My son’s nursery is my favorite room in the house. I loved planing, painting, cleaning, and decorating the room to prepare for BJ’s arrival. I used to sneak in his room while I was still preganant when I couldn’t sleep and just rock in the glider. As perfect as it turned out, I struggled with the design and I wish I had help.
Help is here! Q-tips® teamed up with celebrity nursery designer, Wendy Bellissimo to help new moms create their perfect nursery. Here are her tips to keep in mind when planing your child’s nursery:
1. Be Your Own Designer: Go through magazines, catalogs and visit baby & furniture stores to see the looks available. Choose a style that feels most natural to you so the nursery can become an extension of your home. Then create your own book or board of clippings, fabric samples and photos for inspiration. Start the design process well before your due date so that you have time to relax before the baby’s arrival.
2. Save the Paint for Last: Select your nursery furniture and fabric before you paint. It is easy to find a paint shade to match your furniture/fabrics and not always the other way around. Keep in mind, furniture and fabrics do not all need to match – a great mix of textures that complement each other can add a truly custom, “designer” feel.
3. Don’t Sacrifice Style for Functionality: It is easy to create a beautiful, organized space in the nursery to care for your baby (without the piles of diapers and a mess of toiletries). Place a basket or fabric covered box (from an arts & crafts or paper store) on the changing table or shelf above and fill with diapers, Vaseline® petroleum jelly, diaper cream and rubbing alcohol. One nursery essential you won’t have to hide is the new Q-tips® Baby Pack! They are available in two adorable nursery animal designs and are functional (with a new sliding drawer that keeps Q-tips® cotton swabs protected for baby) so they can always be within arm’s reach.
4. Add a Personal Touch: Give your nursery a personal touch by adding framed covers of your favorite childhood books or classic black & white or sepia photos of you and your significant other when you were babies.
5. Create A Sleepy Time Sanctuary: We all need our beauty rest, so it is important to create an environment that’s peaceful for your baby to sleep. Create a calming atmosphere with soothing colors and softer tones rather than bright or harsh colors. Then, use accents to add pops of color without being too overwhelming. Be careful not to make the room too dark or too quiet at nap time. This way your child will be able to fall asleep in any environment, which is great when you are traveling or when new siblings arrive! You can also play soft, soothing music or lullabies to help the baby fall asleep.
6. Room to Grow: Choose design options that can grow with your child – consider color palette, furniture style, storage options and a play/reading area. Look for a dresser with drawers and cabinets, rather than a standard changing table and simply secure a changing pad on top. Once your child outgrows diapers, you will have a beautiful piece of furniture with drawers for clothing and cabinets for toys that are within reach for your child.
7. X vs. Y: Not finding out the sex of your baby? No worries! Design a gender-neutral nursery with yellow, green, white or crème and simply add touches of blue or pink accessories when the baby arrives – these simple changes can be made to anything from the receiving blanket to the changing pad. These color options also give you the flexibility to use the bedding over again for a new sibling.
8. To Theme or Not to Theme: Nursery themes such as safari, princess or transportation are a great way to create a fun, lighthearted statement. A themed nursery can still be done tastefully if the items are selected in moderation. For example, if you are doing a safari-style mural, keep bedding and fabrics neutral so the room doesn’t look overdone.
9. Accessorize: A few must-have accessories for any nursery are books, books and more books! You can also add a silver piggy bank and a few irresistibly soft stuffed animals that will quickly become your child’s best friends! Even my celebrity clients still go for the traditional accessories – they bring us all back to that magical time of childhood.
10. The Essentials: When designing your nursery (large or small), you should always keep these essentials in mind – a crib, rocker, changing table/dresser, light dimmer switch and books within the little one’s reach. If you do not have enough space for a bookcase, a basket for the floor will do the trick perfectly. Your little one will be crawling around before you know it and handing you their favorite book at bedtime!
As Wendy said, one item in your child’s nursery you won’t have to hide is the new Q-tips® Baby Packs! Each Baby Pack contains 285 Q-tips®
in an adorable box decorated with safari or farm animals to enhance your nursey’s decor and they retail for only $3.19 (at Target, and Walmart). No more eyesore boxes lying around the changing table!
Here are a few baby care tips from Q-tips® :
Q-tips® cotton swabs are great for cleaning and applying ointments to a baby’s delicate skin.
Moisten a Q-tips® cotton swab with warm water to clean your baby’s outer ear, folds of the neck or between the toes.
Always remember that Q-tips® cotton swabs are not to be used for cleaning inside the baby’s ear canal (or yours!).
Would you like to get more tips from Wendy and have a chance to win great prizes? Join Q-tips® and Mom Select at their Twitter Party at #QtipsBaby
on February 4th from 8-9 p.m. (EST). I hope to see you there!
Buy It: You can buy Q-tips® Baby Packs at Target and Walmart for $3.19.
Win It: 
Q-tips® is offering one lucky reader a “Perfect Nursery” Product Package (includes 2 Q-tips® Baby Packs and a silver elephant bank).
How to Enter:
To enter tell me what your “Perfect Nursery” would look like. (You must complete this entry before any of the bonus entries)
Bonus Entries:
- Follow me on Twitter and Tweet: Win a “Perfect Nursery” Product Pack from Q-Tips@AMomsImpression http://wp.me/pFQZQ-aZ
(You may enter daily, just leave a comment with each Tweet’s link)
- Blog about this giveaway (Please leave a link to your post)
- Grab my Button and post it on your blog
- Subscribe to A Mom’s Impression by Email (2 Entries, please leave 2 comments: Please remember to confirm your subscription)
Please leave a comment about each entry, include a valid email address or you may contact me directly with your contact information.
This giveaway will end at midnight on February 17.
Good Luck!
For purposes of this review, I was sent a “Perfect Nursery” Product Package from Q-tips and Mom Select free of charge. This review is my honest opinion and is not influenced by any other source.
When I was a kid we built forts out in the fields and played outside all day only to come home when our dad whistled for us. I wish that my son could have the same opportunities. Living in a large metropolitan city with a high crime rate pretty much prohibits that much lack of supervision. However, I do want to foster in our son using your imagination while you play! There are so many different video gaming systems and computer games on the market for kids. (Don’t get me wrong, I think video games have their place and their own value in our lives, but they need to be used in moderation.) Along with television and video games can come a lack of imagination and creativity in our children and a delay in gross motor skills (by not being active). 
