Organizing For Baby - By Ashley Strukel

Today we have a guest post from Ashley Strukel, the founder of Good Help Organizing based out of Jamestown, North Dakota, and serving the surrounding area. She specializes in practical organizing systems, decluttering, and compassionate productivity support for busy households in changing seasons of life. (Click here to check her out!)

Before Baby: Organize for Function, Not for Pinterest

When you’re expecting your first baby, everyone has opinions to share. People are more than happy to tell you what to buy, and there are a million registry lists all over the internet. But almost no one tells you how to actually live in your house with a newborn. Your goal doesn’t need to be a perfect nursery; your goal is life, sleep, and less friction at 2 a.m.

In this post, I discuss building a practical registry that actually serves you, setting up systems that work where you actually live, dealing with counter clutter and, of course, sleep.

1. Build a Registry That Serves You

The Good Pinterest Ladies of the Internet don’t actually know where or how you live, so their lists, while interesting, may not actually be practical for your situation. I recommend real-life experience over internet noise. 

• Ask 3–5 trusted moms what they actually used daily. 
  • Also ask them about gifts they got that they never used. 
• Register for consumables (diapers in multiple sizes, wipes).
• Think about where items will live in your actual home before clicking Add to List. 
• Skip gadgets you won’t use for 6+ months. You can use giftcards for these later. 

Remember that every item you register for is an item you’ll eventually have to clean, store, move, or donate. 

2. Set Up Systems Where You Actually Live

Consider your actual home when thinking about systems you might need, including diapering and feeding. You can’t really know how it feels to bring a newborn home until you do it, but I was glad someone warned me about body soreness and other side effects of birth before we got home! It’s helpful to anticipate what you will need, and where. 

Diaper Stations

You might picture a diaper changing station in a beautifully decorated nursery, but unless you plan to live in the nursery, it may be more practical to have either a mobile diaper station or having it in or near your main living areas. Here’s what I recommend:

• One diaper station per level of the house.
• What to include: diapers, wipes, cream, change of clothes, burp cloth, and extra swaddle blankets. 
• If your main changing area is the living room ottoman (ours was!), you’ll want to add a folding changing pad to keep everything clean. 
• A tiered rolling cart works wonderfully for keeping the supplies handy! 

Feeding Caddy

The same rolling cart could be used for feeding supplies, or a cute handled bag works well, too. Here’s what you might want handy on a cart that feeds both parent and baby:

• Water bottle 
• Snacks
• Burp cloths
• Pacifiers
• Phone charger
• Extra wipes if the diaper caddy isn’t handy

Your STORX parent self-care items will be a great fit in your feeding caddy. 

3. The Nursery Is Optional. Sleep Is Not.

If you, as parents, want a gorgeous Pottery Barn nursery, go for it. But your baby doesn’t actually need that. All they really need is a safe place to sleep. 

Prioritize: 

• Safe crib or bassinet (we had a bassinet with locking wheels which worked great in those first weeks when I wasn’t very mobile.)
• A sleep mask or blackout curtains so you can sleep when the baby sleeps. 
• Simple, accessible storage, because you don’t want to be digging around in drawers for a clean sleeper at 2 a.m. 

Sleep, or lack of it, can overwhelm new parents, but you probably need less than you think you do to make it happen. 

4. Accept the Counter Clutter

Everyone loves to look at a completely bare kitchen island, but some seasons are countertop seasons, and I'm here to tell you that accepting it is better than fighting it in this newborn stage. 

Bottles, pacifiers, and pump parts are constantly being washed and are easiest to let air dry. In this season, accessible and easy is going to beat complicated and tidy-looking every time. Set up a drying rack you don’t hate, and let it live on the counter, shame-free. I am always telling my organizing clients that their spaces exist to serve them, not the other way around.  

Conclusion

Preparing for a baby doesn’t require turning your home into a showroom. It requires thinking through your real life and making it a little easier on your most tired days.

You don’t need every gadget. You don’t need a fully styled nursery before you can rest. You don’t need a kitchen that looks like a model home. What you do need are simple systems that support you when you’re sore, sleep-deprived, and learning something completely new.

Organizing before baby comes is about reducing friction. It’s about putting the diaper cream where you’ll actually reach for it and having snacks and water within arm’s length at 3 a.m. It’s about choosing items thoughtfully so your home doesn’t feel like an overrun, cluttered mess before you’ve even settled in.

As your baby grows, your systems will grow too. With thoughtfully curated, age-appropriate items for baby and self-care items for parents shipped straight from STORX, you can keep things simple without adding more to manage.

Start with function. Let the rest follow. And, congratulations!