The Nursery

Tabitha had a very basic nursery - she did not, in fact, sleep in her 'nursery' even once for the first seven months, now she flitters between her nursery and our bed.

These photos were taken when I was first setting it up.  It looks much the same now, however there are more 'grown-up' clothes in the wardrobe, and there is a very large and gorgeous (if a little creepy) white rabbit lamp - this one.

We painted her room pale pink - we trooped down to the paint store, stocked up on swatches, bought little test pots and painted numerous patches of pink all over the walls.  Ultimately, we settled on Nursery Pink (half strength).  Isn't that terribly anticlimactic?  But it was truly the nicest pink - not too salmon, not too sickly.  We kept the ceiling and wooden trims white (White Watsonia), and to avoid the whole room looking like a bag of marshmallows, I chose very dark Walnut wood furniture, and accent accessories in shades of grey.

Here is Tabitha's cot - the Boori Paddington, in Walnut.  I loved some of the more modern ones, such as the Stokke, but I felt that a more classic style worked for our home.  I also think the Boori will fit a much longer toddler than the Stokke - and we are tall-ish people.

Here is Tabitha's mobile - sorry, the lighting is really low!  There are a number of heavy canvas butterflies, in pink, grey floral ballerina print, and 1950s newsprint:

We got a large bookshelf / room divider from Ikea - this is brilliant in a nursery because it holds so much, and so many different types of things - there are books, tubs at the bottom (with puzzles, toys, breastpump and equipment, bibs and hats, and nappies), plus shelves for displaying objects, and there is a small pink case on one of the shelves with her first-aid kit, and a nice big blue Japanese bowl with all of her little rolled-up socks.  There is also a small stereo on one of the shelves, with some great baby music such as Music for Dreaming.  Below, there are close-ups of two of the shelves - one with a pretty little Tiffany 'bunny bank' which my dad brought her back from New York, with two rattles, and one shelf full of little toys:

The change-table is also Boori, walnut to match the cot.  I decided to get a style which is basically a regular chest of drawers, with a change-mat on top.  Most change-tables are quite open underneath, which I feel limits their usefulness - once the baby is moving around a bit (Tabby was well and truly rolling by 4 months), change-tables are pretty useless, and it's easier to change them on a bed or the ground.  Whereas a chest of drawers will remain necessary for years to come.

Actually, we never once used this change-table for changing a nappy.  That's right, never.  Because she slept in our room, we just changed her on our bed!  We kept - and still keep - all of her nappy equipment in a shelf by the bed.  So I sure am glad we didn't shell out for a dedicated change-table...

Everyone kept telling me how important it was to have a good feeding chair.  I hauled my enormous pregnant self around countless furniture stores, climbing in and out of chairs.  Ultimately, the most comfortable, roomy (for a wriggling older baby) and easy to clean chair was from Ikea - the Ektorp.  It truly is an exceptionally comfy chair - in the final weeks of the pregnancy, I would sit in it and never want to get out!

Also on the chair, below, you will see my Milkbar breastfeeding pillow.  This was a total blessing during the early couple of months - I didn't feed without it.  Just the right height, firmness, and removable cover for frequent washing (Tabby was quite the spewer in those early weeks!)

While the Milkbar got a real workout, the chair - like the changetable - got absolutely NO use until recently.  Because Tabitha was either in our bed, or in her little Moses basket next to the bed, overnight I always fed her sitting up in bed.  During the day, I preferred to feed her in the living room on the sofa, rather than tucked away in the nursery.  Lately, I have started to use it - the perfect size for cuddling up with Tabitha and reading stories, and when she sleeps in the nursery, I feed her overnight sitting in the chair.  It is very comfortable - in fact, last night, I went to feed her at around 1:30am, and fell asleep holding her curled up in the chair for nearly an hour!  When I woke up, she was still latched on and gently sucking in her sleep, too cute...

Because we got a plain white chair, I bought a throw rug and some attractive pink, silver and beige cushions.  Below, you can see that the cats certainly like the chair:

We got the wardrobes redone in both bedrooms - we cut it very fine, with the final touches finished just a week before Tabitha was due (though she didn't arrive for a further three weeks).  All of the wardrobes in the nursery are split horizontally, so that I can hang little baby things on the top and bottom.  Below you can see all of her tiny newborn nightgowns, onesies and coats, from 0000 size on the left, to 0 size on the right.  She wore the 0000 sizes for about 3-4 weeks, then the 000 size until she was about 4 months old, the 00 size until around 6 months old, and now she is 0 and 1 sizes.

Even now, I find sitting in Tabitha's nursery to be incredibly calming and serene.  The colours are muted, there is plenty of filtered daylight, and the floor-to-ceiling glass French doors look out to the garden.  It is my favourite room of the house to just sit and read in!  I have seen some really gorgeous nurseries filled with bright colours, but I personally think that muted tones are conducive to relaxing and sleeping.

Here are the doors - the glass panel off to the side overlooks the garden.  You can see baby Possum peering out to the decking:

Tabitha Update

Exciting news from the baby T front:

- I gave Tabby some fried egg this morning, and she ate it (gutsed it, really) with no red rash or reaction this time!  The egg was completely cooked, I will try again with some soft-cooked egg again this week.

- Tabitha can do all sorts of grown-up things now that she is a Big Girl of more than 7 1/2 months!  She can sit up and clap her hands, bang two blocks together, she can also pull herself up to stand against the sofa/walls/doorframes/human legs.  Once up, she can get down again (often even without bonking her noggin!), and she can slooooowly creep along, getting about a metre by shuffling along holding onto the sofa/wall etc.

- When I leave the room, she can generally crawl and come find me.  This is a grand improvement - it used to be that if I left the room for just a second (to get a glass of water, say) she would burst into tears and sit crying until I returned to scoop her up.

My favourite new development?  She loves to crawl across the room and then, panting and grunting with excitement and exertion, clamber into my lap and stand up so that she can wrap her little arms tightly around my neck, and burrow her face deeply into my hair/neck/jumper.  She will stay like that for minutes, just breathing in her 'mummy smell'.  Makes my day every time!

Here is a photo of my baby on the day she was born.  Note - my little sister added the stuffed mouse just for the photo while she slept.  It's not the done thing to leave a stuffed toy in with a sleeping baby, generally!

Around 8 hours after Tabitha was born, The Daddy and I were completely exhausted (my active labour was nearly 45 hours long!), so my mother sent us off to bed for a nap and she sat with Tabitha in the living room (new babies pretty much just sleep for the first day or so) - this is when the above photo was taken.