am i the only one who never spent a penny on a "nursery" for my kids?

[fillyjonk]

This oogling of mothercare cabinets and agonising over winnie the pooh vs whatever is utterly, utterly lost on me.

surely the money could be better spent on a holiday or a nice pair of shoes or something?

newborns don't care and odds are they'll end up with you anyway for a bit.

Why not save the money and paint when they are toddlers and give a crap?

i thank you

xenia Standing chandging was easier for me after the csection I could actually bend that much!! Although it is funny, maybe I was lucky in that DD wasn' a huge wiggler, also she was so prem when she came home she was just 4lbs and I just did everything up in her room. Odd I suppose as I know others prefer to have mat, nappies, wipes stshed all over, I found it all easier with everything in one place a one time, so if we ran low I could see we were IYKWIM

It seriously didn'occure ot me to change o the floor!!! LOL

Xenia, lol the soft porn posters. I'd forgotten that I've got piles of mags under mattresses to discover at some point in the future!

IF I had the money and the inclination to spend time and energy, i would have loved to have a 'nursery' for the kids. i used to love ogling the stuff.
however its not something the kids care about, its only for the parents. and i dont care enough to do it.
i was very of people who did manage to spend time energy and money creating the perfect nursery.

Moving to floor level can be a good thing, sitting cross legged, being at eye level or closer to babies etc but I think I'm just more of a floor person. We didn't have a suitable table with the 5 children anyway unless I did it on the table we ate on I suppose so putting it on one of those plastic changing mats on the floor (or them in the case of the twins) was easier particularly once they start moving.

flibbertygibbet- I did say to my neighbours that they should sell them and like you, they said it's not worth it with wool and the time taken, more a labour of love.

I am very grateful for the hand-me-downs and I have indeed given them some chocolates!

Poor DS2...

we bought DS1 a cot, and a chest of drawers...he has his own room, but it is actually very spartan (and not much more than a box room really).

Till recently DS2's clothes were kept in a plastic bag near the change table in the kitchen. Now his clothes are kept in three drawers in the wardrobe in the "spare" room.

He still sleeps in a cot in our room, and he is six months. DS1 only lasted though 3 months in our room so at least DS2 has gained there!

Xenia/Kewcumber - exactly!! Before you mentioned that (what's with the doubtful emoticon?) I was wondering why you were all being a load of stingy old meanies! No a nursery is not something you should splurge on if you are hard up, neither is anything really, new clothes, a new telly, etc etc. but if you can afford then why the hell not? No of course it's not for the babies. it's for YOU!!

I took ENORMOUS pleasure decorating our nursery for DS1, buying the bedding, the curtains and blind, the rug, the furniture set! Blackout blinds have been invaluable in this house and continue to be so, I use and have used the changing table every day for the last 3 years, don't know what I'd do without it, and the baby room is a pleasure to be in because of all the attention and care we have taken to make it so.

Don't need to wear mascara do you? But you still do... Don't need to put flowers in your garden do you? but you still do...

Surely it's all part of the excitement, the preparation, the sheer joy of getting your previously child free house ready for your PRB?

umm no don't wear mascara....

[doubtful emoticon] was because not sure I would havespent loads on nursery stuff anyway, perhaps its my very elderly age? Or perhaps because I waited so long and was scared to jinx anything that I really didn't buy anything except the bare essentials. As it turned out we spend very little time in DS's room so until he starts to play in it or expresses an opinion it will stay as minmalist as it is.

the rampant consumerism is so tacky though when applied to babies.
it also makes people think that thay can't afford a baby because of all the stuff they "need"

Fillyjonk we have never done a thing about having a nursery either
The mind boggles at all the Pooh stuff doing the rounds
Babies like black and white anyway, why would pastel elephants et al be a Good Thing?
I don't see any Bridget Riley themed nursery stuff

lol at HC and I with our double vowels

I did it to celebrate your return Ms P.
I did paint my own Miffy mural for dd1, though, when she was about a year old. I am already quite weepy about the idea of painting ove rit when she gets Too Big for Miffy

PS I have the copyright on the bridget Riley themed nursery line that will no doubt come out in the next year thanks to some twonk dredging through websites such as MN for ideas

Baby isn't here yet but we decided a few weeks ago (after surveying the sheer amount of stuff we own crammed into the spare room) that we weren't going to attempt to make it into a nursery, as it'd mean either shovelling boxes into the mouldy shed out back or putting things into the attic which hemmorages cobwebs and plaster everytime we so much as open the flap.

We're going to have him in our room but in his moses basket/cot, we have both decided at this point that we don't want to share a bed with him because there's little room in our bed as it is (I'm a fatty and he sleeps diagonally across the bed and does violent crocodile spins in the middle of the night with flailing limbs) plus I have no idea how you continue to have any kind of sex life at all with baby in bed with you??

We have put up some very cute farm stickarounds in our room around the corner the moses basket is in, and I may paint or at least sand down and re-laquer the cot as although it's a lovely cot the wood is going a bit orangey. I quite fancy painting it a matt green colour but don't know if it's safe.

You can get special paint for nursery furniture in b&q

Agree with Fillyj. Except that ds is now nearly four and his room STILL hasn't been decorated. Oops.

Ooh thanks, Jiminy, I'll have a look on the B&Q website!

you know, the Bridget Rilay nursery range is a cracking idea pruners

"stingy old meanies"... just depends on your age and stage and funds. When we had the first baby each of us spent 50% of our salary on childcare and there wasn't much money around. We both had a kind of looking forward mentality so we could see life in 10 years and 20 years time and we knew that was the right thing to do for us then (both worked full time) and that 20 years down the line (i.e. now - she's 22 now and non the worse for the Oxfam baby gros) it paid off but if I had waited until my late 30s to have babies and it was "the next stage of my life" project thing then I might well have enjoyed having a "nursery" etc because more of my all would be being put into this job called mother rather than my real job called work into which as mothers and fathers our children slot whilst work and life carries on.

i'm quite sure paul smith has already had that idea, pruni...

Well we bought a brightly coloured wardrobe and chest of drawers, a cot, a frieze to go round the wall and a blind for the window (which had nothing before). I put some frieze round the lampshade as well. Not counting the furniture which we needed anyway, I guess it cost us about £30.

LOL at flibberty with her "theme" of Primark pyjamas

pmsl... i read that as 'fridge' not 'frieze' twinkle and thought you'd taken leave of your senses altogether

as aitch's knowledge of what Paul Smith is up to design-wise goes over my head.

I know someone who also did not 'do' a nursery but stuck a black-and-white postcard of Elvis in the moses basket to keep her baby 'stimulated'. I can't decide if that is terribly precious or just quite nice.

oh i think that's quite nice, actually. he is The King, after all.
Paul Smith does stripes a la Riley.