Full disclosure: I’m 36 weeks pregnant and don’t have time to be writing this. Why don’t I have time to write this? Because I NEED to clean my headlights. I cannot bring a baby into this home until the headlights of my 2008 minivan sparkle like the Caribbean Sea.
You might assume this is nervous energy due to having completed all the actual necessary tasks for bringing a baby home, like organizing diapers and installing the car seat. Nope. I haven’t done those things. I haven’t done anything that would be remotely helpful should I go into labor tomorrow. BECAUSE ALL I WANT TO DO IS CLEAN MY HEADLIGHTS.
Ahh…nesting. It’s a beautiful thing.
The natural instinct to prepare your home for a new baby is really useful. Just when third trimester exhaustion is at its worst, suddenly you are overwhelmed with the desire to clean and organize. Really, it should be a win-win for everyone. Except, sometimes our crazy brains start thinking up tasks that don’t really help prepare for a baby. This is my third child, so I recognize the crazy a little better this time.
I was curious to know if any other moms-to-be fixated on non-baby tasks while they were nesting, and I was pretty relieved to find that my brain is not the only wacky one. While I still can’t explain why we obsess over the strangest things, I thought we could all enjoy a laugh over some of my friends’ experiences (who are all able to laugh at themselves now).
“I scrubbed my kitchen walls and baseboards with my last baby. We didn’t have the bassinet put back up yet. Didn’t have the car seat installed. Didn’t have the swing/bouncy seat out. But by golly, I had walls I could eat off of.” -R.L.
“Mine was having all the kids’ fingernails and toenails clipped the night before I was induced. Knew I’d be neglecting those for a while after and didn’t want their talons horrifying my mom who was keeping them.” -S.H.
“I was obsessed with power washing my porch and doors/windows (our house was brick). Apparently it runs in my family, because I remember my mom power washing our house when she was almost 9 months preggo with my younger brothers.” -A.B.
“I was obsessed with organizing and re-organizing my closet over and over again before my 3rd. My rationale was that we had planned to put his bassinet in the closet so my husband didn’t wake him with his snoring, but when I finally got it all cleaned and perfect, the bassinet wouldn’t even fit.” -M.U.
“I had boxes and albums of thousands of pictures that were out of order and filled with duplicates. I used the nursery to spread them all out and get them organized.” -J.M.
“I became fixated on hanging up picture frames so that once the twins arrived I could fill them immediately. That and matching outfits. Obviously I had no idea what I was getting into.” -K.B.
“I bought all new decor. You know the worst thing is when you bring a baby into the world and they think, ‘wow this decor is so outdated’.” -K.R.
“I deep cleaned the whole apartment. Was leaking fluid that day. Moved the couch by myself. Had a baby the next day.” -H.L.
“I can’t tell you how many times I washed the baby’s clothes. They just HAD to be clean.” -J.M.
“I cleaned out our filing cabinet (my husband is a bill statement hoarder), organized my pantry, and arranged my refrigerated JUST SO for perfect accessibility and efficiency.” -M.U.
“I sold all our furniture and started over. Only we were dead broke so we only had like one chair.” -A.C.
“I was obsessed with sanding the baby’s nursery walls to be perfectly smooth before they were painted, and then after [my husband] painted them I would go back in with a tiny paint brush and fill in minuscule spots, wearing a headlamp so I could see them all.” -J.C.
“I spread an entire pickup truckload of mulch (by myself while [my husband] was at work) on all our flower beds Thursday night and our first baby was born on Friday.” -A.M.
“I felt compelled to finish watching season 23 (or something?) of America’s Next Top Model.” -R.D.
“I NEEDED to clean the faucets of sinks and tubs. They needed sanitation. And the house had to ALWAYS smell of bleach. If it didn’t, then we were exposing the baby to germs and were bad parents. I sanitized all the baby bottles by boiling them then steaming them. My shirts and bras HAD TO BE BLEACHED. All my hospital clothes were washed, sanitized then put into plastic bags to maintain the ‘saniticity’.” -A.M.
Do you have any crazy stories from your nesting days? Share them with us so we can all feel a little better about the funny things our brains do.
I cleaned out the decorative grooves in nearly 20 kitchen cabinets with a toothpick before my third was born!