Embracing The Nesting Phase of Pregnancy

I’m officially in the “nesting phase” of pregnancy.

The American Pregnancy Organization describes nesting as when pregnant women feel the “overwhelming desire to get your home ready for your new baby.”

That is exactly me in a nutshell right about now.

I had my 30 week appointment a few days ago. Our little man is measuring at 32 weeks and is already weighing in at a hefty 4lbs 7oz. That’s already more then our daughter Zoe weighed at birth and she was 7 weeks early! So it already looks like I’m going to have a big baby boy.

Aside from feeling like a blimp I would say everything is pretty great. I am still able to work without restrictions (I do however have to wear compression stockings to get through 12 hour ER shifts).

So now I’m embracing my new nesting phase.

Just in the past week I have really gotten down to business:

My house has never been so clean and organized.

Our house never really gets super messy, but I have been feeling the urge to clean and organize much more then usual. For example, before 7:30am this morning I had already vacuumed the house, finished a load of laundry and organized the kitchen cupboards.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a clean house. But I am way more into cleaning and organizing this week then I have been in a really long time.

I organized all my to-do lists on Trello

I am 99% paperless and hate having lists floating around my house. If it isn’t able to be easily accessed on my phone then I might as well not even have it. Especially now that I am a mom. Paper lists just aren’t practical anymore.

Recently I discovered an amazing app called Trello and it has revolutionized my organization and planning skills. Trello basically allows me to organize and prioritizes my to-do lists and projects using boards, lists and cards. It’s all on my phone and easy to access.

I easily organized my personal boards by: grocery lists, random to-do lists, house projects, new baby to do-lists, and blog to do list. Each list can be broken down into separate cards and you can make notes on each one.

For example, my blog board is separated into 3 separate topics: mom, nurse and website to-do. I can further organize my mom board into additional topics : baby/kid, mom, pregnancy, health, environmental. Then each of those is broken down with individual “cards” that I can add specific tasks to.

It sounds confusing but it is seriously the best for people who like to be organized and efficient. It has really helped enhance my “nesting” abilities.

I am purging anything I dont’ use or need.

I am really trying to minimize the stuff in our house. If it is not serving a purpose of bringing me joy in some way, it is leaving the Jividen household.

This week’s priority was my closet. If I haven’t worn it in a year, it got tossed. In fact, I have never owned so few clothes in my life. And it actually feels really good. Everything I have now I actually wear (or will wear as soon as I’m not a pregnant mama anymore).

Next stop: the garage! That will be a much bigger task.

I organized my kid’s closet.

Our kids are going to share a room for the foreseeable future (wish me luck on this one). Fortunately, the room has a nice sized walk-in closet with plenty of room for both kid’s wardrobes and storage.

Each child now has there own very organized side of the closet, split right down the middle. I even organized all their clothing by size and season. Nesting win.

In preparation for baby #2 I boxed up all of our daughter’s outgrown baby clothes into large bins, and they are ready for delivery to my other soon-to-be mama friends. They surely must also be in nesting mode and organizing like crazy like I am.

I had a 2nd crib delivered tonight.

Thank god for Amazon Prime. What in the world did mom’s do before it existed?

I am only 2.5 weeks away for the time I gave birth to Zoe at 33 weeks and 7 weeks prematurely. So I really don’t see this as jumping the gun at all because babies really can show up at any time.

Zoe may be a little confused as to why she has 2 cribs in her room now, but that’s OK. It will give her time to get used to it before another small human comes in.

We are buying a new car this weekend.

A Subaru Outback to be exact. After about a year of research into what the safest automobile is for small children, the Subaru Outback keeps coming back as the clear winner. I had one once before when I lived in Denver and they really are dependable and safe cars.

We will be donating my husbands car this weekend too.

My Christmas decorations are ready to be put up.

This one has been HUGE for me this week. In my nesting frenzy, I am so excited to get ready for the holidays. Especially now that our 2 year old daughter is so ecstatic about special events and decorations. It just makes it so much more fun for me.

Seriously, if it wasn’t considered inappropriate I would have starting putting up our tree tonight (3 weeks before Thanksgiving). I just ordered a new, much larger tree since we have the space for it now and it was just delivered this afternoon.

On my Trello app I have already listed which new tree decorations I will be purchasing this week. I am so excited to get them and decorate that I can barely wait.

I’m not sure where this burst of extra energy is coming from.

But I’m going with it until the baby tells me I’m tired again. It’s not like I have any extra time or anything. I’m still working almost 40 hours a week as an emergency room nurse and I have a very energetic toddler at home.

I have read that there is an evolutionary component to the nesting phase that women have during there pregnancies. Apparently there have been several studies done on this maternal phenomenon. I experienced the same thing during my first pregnancy with my daughter. Only I had way more time to do it!

Whatever it is that is giving my ever-growing body an extra kick, Ill take it. I’m sure it won’t be long until I’m too big to even want to do a lot of these things. Until then, I will continue nesting away!

Sarah, Mother Nurse Love