11 Signs You’ve Hit The Nesting Stage
If you find yourself acting strangely during your pregnancy, then you might be nesting. Find out the signs and why this is all happening.
In this article:
- Organizing Baby Clothes Repeatedly
- Organizing the Fridge in the Middle of the Night
- Stocking Up on Freezer Meals
- Spending Hours on Pinterest
- Checking and Rechecking Your Baby’s List of Needs
- Scrubbing the Toilet with Your Toothbrush
- Tidying Up the Pantry
- Cleaning Up Cobwebs
- Making a Mad Dash for the Baby Department
- Curating Your Social Media Accounts
- Cleaning Up Your Closet
Nesting Signs to Watch Out For | The Baby is Coming Out Soon
This post may contain affiliate links. For my full disclosure policy click here.
Nesting Definition
Nesting is a term we use when a mother gets her home ready for a new baby. As an expecting mother, you will feel empowered to get absolutely everything in the house ready for the family’s newest member. This often takes the form of feeling compelled to clean and organize your home to an obsessive degree.
Nesting can happen anytime during the pregnancy, but it most commonly occurs during the final weeks. Additionally, not all women experience nesting urges, and that’s perfectly fine.
What Causes Nesting?
What causes mothers to have an excess amount of energy to clean and organize their homes at this stage of the pregnancy? The most popular theories of nesting behavior are:
- Future mothers feel frustrated and bored because of the pregnancy.
- You realize that taking care of the baby is going to be a lot of work and that housework goes to the bottom of the to-do list.
- Anticipating and being excited for the new baby and wanting to have everything just right for the little one’s arrival.
- Your maternal instinct to control the environment in preparation to protect your child can cause you to do strange things.
Today, we will help you define nesting behavior by showing you signs and explaining them.
1. Organizing Baby Clothes Repeatedly
You have just bought tons of baby clothes in preparation for your baby’s arrival. The clothes are washed, folded, and organized in their proper drawers, but you still get this nagging feeling something isn’t right. So, you organize all the clothes again and again until they are perfect.
2. Organizing the Fridge in the Middle of the Night
You wake up in the middle of the night to get yourself a snack or a glass of milk from the fridge. Suddenly, you realize everything in the fridge is just disorganized, and you try to fix it completely forgetting what you came to get in the first place.
3. Stocking Up on Freezer Meals
Everyone needs to eat and as you’re eating you’ll realize the baby isn’t the only one who needs food. You then decide to make two of every freezer meal to make sure the family has enough to eat for the first few months.
4. Spending Hours on Pinterest
You want to make sure your nursery room is perfect for your little one. So you spend countless hours on Pinterest coming up with nursery room design ideas, as well as DIY projects you can take on to make your baby’s room more beautiful. And while you’re at it, you also check out maternity photo shoot inspirations, too!
5. Checking and Rechecking Your Baby’s List of Needs
The baby has needs such as diapers, baby chairs, and baby monitors. Making a list of the baby’s needs is a good way to ensure you’re ready. In your nesting stage, you find yourself checking the list over and over again to make sure you have everything in order, even if it keeps you up at night.
6. Scrubbing the Toilet with Your Toothbrush
When you go to the bathroom for the nth time in the last two hours and you notice a spot on the bathroom floor, you won’t be able to let it go. You then proceed to scrub the floor and shower area with a toothbrush to make sure you didn’t miss a spot.
7. Tidying Up the Pantry
You’ll start checking the ingredients in your pantry and get rid of the ones close to their expiration date. You then make a list and go to the store to replenish your pantry stocks to be used for the first few months after the baby’s delivery.
8. Cleaning Up Cobwebs
When the sun shines on your house, you’ll start to see cobwebs everywhere. When that happens the vacuum and ladder will see a lot of mileage as you clean those up even in the empty rooms you don’t even use.
9. Making a Mad Dash for the Baby Department
While organizing your baby’s necessities, you find that you’re missing some items on the list. You then start making a new list and heading to the nearest baby department on the map to get what you need at 9 PM.
10. Curating Your Social Media Accounts
Even your social media accounts are subject to clean up. Cleaning, reorganizing and deleting accounts will be a norm. You will carefully evaluate which photos to add and which friends to keep in your new accounts. The process will be repeated until the baby comes.
11. Cleaning Up Your Closet
While looking for something to wear you’ll notice that a lot of your clothes are outdated and no longer fit you. This causes you to do a purge of your old clothes and reorganizing what you have left in such a way that only makes sense to you.
For more signs that you’ve begun nesting, check out this video from J&D Robs:
In the end, nesting is just a future mother’s natural instinct to prepare for baby. Experiencing these urges is normal, but try to relax and avoid overstressing yourself. It is important to stay healthy at this time and not lose sleep over things you can do the next day.
If it helps, you can ask your family or spouse to help you out with these urges.
What signs of nesting did you experience? Tell us in the comments section below!
UP NEXT: