"In the Clouds" Montessori Toddler's Nursery

This project is very near and dear to my heart. This is the nursery inspiration board for our son's room. I say Montessori toddler's nursery, but really the bed is the only thing that is Montessori style. Perhaps I will post some additional Montessori style toys that are both educational and stylish in a later post, because they are so damn cool looking!

I will admit that when I originally designed his room before having our son (he is our first) that I made some mistakes or rather some assumptions that didn't end up working out for our style of parenting. The first one and most expensive mistake was buying a crib. I thought it was so cute and EVERYONE has a crib so it must be necessary right? -Wrong! Well wrong for us at least. Basically the problem for me as a breastfeeding mom was that putting him in another room made my sleep really much more broken up than if I could sleep with him. Also when I would go to feed him at night, lifting him out of the crib was so jarring for him that he would wake up, so it was also disrupting HIS sleep, which I really didn't like. Instead, I opted for a twin mattress (one we already had) on the floor so I could sleep with him. This mattress is still being used, but since then I've purchased the Japanese style futon shown below, so that I could have more space for myself to sprawl out at night and also start to wean him (and myself) away from co-sleeping. But after sleeping on the Japanese futon for a couple months, I have to say it's so much more comfortable than the mattress! Also the fact that it rolls up and could allow him more room for playing is so appealing to me that eventually (once he's no longer night feeding) I plan on removing the mattress in favor of the Japanese style futon. So a big win for the Japanese futon!

Another sort of eye opening experience was with sound machines. They sell so many interesting ones and they can get so pricey! We had one that even had a projector on it, which I think we only used for one or two weeks when he was going through a moving object learning leap. Since the best he ever slept was with the sound of a space heater fan going, I started to do some research into sound machines that had more of a natural fan sound. That's when I came across the one below. What is so interesting about it is that it's not digital at all. It's literally air being pushed through openings (there's a real fan inside) but you don't have the drawback of a cold breeze or hot air. There is no volume button, but you can control the loudness by rotating the cups and adjusting the hole size. Also there's no crappy looping sound hick-up. It's perfect!

One last thing to mention is that we saved some money by using a little DIY tutorial for building your own glider using an Ikea chair using This Tutorial. I think we probably saved a couple hundred dollars by doing this rather than buying a real legit glider. I will say that the glider mechanism is very good quality, and I love it, but the chair is an Ikea chair and it does feel like an Ikea chair. It's comfortable but the cover collects some dust easily and the chair creaks a bit when we rock it. I think someone more handy than us would be able to create a base for it to attach to the ikea chair that is much more stable, but we just didn't have the time or patience and since it's working, we've just kept it. We use it every night and it hasn't had any problems so I would still recommend it to save some money.

So here it is!I hope you enjoy it!

1. Clouds Nursery Decor Burlap Banner - Etsy - $26
2. Cloud wall shelf (Large) - Etsy - $50.50
3. Wood and Metal Vintage Airplane Decorative Art Statue - Houzz - $57.99
4. Fabric Wall Decal - Up Up and Away - Etsy - $75
5. Wooden Toy Plane - From Grandpa's Workshop - $55
6. Marpac DOHM-DS, Natural White Noise (actual fan inside) Sound Machine, White - Amazon - $49.97
7. Summer Infant Contoured Changing Pad - Amazon - $17.95
8. Traditional Japanese Floor Futon Mattress (Twin) - Amazon - $75.00
9. White Cloud & Moon Mobile (gold) - Project Nursery - $74
10. Summer Infant Ultra Plush Change Pad Cover (Sage) - Amazon - $8.96
11. Natural & Warm LUXURY CAMEL Reversible Mattress Topper (Twin) - Amazon - $117.99
12. Soft Clouds (Soicher Marin) - One Kings Lane - $159.00
13. FJÄDERMOLN Cushion (light blue) - Ikea - $6.99
14. JENNYLUND Chair (Tygelsjö beige) - Ikea - $219.00
15. KALLAX Shelving unit (birch effect) - Ikea - $34.99
16. Turn on a Diamond Rug - Dot & Bo - $129.99
17. Swivel Glider Ring Base - Amazon - $99.99
      DIY Installation Tutorial
18. KALLAX Insert with 2 drawers (white) - Ikea - $20