10 Ways to Get Through the Nesting Phase

While nesting may not occur with every pregnant woman, those it does happen to will find themselves overwhelmed by an urge to get things in order before baby arrives. You may even begin to compulsively worry, or worse, compulsively buy, before you even notice it’s happening.

10 Ways to Get Through the Nesting Phase

Here are ten helpful ways to get through the nesting phase of pregnancy.

1. To-Do List – Try to put together a to-do list of realistic expectations for organization, required items and decoration. When creating the list, keep in mind that for reason’s sake, you’ll be sticking to the list only. So make sure you think it out completely before completing.
2. Quitting Time – Establish your agreed upon daily quitting time. There’s no need to be up at all hours just because you can. Get some rest, refresh yours and your baby’s body with nutrition and begin again.
3. Be Reasonable – You may be able to tackle painting baby’s room, but you’re not going to be able to paint the entire basement like you’ve really been wanting to for years. Leave that to post-baby exercise if you’re desperate to get it done. Pregnancy is not the time to push your body beyond reasonable limits for any reason.
4. Listen to Your Body – Speaking of reasonable limits. You know your body. If it’s telling you to stop and take a break, then you need to stop and take a break.
5. Space them Out – If you do have a couple major projects in mind, get started as soon as possible so that you have time for breaks for your body in between.
6. Put the Digital Down – If you really expect to get things done during the daytime, you can’t be up pinning until the wee hours. Furthermore, your motor functions are delayed when you’re tired and put you at greater risk of accidents through general clumsiness. Be careful!
7. Safety First – It goes without saying that you shouldn’t be doing any heavy lifting, but you should also avoid excessive exposure to any chemicals like cleaners, or even excessively long exposure to paint fumes with no ventilation. There’s no project worth risking your baby’s health.
8. No Pressure – Quit pressuring yourself to ‘get things done’. If a project is taking longer than expected, bring others in to help instead of expecting wild results from a pregnant lady. You’re making another person right now. That really does ‘take it out of you’.
9. Work in Bursts – Remember, you really are burning up more than average calories. So don’t forget to stop and grab a quick snack every couple of hours or you’ll exhaust yourself before you even realize it’s crept up on you.
10. Accept Reality – Your life isn’t going to end once baby is born. There’s still time to wrap up the loose ends of your decoration and organization ideas once baby’s born. Sure, they might take longer, but by then, you’ll really appreciate the break from the frenzied nesting instinct that took over your body there for a while…