Nursery Design That Fosters Child Development

A child’s environment contributes greatly to their brain development and ability to learn. Human behavior, development and learning are widely thought to be reactions to our environment. Keep these things in mind when you start designing your baby’s nursery. Create your nursery with the assumption that you may not have time to remodel the whole room year after year.
Over the first years, you want your baby to excel in certain areas. Gross motor, fine motor, sensory, language and social areas of development should be considered part of your decorating plan. Research clearly shows that a child’s success in school and life is directly related to the access of an abundance of appropriate educational experiences during their first years.
Luckily, for infants, babies and toddlers, having fun is conducive to learning. Create a safe, stimulating environment for your child. They will soon recognize their room as their personal space and you want them to draw from that environment. Organized surroundings have been proven to foster critical thinking. Infants and toddlers absorb information from their environments and a cluttered space leads to disinterest and a lack of motivation to learn.

Here are some room set-up tips for each area of your child’s development.

Gross Motor: Provide sturdy, anchored shelves and/or dressers for your child to pull up on. Leave as much open space in the room as possible to promote free movement. Soft, safe climbing areas can challenge and develop gross motor skills as well.

Fine Motor: Provide manipulative toys in one area. Avoid choking hazards, but group toys that require pinching, turning or squeezing in one spot.

Sensory: Make sure that your nursery offers many diverse opportunities to explore different textures and tactile experiences. Look for toys and books that have different textures such as sandpaper, velvet, crinkly and bumpy materials. Children use their senses to figure out their surroundings. A simple thing like placing a small area rug or table near your fine motor toys can lead a child to figure out that this is the spot where they should play with those toys, leading to logical thinking. As they mature, you can replace baby toys with art supplies and a desk to foster their independence, creativity and organizational play.

Language: Books, tapes and CDs can help your child build their vocabulary very early in life. Talking face to face is the most effective, but you can also encourage language development by posting pictures of common objects around the room at the child’s level. Also labeling drawers, cubbies and toy boxes with photographs of what goes there will encourage your baby to name things early on. As they grow older, you can change the labels to printed words to encourage reading and writing.

Social: Separate loud and quiet areas if possible. Make room in each area for adults and other children to get down on the floor and play with your child. Place low chairs or floor pillows in some areas to invite children and adults to enter the room and participate. Place pictures of family members in quiet areas where your baby can study and recognize them.

Organize your nursery with the supplies you’ll need up high. Utilize bins, baskets and hanging organizers to minimize the amount of clutter in the room. Hanging clothes on baby hangers where they’re easily accessible and visible can make your life easier as well. Aim to make everything in the room a potential teaching tool and keep it organized enough that you’ll enjoy spending quality time with your baby.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the owner of Only Kids Hangers, a leading provider of childrens hangers. The right childrens clothes hangers really make the difference in kid's retail or home organization. For more information, please visit www.onlykidshangers.com.

Make Space in Your Child's Room

Is your kid’s room lacking in floor space? With dressers, desks, end tables, beds and toy boxes, open space is a rare commodity. Consider opening up the space and making their rooms more inviting. Organizing your child’s room and reducing the clutter can renew their spirits and yours. Use these tips to not only create space, but to help your child keep their room clean and organized, while spending very little money.
What you can actually accomplish depends on the size of your kid’s closet. A good idea for a standard closet is to install a sturdy bottom shelf about three feet high. Have it come almost to the closet door, but leave room for a chair to be stored there. This will be your child’s desk. They can use it for art, homework, or small manipulative games. Install another deep shelf above the desk and place a light beneath it. Push lights work well in places where you may not want to go all out installing special lighting and switches. Avoid lamps with incandescent bulbs because the heat from the bulb can be a real fire hazard, especially in a kid’s closet where it can easily be knocked over, left on or unattended for long periods.
The next step is to install three to four smaller shelves, shallower than the first two. Make these a little closer together. These will be for all of their clothes. I try to leave the biggest space at the top for storing the entire out of season wardrobe. Make stacks of shorts, jeans, t-shirts, long sleeved shirts, sweaters and sweat suits on the smaller shelves. Items that take up more room can go on the larger shelf. Getting everything out of the dresser puts it where you can actually see everything available. You can buy wire baskets that hang down from the shelves and act as drawers for socks and underwear. No more digging through drawers to find their favorite outfits. Having everything visible really cuts down on messiness when it comes to your kid’s clothes. Also, things that aren’t ever worn tend to stay at the bottom of the stack. It makes it a lot easier to get rid of things that no longer fit or just never get worn.
Next install a hanging bar below the desk. Hanging clothes that aren’t worn every day are out of sight and are no longer the focus of the entire closet. Put the most worn clothes towards the center. Store extra blankets, sheets and coats in a bin on one side of the floor. You can store shoes on the other side of the desk chair. Utilize hooks on the back of the door for backpacks, belts, hats and other items that can be hung.
Now that everything is in the closet, you can get rid of bulky dressers, desks and the chest of drawers. Your child will appreciate having room to play. You’ll appreciate the ease of putting away and finding clothes. No more stuffing that dresser to the hilt!

About the Author: Ron Maier is the owner of Only Kids Hangers, a leading provider of childrens hangers. The right childrens clothes hangers really make the difference in kid's retail or home organization. For more information, please visit www.onlykidshangers.com.