decorating nursery if you don't know the gender

[Anonymous]

am trying to decide whether to wait to decorate the nursery after the baby comes (and I know the gender) or decorate it before with neutral colors - basically yellow and green. Any thoughts? how did people deal with this if they waited to find out the gender. thanks

[Anonymous]

What about bright, primary colors?

[Anonymous]

Yellow, green, purple, earth tones are all good. Even red is great. The blue and pink thing is SO back in the day! I'm expecting a boy and can't bear to be restricted by blue.

[Anonymous]

We just painted the walls a nice pale yellow and bought neutral yellow/green bedding. Probably could have held off on the bedding because our son didn't sleep in his crib for the first six months. If you are a planner and like to get things done, go ahead and buy something neutral but if you can hold off maybe have some gender specific things picked out that can be purchased after the baby is born.

[Anonymous]

I'm going to use sage green and blue if it's a boy, and sage green and pink if it's a girl. You could start with a gender neutral color for most stuff (like sage green), and then buy some accents later that include pink or blue.

[zumbamama]

Here are some unisex themes: animals, balloons, cultural icons, sky (stars/sun/moon/space). I did my stepdaughters in a native american theme, and for my DS, before I knew his sex, I knew I was going to name him/her Jaden either way. So I did a Jade green color scheme, with blue and yellow accents.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, you won't have time to decorate after the baby arrives!

Decorate now in gender-neutral colors.

Good luck to you!

[Anonymous]

We didn't know the gender of our daughter before she was born and we decorated in bright primary colors. Very fun and works well for both - we painted one wall bright turquoise, put those fun "Dottilicous" dot stickers on one wall, and bright animal pictures on another. Highly recommended!

[Anonymous]

We decorated gender-neutral. But, in reality, baby didn't move into his room until well after 6 months and I would have been fine never decorating, even though I didn't do much of it to begin with. You won't have time after baby, but you won't care either.

[Anonymous]

We didn't know if my bump was a he or a she so we painted the nursery a kaiki/yellowish and hubby found the cutest wall border - baby rabbits and lambs hopping over a fence with apple trees (reds, yellows, blues, greens, whites).

We found the pattern at the burlington coat factory - Baby Depot.

Since the baby was a girl, we can easily spruce the room up with girly things and definitely add pinks, pastels, etc.

[Anonymous]

I didn't know the sex of my baby and I'll never find out the sex of others. I just did it in neutral colors. That way it would work with either sex. Do people really redecorate the nursery with every new baby they have?

[Anonymous]

We painted the room a beautiful, calming blue (Benjamin Moore's Yarmouth Blue) that both my husband and I love. (Blue is my favorite color). If the baby was a girl, we would have added some pastel/pink accessories, like a border or something. Turns out we had a boy, who sleeps very soundly in the room. I would strive for a warm soothing color (sage green sounds wonderful!) and don't get too busy with the details...

[Anonymous]

I just did the absolute basic furniture, and a gender-neutral rug. The baby hasn't yet slept in her room (I like to keep her close for now), but once we start to transition her to her own room, I'll buy a bedding set and maybe a wallpaper border.

There is something to be said for the emotional preparation that decorating the nursery brings. Assembling a crib is a great way to really appreciate the reality of it all, for both parents! So I was glad we did the basics. But, I wouldn't give up the high-drama "it's a girl" moment for anything, so I'm also glad that we didn't learn the sex ahead of time, especially not for something as relatively unimportant as choosing a decor theme.

[Anonymous]

Just pick a gender neutral theme and go with it from there. We did "under the sea" type theme with sea turtles, fish, crabs, etc. She is a girl (which we knew) and threw in some mermaid stuff too. But, this room (painted lilac purple, with blue and yellow accents) would work for a boy too.

I did have to fight the pink urge --- just for something different (though not nec. unique). Back in the day or not, I realllly love pink on and for little girls. I didn't think I would but do.

[Anonymous]

We painted the nursery green and yellow and got bedding and a border with little animals on them. It was completely gender-neutral. It looked really cute, and we can use it for baby #2. You can always decorate in neutral colors and add gender-specific things later.
FWIW, we got so many gender-specific clothes, toys, keepsakes, etc after our son was born that I think I would've gone crazy if the nursery was blue and gender-specific, too!