I can’t believe our baby is due in just over two months! The second trimester of pregnancy went by so quickly. I’m now starting to get some back pain and swelling in my hands and feet, but having a few months of feeling great has been awesome. Our dogs love relaxing with me and taking rides on the baby bump.

Today’s pregnancy update is mainly about the nursery and baby registry!

Nursery

We haven’t made much progress on the nursery yet, but this is the look I’m most inspired by from Pinterest: 

I love how light and bright this room is! The botanical art prints are very pretty. The two pieces of furniture we have in the nursery so far are a white Hemnes dresser and white Sundvik crib from IKEA. Both are simple, sturdy, and inexpensive. I think they would be versatile choices for any nursery! 

Hemnes dresser- you can customize it with your own drawer pulls!

This is the Sundvik crib- it converts to a toddler bed and has great reviews on Consumer Reports. It’s made of solid pine- not bad for $99! 

The room we are using as the nursery is small- I don’t think a rocking chair or glider would fit in the space we have. We do have a linen colored Strandmon armchair from IKEA in the loft and I found a conversion kit online to turn the chair into a rocker. I haven’t purchased it yet because I have no idea if the baby will like being rocked or not. 

I don’t know how you’re supposed to pick things like bouncers, swings, gliders, and rockers for a baby registry when you don’t know what kind of motion your baby will like! Fortunately, my mom is awesome and found a great deal on a 4moms MamaRoo listed on Craig’s List in California! This fancy device has a bunch of different swinging and bouncing settings with variable speeds. Hopefully our little girl will like it! 

The only other thing we’ve done in the nursery so far is hang light colored blackout curtains with a sheer overlay. One of the windows is arched, so I wasn’t sure how it would look with regular curtains. It’s actually pretty nice, though! Kind of like this:

…but with curtains that look like this:

Registry

A lot of what I’ve put on our baby registry is nursery decor. I was torn between using amazon.com’s baby registry and Target’s. They both offer a completion discount, but neither option had everything I wanted to register for. I ended up creating private registries through Amazon and Target to be eligible for welcome gifts and completion discounts, but combined them into a public registry on Babylist. Babylist is AWESOME because you can register for any item that is sold online on any website! The site gives gift givers multiple purchasing options and you can include items from sites like Etsy, IKEA, Land of Nod, and even local businesses (doulas and maternity photographers included!). I love Babylist, but I still think the service could be made better. It would be fantastic if you could register for items simply by scanning a barcode with your phone and having the ability to automatically import items from other registries you’ve already created. If you’re interested in what I’ve registered for, you can check it out here. I did a lot of research before adding things. The most helpful advice I received about useful baby gear came from a registry consultant at Buy Buy Baby. If you’re considering doing a baby registry at a brick and mortar store rather than online, I highly recommend Buy Buy Baby because they have wonderful staff and a massive selection of baby things!