10 Great Tips for Designing Baby’s room

Designing Baby’s room

A baby’s room is the first place he or she finds comfort and tranquility. A baby’s needs are varied; ranges from a clean area for diaper changing, and storing clothes to a quiet, soothing place for bonding and connection with the caregiver. A small cosy nursery room with the cot as the main basic can be made simple and homely. A cot in the corner in the parents’ room can also personalized in small decorative ways.

Here are 10 tips worth taking note when you design your baby’s room:

1. Choose soothing, neutral or pastel colours to create a soothing, peaceful atmosphere in the room. If you don’t prefer it all neutral, you can choose a wall and splash it with colour or wallpaper that is bright and zesty.

       

2. Decorate the room with nostalgic family snaps or paintings with cartoon motifs or simple lines with primary colours to allow stimulation for babies when they are in the mood for contemplation.

3. Open shelves are great for stacking diapers or clothes for easy reach but allocate separate spaces using boxes or dividers to avoid muddles and meddling from older siblings.

    

4. Make sure your baby has a great view from her cot. Either hang baby mobiles when lying on her bed to ponder on or hang wall paintings or position basket of her soft toys for her to look and be enticed by.

      

5. Choose plain colours for baby bumpers and cotton sheets. Avoid overcrowding the cot with too many soft toys or frilly pillow cases. Keep it minimal and simple. This will prevent the baby from being overly stimulated and distracted from rest and sleep.

6. If you are breastfeeding, a comfortable armchair is a must. When you are comfortable and restful breastfeeding or bottle feeding, your baby will enjoy the special time of bonding and connection with you.

7. Keep the windows an curtains fuss-free and simple. If the sun shines into the cot at certain times, you may want to consider block out lining. Ample natural light and fresh air let into the room is great for babies as it refreshes them during their awake moments.

8. For playtime, carve out some floor space for babies for tummy time, or babies learning to sit and crawl. Play mats make the area safe and encourages motor development with ease. Place baby-friendly toys like cloth books, soft blocks or bean bags for babies to explore. Babies particularly loves mirrors and you can lean a safe small one against the wall.

9. Create a dimmer light or children’s lamps to check on baby at night, as well as add an imaginative dimension to the baby’s night time.

    

10. Baby proof your room especially starting from the inquisitive crawling phase. Keep blind cords or wires short with plug covers. Store the out of bounds items on a high shelf. Install bars on windows if necessary.

Reference
Children’s spaces. Judith Wilson

Display Shelf- Your Child’s Learning Activities

A friend came over to my place and loved my Montessori-inspired display shelf for learning.

Upon sharing with her some tips on displaying learning materials, I thought maybe it may be useful to share it here at Playhood!

1. Accessibility

All the learning materials are displayed in open shelves where your child can see or reach them. Accessibility is key if you want your child to exercise choice in picking up the learning materials on her own. Children are naturally more inclined to be engaged in learning when their choice is involved.

2. Organisation

Avoid tossing learning materials in toy boxes, buckets or drawers. They actually create disorganisation, parts get misplaced and damaged, and your child loses respect for the contents. Learning time is also wasted assembling the missing parts for each learning activity. For organisation, each learning activity is stored in containers that children can easily carry by themselves (e.g. baskets, trays or open boxes). Sometimes you can colour code the contents to show they belong to the same set. In this way, each set is regarded as special and has its assigned place on the shelf.

3. Handling the materials

Teach your child how to handle the learning sets with care and respect. They learn how to carry the containers to a workplace (on a mat or table), and when they finished, to return the material to the shelf for future use.

4. Real, authentic materials

My inclination is to use authentic materials such as drinking cups, glaases, plates and bowls that are made of glass, china and wood. Although it means they are breakable, it encourages the children to handle them with extra caution. Once, Rae broke the glass jug for a transferring activity, and it broke into many pieces. She saw how dangerous and fragile glass is, and from then on, she is extra careful whenever she handles any material made of glass. She will even chant this everytime she handles glass materials ” Be careful ah, it’s glass.” I think for a two-year old to internalise that, I couldn’t be happier.

5. Limit number of items

Avoid cluttering the shelf with too many activities. Leave a little space between each learning set and keep its own special spot on the shelf. Too many activities can be too distracting and there will be more packing up as well!

6. Change the activities according to interest and learning needs of the child.

Choose 4-6 activities according to the needs and interest of your child. Observe how many times your child likes to repeat a learning material, which will likely be of interest to her and you can leave it on the shelf for her to revisit it again. (Note how toddlers and preschoolers learn through repetition). You can also have a mix of familiar learning sets and new ones which stretch your child’s abilities. Avoid displaying the same items on the shelf for too long. Your child will lose interest after a while. You can change the set one at a time, to entice and hook your child’s interest in learning something new.

Hope this helps! Investing and designing this learning space will definitely pay off! 🙂