Decorating baby room pre-sex

[Babyshine2020]

Hi, we're currently trying to decided how to decorate our baby's room. We aren't finding out the sex and while I'd rather wait the husband would rather get it "out of the way" with.

So here's my dilemma. Here's all the furniture to scale and these are the measurements; (cm)

Cotbed - 160cmX77cmX99.8cm (L/W/H)
Changing unit - 91X90X50 (H/W/D)
Double wardrobe - 175X100X50 (H/W/D)
Dresser - 130.3X78X38 (H/W/D)
Chair - 105X67X72 (H/W/D)
Toy Box - 50X78X40 (H/W/D)
Shelf - 57X76X25 (H/W/D)

Any ideas of wallpaper/themes/murals? I'm not sure if murals will be washed as none of the walls is really empty enough to see them. The walls measure 3.24*2.16m without going back and checking my measurements.

I love the dumbo wallpaper in Dunelms at the minute but I don't know if it'll be ~too~ much grey.

Thankns!

Honestly, you don’t need all that stuff. Baby should be in with you until at least 6 months old, and for a lot of people longer. Just buy normal adult furniture or in a couple of years you will be selling for pennies a baby sized wardrobe that you never used.

I think the dumbo wallpaper would be lovely.

We painted the baby's room blue before we found out boy/girl because I wanted hot air balloons which went with sky blue. I also don't like pink

personally i'd wait until after conception. and decorating wouldn't be how i'd choose to get in the mood...

Hmm, in the past my babies’ rooms have been lemon and turquoise and white. I think I’d go plain white now and add the interest with bedding and prints.

I love the Quentin Blake bird wallpaper though. I’d be tempted by that.

@battlestargalactica baby is already conceived and is due in a couple of months hence why we're trying to get organised.

@TinklyLittleLaugh oh I'll have a google at that on my lunch, thank you!

battlestargalactica!
I kept my DDs in with me for a year, but decorated the eventual nursery with an alphabet theme, as its non-sexist. The alphabet frieze round the walls was great for teaching purposes - I carried DD round it, singing a song about all the letter sounds. She knew her alphabet by 18 months and was reading at 2, fluent by 3. Thankfully, neither DD ever had a pink fluffy crap phase.

I probably wouldn't put all that furniture in one small room. It would be better having floor space baby and then toddler can play in.

Also have baby due soon, they will be sharing our room first 6-12 months but have 'nursery- guest room' semi-done. Has a chest of drawers in from Ikea with changing mat on top, and honestly with clothing, nappies, and bedding in it. It's still virtually empty.

From your list of stuff I would ditch the toy box, and the additional dresser going in there at least. With the storage in changing unit, the double wardrobe thing and drawer under cot you won't need more storage in one space.

Decor wise, we have stuck with white walls, and wooden/rattan lamps and accessories as it will stay a guest room also a while longer

I came on to say the same thing as battle star
I wouldn’t decorate a baby room in a gendered way.

Definitely ditch the dresser and the toy box, you do not need all that furniture at all unless you're having triplets.

We're doing grey and white as we haven't found out the sex either and it's nice and neutral and is minimal effort on our part tbh. You can always add colour with accessories later if you wanted (curtains, lampshade, bedding etc).

The dumbo paper is nice but keep in mind stuff like that does seem babyish as they get older and when your child is 2/3ish you might want to change it.

I painted three walls light grey and the one behind the cot dark blue. Blue wall is covered in silver star decals and then there are other space/night sky decorations. It's really beautiful and works for either sex. Etsy has some lovely nursery decorations once you got an idea x

I have two DC and didn't find out what sex they were before the birth, but still decorated their rooms in advance.

With DS1 we went with a farm yard animals theme. Painted the walls in a creamy colour, then added a border with animals on, which matched the bedding.

With DS2, we again painted the walls cream, but added canvases that were gender neutral. One had an alphabet, one had numbers 1-10, another was Paddington, another was a bus with a load of animals in.

Another idea is to do an under the sea theme as that lasts a little longer as they get older. We did this in DS1's bedroom when we moved house. So he has a load of decals, and John Lewis under the sea bedding and light shade which were on sale at the time. We bought made to measure curtains as his window is massive, and chose a stripey fabric, which will not date or be too young.

Another idea is to do a sky type theme with hot air balloons as that works for boy or girl.

I am now thinking of doing a snow capped mountain type scene on the walls of his room.

John Lewis does lovely Little Home stuff, by the way.

We have an almost 3 year old and have lived in 3 houses with her... each time we have done her room plain white or cream and added vinyl wall stickers, I would REALLY recommend it!

Have a search on Etsy for “vinyl wall stickers nursery” and you will see, there are some beautiful ones. They are easy to remove and relatively cheap so if you need to change it in a few years it’s no big deal at all!

I know you have probably agonised over furniture choice and have likely fallen in love with the matching set, but from a practical point of view I would honestly get a “proper” wardrobe and chest of drawers that are not toddler sized, that will last your little one 10 years+. I know you might not have enough clothes to fill a wardrobe at first but you could use it to store other things as well. We got one of those hanging fabric shelves things that hangs from the wardrobe rail to put blankets, toys, clothes etc in. Just my two penny’s worth.

Also I would swap the cot and the wardrobe/ changing unit positions as you’re not supposed to have a cot next to a radiator or window (because of difficulty in temperature control. Also baby might be able to reach through and touch hot radiator).

All the best! Enjoy preparing for little one’s arrival.

Oh and to answer your actual question, some ideas for themes

Jungle
Woodland animals
Hot air balloons
Space
Rainbows and clouds

I didn't find out the sex of DC1 - we had a cream nursery with cream curtains and farm yard bedding, mobile, 3 pictures, sheets etc We ended up having boy, girl, boy - it was ok for all.

I also furnished with nursery furniture - it is still in use 11 years later - youngest has the wardrobe and changing unit in his room. Cot bed went when we needed to get bunk beds. I like your choice of furniture but probably wouldn't get the dresser (is that the set of drawers ?) as you should have enough storage with the other bits - even some space to pop toys in the cupboard.

I also love wall decals for ease and conveniences and have used them in other rooms for the kids - so easy to pop up and take down when you want to change them - we had night garden, racing cars, princesses....

I love your furniture choice, and I'm a bit fan of the dumbo option.

Very adorable and I think gender neutral.

My only comment would be to rethink the crib position, it should ideally be away from heat sources/ potential draft points.

Congratulations on your pending arrival!

Oh....my friend bought me a gorgeous hanging nappy stacker/holder. Something I had said I wasn't bothered about but it hung right next to the changing table and was really useful. I also put a nappy bin in the room - again I said I wouldn't but then they were given away free when I had mu first and honestly it was fabulous. I still emptied it each day - but it contained the smell for the day.

They do it in Dumbo.... www.dunelm.com/product/disney-dumbo-nappy-stacker-1000066131?defaultSkuId=30598828&gclid=CjwKCAiA4Y7yBRB8EiwADV1haS09LSfNonaS2fzjlp8Mg_DMoUz6nqAxdPclDDJDBjiLDisiIK2PGBoCYosQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Why not do Dumbo accessories, and dumbo border/freeze - if you are worried about too much grey - or just do one wall in the dumbo paper (behind the cot?).

ALso useful is a set of hooks for dressing gown/towel etc and a high shelf for keeping a few bits out of reach. ALso consider where you will plug in baby monitor etc as you won't want leads around the cot.

We decided on a space theme before knowing the sex of the baby. MIL was like "but you can't do space for a girl" I made sure to include some pink when I found out DC2 was a boy.

The original dumbo had a yellow hat so you could include yellow as an accent colour to brighten up the grey.

We didn't find out the sex either. Walls and carpet are pale greys, white furniture and I bought the decorative stickers for the walls - pastel green stripy and spotty hot air balloons can green starry blanket and throw etc

I have two animal pictures in there that we already owned. We had a girl.

For baby its more about your practical usage, storage etc

But I will try to avoid buying anything pink because everyone buys us pink stuff and it's over bearing. I wish the shops would make more yellow and green clothes and stuff for girls. I often find myself in the boys section....

I think a neutral beige/greige colour would look lovely with that furniture unless you're keen to strip off all the dumbo wallpaper in 5 years or so when the child decides it's babyish. We had neutral for our children until we let them choose their own colours but they did have some fun framed prints, colourful curtains and wall stickers.

I would do it all neautral colours (grey or cream or white etc) then add some bits like wall stickers and a rug and bunting. That way it will be easy to change in a couple of years rather than having to strip wallpaper etc

There are lovely wall stickers about online with jungle themes/animals/alphabets/hot air balloons/rainbows in nice ‘gender neautral colours’

Alternatively if you wanted to go down the pink/blue gendered route, you could decorate plain and neutral then buy a rug/stickers/bunting/accessories once baby is born

@Magpiefeather I love the idea of hot air balloons @WellTidy and I've been looking at the wallpaper and never thought of the decals which would be easier to position.

@Mumdiva99 I've never thought out farm yard. I B know some people think we have too much but it'll be a few tears until baby is playing alone upstairs and by then we'll off moved them into the bigger room and hopefully be using the furniture again for a sibling so I don't see it as useless and the amount is storage means it'll last ages anyway.

Thank you all!

I'd fallen in love with some winneh the pooh mural walls from eBay but there isn't enough wall space for it to be utilised.

I think hot air balloons it is. 😅

I don’t think you have too much furniture, we had that amount for our first and filled it all! Also don’t think its a waste of money to buy child furniture. We’ve passed ours down to next baby and will do the same again when we have another.

I would do with a pale grey, and accessorise with lemon or mint.

We've got a really nice tree and woodland animal wall stickers. Have a look on notonthehighstreet, they've got really lovely ideas.