Take photos of all that hard work you’ve poured into baby’s sweet nursery!
My nesting instinct went into major overdrive when I was expecting my first daughter. I wasn’t satisfied with merely picking out new baby furniture, painting the room and adding some decorations as we waited for her to arrive. Nope, one HUGE part of the room had to go: the carpet.
We were giddy with excitement over being pregnant and my husband loves to get his hands dirty undertaking big home improvement projects. Over the span of about five weeks, he worked painstakingly on new flooring for our daughter. It was so beautiful when he finished; it was the perfect room for our princess, complete with classy dark floors, light coral walls and cute hand-punched birds attached to the walls. I skipped the themed bedding sets and went with sweet floral sheets and gray and white accent pieces.
I can still remember passing away Sunday afternoons, folding her tiny onesies and letting them rest on my belly, dreaming of when I’d rock her to sleep in her room.
The nursery is a big part of baby’s story
So I have all these sweet memories, but almost no good photos. When she was five months old, we sold that house and moved to The Woodlands. The only thing about it that I still miss (even today, four years later) is her bedroom. So many hours of work went into the perfect space for her… and she’ll never see it.
I tell myself over and over, even now, that surely the new owners kept that beautiful room just as I left it. I can’t bear to think of it looking any different.
We worked equally hard on the rooms for our second and third girls. Emily’s room was freshly painted in a stunning shade of orchid (the Pantone color of the year for 2014) and we put up wainscoting to give the room a vintage feel. Josephine’s room was decorated for a boy or a girl, with gender neutral accents, since we didn’t know which direction to go before birth.
The nesting instinct is natural and beautiful!
No doubt you’re investing hours in your nursery too. If you’re not nesting yet, you will, trust me! That deep instinct to prepare, declutter, clean and organize hits like a category five hurricane force wind – there’s no ignoring it! Once you pour your blood, sweat and tears into a bedroom for your newborn, make memories that will last – take pictures!
With thoughts of my first daughter’s nursery in mind, I make sure to take pictures of every baby’s nursery (if it’s ready to be photographed) so that mom and dad will always remember what it looked like.
The nursery is a central part of your pregnancy journey and of your baby’s story. Although they may not spend much time in the nursery for a while, it’s a calm, quiet place you’ve prepared with them in mind.
After all that effort, have something to show for it – in case you move, or have more kids and change up the room, or for when you redecorate when your kid is like 16 (IF you ever redecorate, right?!)
Here are five photos to take of your nursery so you can show it off to your child someday:
1. A view of the whole nursery
Get out your DSLR if you have one and take photos when the light in the nursery is the brightest. Stand in the doorway and take a shot of how the whole room is put together. If you can’t get everything in the frame at once, divide the room up into sections. You can always create a collage like I did above to show off the most important elements side-by-side.
2. A close up of the crib and anything you’ve hung above it.
Make sure baby’s sheets are on the mattress. Back up as far as you can away from the crib and fit in the bed and baby’s name/initials/etc that are hung on the wall. Center yourself so that the crib takes center stage in your photo. Can you squeeze in that gorgeous rug on the floor too?
3. The dresser/changing station with diapers stacked neatly nearby and wipes ready to go.
You can hide the diapers and wipes if you want to, like Alix did for Leo above. You could stack a few of favorite baby books to one side of the changing pad. You know the ones – they’re so sweet that you can’t read them without tearing up but you blame it on pregnancy hormones.
You could also pull the dresser drawers out going across like stair steps to capture all those precious, tiny baby things tucked neatly inside.
4. The glider or rocking chair waiting for you and baby to snuggle in together.
You’re going to spend hours in that rocker, so get some photos of it! For Leo’s nursery above, I laid a sweet outfit and shoes on the glider to showcase the chair and these sweet items. You could add a special stuffed animal or blanket, too – anything that will further personalize the space.
5. The bookcase where you’ve already carefully lined up books to read.
A beautifully decorated bookcase is like artwork. Once you get that perfect balance of books to decor to pictures, it’s like all is right with the world. Don’t hesitate to stage your photo with stuffed animals, framed photos or other small baby items you want to remember.
6. A close up of anything you’ve created or made for the nursery – mobile, a collage of special photos, painted wooden letters, etc.
Alix ordered these small stuffed Star Wars characters to carry through the Star Wars theme; she knows Leo will love to play with them someday too! They’re so precious that I couldn’t pass up a photo!
Believe it or not, that sweet nursery will change someday
Our youngest is still in her nursery, but we moved our older two into the same room together since they’re attached at the hip anyway. My middle daughter’s nursery is now our guest bedroom, and the only reason it didn’t bother me to redo that room so quickly was because we were expecting number three when we made the change. (Babies 2 and 3 are only 15 months apart! I decorated nurseries for different babies two summers in a row!)
I have many beautiful photos of the space we created for our second, and I have tons of photos of our third daughter’s nursery, too. After leaving behind that magical first nursery when we moved, I haven’t made the mistake again of not taking photos – and now you have no excuse not to capture the sweetness of your baby’s nursery!
The little years are so fleeting and there are endless moments you want to remember forever – it’s easy to overlook a room you spend so much time in. It’s simple to assume you’ll always remember the nursery. Take pictures anyway! You’ll be glad you did.
These six photos are on my must-have list for every in-home newborn session!
After getting family and newborn photos, while mama is taking a break to nurse baby, I always sneak to the nursery and make sure to capture the big and little details. I want you to look back at these images in 5, 10, 15 years and almost smell that intoxicating newborn scent! It’s the best thing ever.
