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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To not refer to my baby's bedroom as a nursery...

68 replies

HooverFairy · 03/08/2013 08:54

I have always referred to my baby's bedroom as his bedroom, because it is. I don't understand why people would call a baby's room a nursery, to me a nursery is somewhere where your child is looked after and if this was at home then it implies you have a nanny etc. and this would be the baby's living space rather than their bedroom.

I know I'm BU but it really winds me up, I have a friend who is having a baby and I have to repeatedly look at pictures of the 'nursery' when they add something new. IDK, maybe it just sounds a bit snobby to say 'nursery' when it is a bedroom.

Anyone else?

OP posts:

MrsMook · 05/08/2013 22:36

We call it the nursery or X's room except it will soon be Y's room when X's new room is complete. So nursery is a one word way of saying the baby room as it's not tailored to any particular baby.

It's only just big enough to be a long term bedroom and would just get in a bed and chest of drawers or wardrobe. At present it fits a cotbed, drawers and chair. It's not "themed", it has my paper hot air balloon lampshade from my deepest youth, a mural I painted myself, and some nice curtains. It's a pretty room for a small child but hasn't been decorated at exploitative prices, and DS1 likes the pictures on the walls.

When DS1 moved into it he was still having night feeds and I have spent many hours in the night "nursing" in there so nursery is a perfectly logical description of the room.

FloweryOwl · 06/08/2013 00:23

I always thought it was an american term for a baby bedroom. To me they're just my kids bedrooms. My friend told me she was going to decorate the nursery this week and it sounded odd to me. Her daughter's nursery is a spare room in her dad's house on an estate in the middle of Leeds. Nursery always reminds me of well off Americans for some reason!

ComposHat · 06/08/2013 05:32

Yep I have a dislike of that term and think it sounds pretentious, especially if the child stays in that room as they get older.

When/why does it become their bedroom or will they be 17 and trying to stagger back to their nursery when pissed or trying to get potential sexual partners upstairs for some hot nursery action?

MrsKoala · 06/08/2013 05:51

We called it the office because DH worked in there, then it became the nursery because we kept all the baby things in there. We had a day bed in there where i nursed him. But he never slept in there so it was not his bedroom. We have now moved and he has no nursery or bedroom. He sleeps with us and has no stuff

Sleepyfergus · 06/08/2013 06:20

Seriously?? FFS OP, have a

Have you nothing better to get riled about?

PollyIndia · 06/08/2013 06:27

What sleepy fergus said. Who cares! I sometimes call it the baby's room, sometimes the nursery and I spent a grand total of £100 on some quentin Blake parrot wallpaper and got handmedowns on everything else. So what! It's a tiny room. More pretentious to call it a bedroom and prance about saying I have 3 bedrooms when really it's 2 and a little box room, now the nursery. Maybe it will become a study when he's moved out, really get your goat.

Jengnr · 06/08/2013 06:32

(Baby's name)'s room. I'm with you on the nursery thing.

I also hate the term 'nursing' for feeding.

And I have one of those bedroom sets from Mothercare. It cost me a bloody fortune but it makes me happy.

ZutAlorsDidier · 06/08/2013 09:31

I don't like "nursing" for breastfeeding because it implies squeamishness about breasts, so you have to use a euphemism; also nursing is now usually done to the sick (except in plant nurseries, where I suppose the little plants are nurtured, is this the same root?)
I wouldn't mind "nurturery" so much as that implies tlc without sickness

squoosh · 06/08/2013 09:36

I agree Zut, God forbid someone mentions the word 'breast'!

I've only ever heard Americans use the word 'nursing' though, they tend to be a bit prudish.

MrsPercyPig · 06/08/2013 09:42

YANBU it's a boak term!

My baby is 6 months and hasn't slept in his bedroom once, nor will he be anytime soon!

It used to really wind me up when people asked if I had decorated the 'nursery' when I was pregnant. No, I haven't- the baby has a cot and I will buy him proper, decent sized furniture that will last him when I feel like it!

Bah humbug!

Catsize · 06/08/2013 09:47

Dont think it can be a marketing ploy, as the term is older than modern marketing.
Never really thought about it, but have always referred to ours as my son's room I think, not nursery.
When the nursing was going on, he was tucked up with us. Does that make our room the nursery?

BurnThisDiscoDown · 06/08/2013 10:48

Our DS's room was my study, now it's the baby's room/"DS's" room/nursery, then when he moves into a bigger bedroom it will become the "unfeasibly small room that's not really big enough for a bed". Hmm, maybe I'll carry on calling it the nursery...

UniqueAndAmazing · 06/08/2013 13:37

yup, nursing is the standard american term.

UniqueAndAmazing · 06/08/2013 13:42

why have we got "have you nothing better to think about?"

IRL, when you hear a conversation, do you go up to the people and go "haven't you got anything else to worry about?"?

no?
didn't think so.
if you're not interested in the conversation, butt out.

ZutAlorsDidier · 06/08/2013 13:46

I do. I go up to people talking about things that don't interest me and say

"haven't you got anything better to worry about?"
and
"Some other people have had this conversation already. More than once. You can't have it now because other people have already talked about it"
and
"ffs get a grip." this one is followed up with "boys will be boys" "men don't see dirt" "he was just trying to be friendly" "I will worry when they stop perving at me"

I do it all the time. Imagine how many friends I have.

[full disclosure: I never do this. this is not the reason I have no friends]

rockybalboa · 06/08/2013 13:51

Ours definitely isn't a nursery. It's the spare room where guests stay when they come to visit with a cot shoved in the corner until DS3 gets big enough to to share a room with his two brothers!

Sleepyfergus · 06/08/2013 13:59

Because 'Unique' the title of the threa interested me, insofar as we used to refer to my my then future dd2s room as the nursery. Not because his was where I nursed her (but yes, a LOT of breast feeding went in I there) but because its just a term we hadn't given much thought about and was an easy way to distinguish the room from other rooms. Really hadn't given it much thought

But then I read such petty little comments from folk who also think having an office or a study is pretentious! Heaven forbid. Will people be slated for having a 'drawing room' instead of a sitting room or lounge? Fuck me, some older folk still refer to a scullery but dont have a maid! Tsk! Imagine. What about those people who have a stable door, but no horse.....?!?

MrsKoala · 06/08/2013 16:33

I actually like the word nursing too. I think it is more than feeding. I nurse my baby in the nursery - i feed, bathe, change, clothe, sing to him in there. It implies all round care - i also don't think it is the same as a bedroom, as often it is never the babies bedroom. It is often the nursery for all your children till they are big enough to have a different room of their own and then may become a playroom/spare room/study etc.

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