What to buy first for a baby nursery

Settle the room before the list

The first decisions are not purchases. Which room it is, whether it is being cleared or decorated first, and roughly where the cot, the storage and the changing surface are going to sit. Everything after that is a measurement.

• The floor plan: the usable wall lengths, once the door swing and the radiator are taken out of them.
• Where the cot goes, and whether the space left still opens a wardrobe or a drawer.
• The window — its exact width and drop, measured yourself, before ordering a blind.
• Socket positions, for the monitor and the nightlight. The plan is easier to change than the wiring.
• Whether the room needs clearing, filling or painting first, and who is doing it.

If the room is being decorated, that settles the order on its own: paint goes on before the furniture arrives, not around it.

What has to be ordered early

Only a few lines on a nursery list have a date attached. They are the ones worth deciding first, while everything else is still open.

• The cot and the mattress

  The largest items, the hardest to work around, and the ones that may be made to order or unavailable in a particular finish. Check whether the mattress comes with the cot or separately — the two are not always sold together, and the size has to match the frame you chose.

• A blind made to measure

  Anything cut to your window is a lead time plus a measurement that is difficult to change afterwards. Measure twice, order once, and early enough that the room is not finished except for the window.

• Flat-pack assembly

  Large furniture that arrives flat-packed makes the room unusable while it is being built. That is a free afternoon to find, not a delivery slot.

• Decorating

  Paint and filler belong before the furniture, and the room needs time to dry and air before it is filled. Where the room is being decorated at all, it is the task the other lines wait on.

What other people will cover

A nursery is unusual among projects: part of the list may arrive as gifts or hand-me-downs, sometimes without being asked for. That is why writing the whole list down matters here — it is how two people avoid buying the same monitor.

Already yours

Storage, a lamp or a chair from another room, which only has to be carried upstairs.

Lent or handed on

The things used for a few months and then outgrown. Worth asking about before buying — and worth saying out loud what you have already been promised.

Possible gifts

The small, visible items: sheets, a nightlight, soft furnishings. Keep them on the list and mark them as covered rather than deleting them.

Yours to buy

Whatever the three above have not covered. On this template that is the furniture and the consumables.

What can wait until the room is done

Consumables and the finishing layer come last, and that is not a compromise. Several of them are easier to judge once the room is actually there to judge them against.

• Before

  Clearing, decorating, the cot, the mattress, and anything cut to measure.

• As the room fills

  Storage, the changing surface and the monitor, positioned once the furniture is where it is going to stay.

• Last

  Sheets, the nightlight and the consumables. None of it has to be settled now, and all of it is easy to buy too much of early.

Nappies and wipes are one example. They keep, so the quantity is a decision you can take later rather than one to answer while deciding where a cot goes.

Open it as a plan

Everything above works on paper. If you would rather keep it on your phone — with each line carrying its own price, priority, notes, deadline and a link to the thing you found — the iPhone app ships a Nursery template that starts you with a 9-item checklist instead of an empty project.

1. 1Add a project
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   In the app, tap the + control in the centre of the tab bar. Its accessibility label is “Add a project”.

2. 2Start from a template
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   The “New project” sheet opens. Use the “Start from a template” row rather than typing a name into an empty project.

3. 3Pick Nursery
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   Choose the “Nursery” chip. The sheet says how many starter items it will add and pre-fills the project name, which you can edit here.

4. 4Create project
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   Tap “Create project”. The project opens with its checklist already written, and every line is yours to rename, delete or re-prioritise.

Nursery is the chip in the template picker. The project name arrives pre-filled as Baby nursery, and that part is yours to change before or after you create the project.

What the Nursery template starts you with

These lines are the template’s suggestions, not a shopping list to clear. Several of them may be covered by somebody else, and the point of keeping them is being able to see that they are covered.

• Cot or cribUrgent
• MattressUrgent
• Fitted sheets
• Changing table or mat
• Baby monitor
• Blackout blind
• Storage / drawers
• Nightlight
• Nappies & wipes