Nesting: Did You “Nest” During Pregnancy?
Did you clean and organize a lot more than usual while you were waiting for your little one to come? According to Pregnancy Weekly nesting is “an uncontrollable urge to clean one’s house brought on by a desire to prepare a nest for the new baby, to tie up loose ends of old projects and to organize your world.” I like this definition because it is not limited to just cleaning the house.
With my first baby the closest I came to nesting was labeling everything on my desk at work as I prepared to pass off my workload and washing some onesies. With my second I have had incredible urges to have projects tied up, The Mom Crowd taken care of (thanks Dawn!), the house scrubbed, and all necessary baby items cleaned and ready to go.
Mamashealth.com says that while doing household chores is normal, “when a woman is nesting, she will probably carry out the tasks more meticulously and persistently than usual.” Yesterday I cleaned and shined the toaster oven inside and out. Something I would never normally do! My husband helped me clean and I gave him clear instructions on how the toilets should be cleaned and how the playroom should be picked up. Thankfully he puts up with me and cleaned accordingly.
I have heard my friends say that they have tried to rearrange huge pieces of furniture by themselves and hyper-cleaned the house when they were pregnant. I am curious, have you done anything crazy while nesting? I would love to hear your nesting stories in the comments!
- photo courtesy of zippaparazzo!
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My husband says I was a Nazi Clean Freak while I was pregnant. He said I was bad before but I was horrible pregnant. Nothing was ever clean enough or organized correctly. I am a clean freak anyways in my normal non-hormonal stage so my poor hubby had to put op with his from 4 months on. I think since it was it was my first pregnant my nesting started early.
My nesting mainly consisted of getting things ready to hand-off at work. Before my daughter was born I was very career oriented. I would argue with you to no end if you told me I’d feel otherwise after she was born. (Of course I had a total perspective shift when she was born. I still care about my career, but it has more to do with her as well.) My daughter was born 6 weeks early, so I was not prepared at all when she was born. I was in the hospital for 2 weeks before she was born, so I had to rely on my friends to help get the house cleaned and organized (Thanks, Kat!!!). I was on my computer working while I was in the hospital with nothing to do so I was able to get work in order before she was born. I had to learn very quickly how to ask for help, which was never easy for me, while I was stuck in the hospital.
Like Deborah, most of my nesting was done at work, also. I had to prepare for a long-term sub (3 mos) for my 6th grade English classes. I spent unnumerable hours preparing a “Survival Guide” for her on how to do everything from entering attendance to dealing with difficult parents. It was so thorough that I don’t even think she had to show up – the book I wrote did all the teaching for her. Ha! Just joking. But seriously, I was all about leaving that job with peace of mind.
As far as stuff at home, I remember washing all the onesies in Dreft. That’s about it.
I seem to move out of state when I’m at the end of a pregnancy!!!
Don’t you think that “nesting” term is funny?
All we’re doing is our normal cleaning and getting everything ready for our new little bundle of joy?
There’s lots of preparation that needs to be done. It’s not like we’re frivolously acting nutty.
I don’t know if I’m exactly “nesting,” considering I’m only 36weeks, but yesterday I got this huge burst of energy and cleaned for five hours. I live in a small 3 bedroom apartment so you know it doesn’t take 5hrs to clean. I would clean my floors with Pinsol then go back and wipe it down with just a wet rag with no chemicals twice. I then proceeded to wipe down my doors cause they looked filthy to me. I even was cleaning my baseboards. I have a good feeling I’m nesting cause I have NEVER done that much when I clean.