Photo from jandjdesigngroup.com

If you’ve never heard the expression before, you’ll definitely recognize it by the signs: obsessive cleaning, arranging and rearranging, researching and comparing, and intense attention to detail. “Nesting” is the word that describes a pregnant woman’s desire to prepare her home and surroundings in the months and weeks leading up to birth.

Nesting hit hard for me around the 8th month of pregnancy with my first child. I’ll never forget my father visiting our apartment and checking out our nursery. Everything was placed just so, it was like a set of a magazine photo shoot. On my changing table I had a cute little wicker basket filled with carefully rolled up washcloths. My father, surprised by his usually messy daughter’s organizational skills said “This is the nicest room in your entire house! You know, it’s not going to look like this a week after the baby arrives!”

He was right. After a couple of months the cloths were tossed into the basket, the baby clothes no longer carefully folded just right; all my nesting had come undone.

Regardless if my Martha Stewart nursery only lasted a few months, nesting isn’t just for the birds and it’s something we can’t really control. There are real reasons why women expecting a baby will start preparing their nest.

Why do we nest?

According to Jean Pincott, author of Do Chocoloate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies? “Nesting helps up psychologically brace ourselves for the upcoming change in our life.” Even before our lives are tossed upside down by the arrival of this tiny new life, we are aware that things will be different. We examine our surroundings and ask ourselves, “Is this good enough for my baby? Is it safe, clean and beautiful enough for this pure, gorgeous baby that will soon live here?”

Another factor that comes into play are the hormones that are building during pregnancy. Proloactin, which is primarily responsible for milk production is also associated with feelings of bonding, making us calmer and increases our need to be in comfortable, familiar surroundings. Basically, we just want to hang out at home, preparing the nest making everything comfortable and familiar for our new little chickie.

This might be taking it a little far… Photo from ifitshipitshere.com

Get Your Ducks in a Row!

Not everyone experiences nesting in the same way. For me, nesting meant that I wanted to purge all of our old stuff that we didn’t use anymore, so I could make sure that baby had enough room. I also started researching everything I could about baby gadgets so I could be sure I was making the right choice.

For some people nesting means that they are cleaning the bathroom every two days, scrubbing the baseboards and dusting the light fixtures. For others nesting might seem like an abstract concept that never seems to appear to them. You don’t need to nest to be a good mom!

If your nesting instinct has hit, here are a few ideas for ways you can prepare:

• start checking out Pinterest and other design sites for nursery inspiration
• find the best and greenest cleaning products for your home
• check out some DIY nesting projects like this to occupy your spare time

Tell me about your experience with nesting! What was the craziest thing you did to get ready for your baby’s arrival?