So, funny enough, my most popular posts on this blog are Emme’s nursery plan and the actual nursery reveal with photos. 😂 Don’t mind all the free education, everyone comes for the nursery deets. 🤣 Anyways, I recently updated her room sort of as a transition to toddler room. I purchased and made some new pieces and the space overall works SO much better with a mobile baby now! I wanted to share it in case other people are thinking their baby has outgrown parts of their nursery! This is how I handled the transition with minimal waste. PS don’t mind our lovely military housing felt brown “carpet” that is also bubbled up form the humidity here. 🤪
Please note this post contains amazon affiliate links because I am an amazon affiliate and I may earn a commission from cicks and purchases, which helps me keep this blog running and I greatly appreciate (see disclosure at end of blog post)! The rest of the links are not affiliate links. I have links to objects pictured under each image. I linked the closet thing I could find to a few items.
When to transition
You know your baby best, but when Emme started crawling I felt the need to update some things. I needed to rearrange furniture to cover plugs and make sure her crib didn’t allow for any outlet access. I had to change toys around, and I needed a better place to engage with her when she was playing. If you have a separate playroom in your house, you may not need to do any transition until the big-kid bed era. Also, now is a great time to anchor your heavier furniture like bookshelves and dressers to the wall. If you have IKEA furniture you can go online and have them mail you anchoring sets for specific pieces in their line of furniture.
Brass Lamp | IKEA basket | Similar Round Gold/Brass Mirror | Nest Camera
Jellycat Puppy | Jelly Cat Cream Bunny | Jellycat Beige Bunny
HOVSTA frames | Vintage Alphabet Poster | Hatch Baby Sound Machine
IKEA Hemnes 3-Drawer Chest in White | Playtex Diaper Genie Complete in Green
Goodbye Recliner Chair
The first thing I did was sell our chair to our awesome neighbors, because it became tough to breastfeed in as Emme got larger. Now it is their dogs favorite spot in their house and that makes my heart happy. 😂 I replaced the chair with two sofa cushions and made my own removable box covers using this amazing youtube tutorial! They don’t look perfect–because I didn’t understand how to work with the grain of my fabric–but they work perfectly! More on that DIY in another post. I love this set up though because it’s a really comfy place for me to hang out with Emme and read. Plus she loves climbing all over it and it is safe to do so. Swapping the chair for these cushions also freed up a lot of floor space. It allowed me to rearrange quite a bit in her room to where the crib is now centered on the painted accent wall. I then had a whole empty wall for a new piece of furniture!
Sheepskin rug | Metal basket | IKEA Lisabo End Table
Hello Sensory Table
I love this table from IKEA. My mom actually commented that had one just like it growing up! It works great for playing on, crafting on, and you can buy the bins to store underneath the removable tops to use it as a sensory table! It also had matching stools but I have not purchased those yet because Emme would fall out of them. lol. She’s just barely becoming tall enough to play with things inside the bins so it has mostly been used as a space to pull up on and play with toys. I also added a shelf to hide her thermostat and some bins that happened to be in the perfect color to hold art supplies! A random special thing to note, you should not drill a hole directly in line with an outlet or switch because you don’t know what the wiring looks like behind your walls.
FLISAT table | Walker is from Japan Toys ‘R Us | Custom Name Puzzle | Similar Mint Letterboard
The Pencil | Bird Hugs | My Dog needs Me | Inch by Inch
Reorganized toys and books
The other thing that had to change when Emme started to move is her bookshelf! I had all of the books down on the second shelf but she would just walk along and pull them all out. She needed a space to stand and play/bang things around. I moved the books higher and left one cubby of sensory + sturdy books for her to pull off and play with. The mirror used to be on the wall below the window and was horizontal so emme could see herself during tummy time, but she LOVES standing in front of it vertically now! She talks to the baby in the mirror quite a bit. It is just a cheap, lightweight over the door mirror that is command-stripped to the wall. If it ever fell down it would not break because it is essentially plexiglass, which is great. I do not recommend installing a real glass mirror anywhere you would like baby to touch (obviously).
Mint Wooden Toy Camera | Musical Llama | Grimms’ Wooden Toys | | IKEA bins | Wooden Blocks
Future changes
I think her room is going to work like this until we move and she is at least 2. I will add stools or chairs to the sensory table when she is big enough. Eventually she will need a new bed too! Her crib was purchased in Japan so it is actually a little smaller than a normal IKEA sniglar crib and I think she will be able to climb out of it next year. lol. Her room should work great for next year or so though! Which my husband is very happy to hear. Ha!