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Home › Articles › Organization › Corral the Chaos

Corral the Chaos

6 Easy Ways to Organize Your Nursery Before Baby Arrives

By Melody Warnick

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For someone the size of your average breadbox, a newborn requires an awful lot of gear. With all that baby shower loot – not to mention the mega-boxes of diapers and impulse-buy onesies you've been squirreling away – you're likely to have an Everest of infant clutter long before the little one even arrives on the scene.

But don't wait for the nesting instinct to strike before you start organizing the nursery, says Erica Ecker, a New York City-based professional organizer and owner of the Spacialist. "A lot of moms think, 'Oh, I'll do it closer to the due date,'" she says. "Meanwhile, they're either suffering from exhaustion or they're on bed rest, or their baby is early. So they run out of time."

Setting up the nursery at the beginning of your third trimester lets you get things done while you still have some energy, and it keeps you from being caught by surprise later on. Plus, arranging tiny socks in a dresser drawer or putting fresh sheets on a crib mattress can be meditative acts, soothing to anxious parents-to-be.

For Jennifer Adair, of Tempe, Ariz., creating the perfect nursery setup for her daughter, Brooklyn, now 7 months, became a tangible way to lessen her fears about motherhood. "It made it less stressful to think I was getting prepared," she says. "You don't have any control over your body, the baby's kicking, everything's getting bigger. But the nursery is something you can control and get ready."

With these simple ideas, you can whip your nursery into shape today.

1. Edit Your Objects
Since setting up a nursery often involves rearranging other parts of your home – repurposing a spare bedroom or finding a new spot for your computer – it's a great time to take stock of everything you've accumulated through the years. Let's be honest: Are you really going to need two dozen champagne flutes once Junior's around? And when was the last time you actually used your college lacrosse stick? By throwing out or donating what you no longer need, you free up room for an influx of baby accoutrements.

To find even more space, look under beds and at the tops of closets. "You can use space going straight up to the ceiling if you've got the right containers," says Linda Durham, a professional organizer in Houston, Texas.

2. Think Function Over Form

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