haven’t already bought a rocking chair for the nursery, trust me: You need one. Or rather, Baby needs one. (And will, for years to come.)

Whether you’re nursing or bottle-feeding, you’ll want to be able to give Baby that last meal of the day in the nursery, right before bedtime. A rocking chair is a great place to do this. Having one right there in the nursery will make it a lot easier to do that last feeding and then transition Baby right into the crib for the night (or for naptime).

I’d encourage you to think long-term here, too. A rocking lounger or a glider-rocker is a great investment that you can later move to another room of your house. (When we host Christmas every year for all our extended family, the rocking seats are so popular with the grandparents that we actually had TWO glider-rockers in our living room for awhile!)

On the other hand, I bought a compact, classic rocking chair second-hand for each girl’s bedroom before she was born. Until well into their school-age years, they still liked to snuggle in these chairs with Daddy for a story before bedtime. And once they became avid readers on their own, it was not uncommon to find them curled up in their rockers on a rainy day with a good book. (Rocking chairs are also a great place to calm down when kids are upset and need some “alone time.”)

**A safe, organized place for diaper changes**

After sleeping and eating, the next thing Baby will spend the most time doing is getting diaper changes. Which means you need a safe place to do this that’s ready to go into action, regardless of the time of day (or night).

There are a couple of different ways you can go here. If you’re going the full-nursery-set route, your furniture set will probably include some sort of changing table that converts into a dresser later on, by way of a removable changing-table topper.

You can also buy separate free-standing changing tables. We were gifted a hand-me-down one in time for Essie, but honestly, I couldn’t wait to move it on to someone else, as it was somewhat large and cumbersome for Essie’s small room.

All you REALLY need, though, is a large flat space (preferably one in Baby’s sleeping space, and another elsewhere in the house where Baby spends most of their time). When both our kids were infants and still sleeping in the master bedroom, we had a changing pad on top of my dressing table, with a small diaper caddy nearby. In the living room we had a second diaper caddy, a basket with a few spare clothes, a plastic bin for dirty clothes, and a padded card table covered with waterproof pads.

**The diaper caddy part is essential:**

Did I mention the part about changing Baby in the middle of the night? When you’re feeling more like a zombie than a human being?

Diaper caddies are small multi-compartment bags – usually one or two central compartments, and multiple smaller compartments around the edges – that keep all your diapering essentials right at hand. They can hold a pile of spare diapers, a change or two of clothes, a wipes container, a toy or two (you’ll need something to keep Baby distracted so they hold still when they get older, trust me!), your standard diaper creams, your prescription diaper creams if your child has sensitive skin, etc. etc. etc.

And the best part is, if your family tends to take a lot of road trips to visit far-flung grandparents (as was true for ours), your diaper caddy is easy to grab and bring with you, so setting up your changing station on the grandparents’ card table when you get there is a piece of cake.

(Another tip from the trenches: think about how you’re going to see what you’re doing for those middle-of-night changes, without totally waking Baby or your partner in the process. When our girls were still in the master bedroom, I used a small lamp near the changing table; Dear Husband preferred his camping headlamp.)

Some way to monitor Baby

Next, it’s super-helpful to have a way to monitor Baby without going in and out of their sleeping space all the time, whether you’re at home or away on vacation. This is where baby monitors come in.

Baby monitors come with a base station (the part that stays near Baby) and one or more receivers (the part you use to monitor what’s going on when you’re in a different room). Whether you choose a basic audio monitor or a video monitor, I strongly recommend getting one with two receivers. This way, if you forget to put one back securely on the charging station (it happens!), you’ll still have a charged backup to use.

While many parents like the extra security of video monitors, we did just fine with audio monitors. Video monitors are only as good as the light around them, and you don’t want to have extra light that could disturb Baby’s sleep just so you can see whether they ARE sleeping or not. Audio monitors also give you more options for placement of the base unit, since they don’t require a careful setup to have clear line of sight to Baby. But ultimately, it’s a personal choice which you prefer.

A final note on monitors:

There will come a time (maybe around 9 months?) when you’ll probably want to turn the monitors off and leave bedroom doors open at night. That way, you can hear Baby if they REALLY need you, but you won’t be waking up – and be tempted to go check on them – every time THEY wake up, roll over, or have their own little mid-night play time by themselves.

Soft nursery lighting

Think about it: Your baby’s spent nine months in the cozy darkness of the womb. Is a world full of bright, harsh lights going to be a friendly and welcoming place? I don’t think so! Your baby’s eyes are going to need to get used to the amount of light in the world.

That’s why some low-level lighting should be on your nursery essentials list, too. Low levels of soft lighting are useful in so many ways, but especially for transitioning into and out of sleep times.

One of my own favorite hacks for this is stringing up some white Christmas or fairy lights around your child’s room, and keeping them up year-round. To this day, my girls each have these lights in their room for “bedtime” and “waking-up” lights. It’s a much more gradual way to adjust our bodies’ light-sensitive internal clocks. My girls LOVE the soft lighting these festive lights provide for when I’m tucking them in at night or first waking them in the morning.

And don’t forget about appropriate window coverings when planning out what your baby really needs! Even a good pair of curtains is a great place to start. Room-darkening curtains are also a great option for helping your little one’s room be dark enough for daytime naps.

Your turn:

Experienced parents – what did I miss on this list of what your baby really needs in the nursery? Let us know your additions to our nursery essentials list in the comments!

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