The Montessori-inspired Nursery: Floor Beds and Independence

After learning I was successful in trying to become a mother, my thoughts began to drift to the nursery.  Where would we put it?  What would it look like?  How do I make it an independent place for my child, yet meet all of our safety concerns and daily needs as parents?

During my Montessori training, I always had a vague idea of what I thought this room should look like.  The words "floor bed" kept repeating over and over in my mind.  But I wasn't sure what that looked like or how it should be implemented.  And I certainly wasn't sure how my husband was going to feel about supporting such a non-conventional idea.  And so, the research began.

I first encountered a series of wonderful articles from Eco-Child's Play (http://ecochildsplay.com/2009/01/15/baby-essentials-that-arent-1/) that began to describe all the things the world have convinced us we need, yet have really no developmental validity.  I can tell you that when I first brought this to my husband, his reaction was: "why wouldn't we have these things?"  And I asked "why would we?"  His initial reaction was the one most people have: "because that's what people do, it's what they have."  And so, I quickly reminded him that we were people who stray from the beaten path; and this was the time to do it.  The article that I discovered pointed me in the direction of discovering the reasons that I knew a crib was not what I wanted:

Cribs are not necessarily safe:  Thousands of babies die each year falling into the side rails of a crib and suffocating.  Even more children are hurt when they get to the age that they are able to climb out of their cribs and ultimately end up falling out of them.  This is not to say that if you have your child in a crib, you are endangering them.  It just means that anyone who tells you a crib is necessary for safety is not always looking at the whole picture.

Cribs give children an unnatural vantage point:  Looking through bars high above the floor is not the natural positioning of a child in the world.  Infants do not focus easily on things far away, particularly through something else, so your child's main environment becomes bars.

Cribs limit independence, they are for us not the child:  Often times our children cry in the middle of the night because they are lonely and bored in their cribs.  They have no freedom to explore.  You have now put yourself smack-dab in the middle of their exploration of the world.

You can't crawl into the crib:  How often have parents wished they could lay next to their child in the crib, or how many parents end up waking their children trying to get them in and out while leaning over bars?  If your child's bed is on the floor, you can easily lay next to your child or breastfeed (or bottle feed) without removing them from bed.

So, I had my mind made up, we were going to do a floor bed.  And that's how the nursery slowly developed.

When you embark upon the floor-bed design in a nursery, the entire nursery becomes the child's room.  That means that everything in it must be designed with the child's safety and needs in mind.  The whole room is now his crib.  Suddenly we had to think of everything being made with round corners and safe materials.  We had to think about him more than ourselves.  This was his room.  And more importantly, I wanted to make it something he could grow into.  I didn't want to create a room where all the furniture became unnecessary when he got a little bigger.  And so, I began to design...and this is what we got:

The design began with paint colors.  We chose Benjamin Moore Natura paint because it was VOC-free. This way I could help my husband paint the room (we started when I was around 12 weeks pregnant) and there would be no leftover volatile compounds for our son to breathe after his birth.  We painted three walls in a light but cheerful yellow and the fourth wall a calm green color.  We wanted neutral colors because, at that time, we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl and, more importantly, I wanted the room to feel more gender neutral.  Ultimately, we added blue and orange accents once we knew that we were indeed having a boy.  The mural grew out of the colors.  While no professional, I have always loved painting and ended up designing the mural that sits above his bed.  Again using safe paints, this was the second thing to go in the room.  My husband made the shelves himself and painted them.  I bought the painted nesting dolls on Etsy.  Above two walls of the room is a bumped out portion of wall where the air duct goes through the room.  On this we mounted alphabet animal cards from Eeboo.  I had always planned on using these cards in a classroom one day, but they seemed even better here!  While our son will not be able to see them for a while, I hope that we'll be aware of his visual development as he begins to notice them.  I always use lowercase alphabet when working with children, so I made sure these cards had both and not just the uppercase.

Designing the Montessori floor bed was my next project.  A person need not go my route.  There are plenty of pre-made Montessori floor beds out there.  I know that both the Lord Company and Michael Olaf have them.  They are designed to fit a crib mattress.  However, when I began looking at pricing, I knew that I wanted an organic mattress.  An organic crib mattress is fairly expensive, especially when one day you will need to upgrade, and an organic twin mattress is even more expensive.  I decided that we should get something long-term, something he could grow into.  Plus, the twin will give him much more room to roll around.  Ultimately, we purchased a Save The Planet twin mattress from Organic Grace.  Many people buy a twin mattress (or even a crib mattress) and just set it on the floor without a frame.  I preferred the look of the frame so we actually had a family friend build us a frame, making sure all the edges were rounded and that our son had a place to crawl down from.  It was not the only furniture we had designed specifically for the room, but again, there are many ways to pull this off without creating your own furniture if you don't have the means.

With the bed the size it is, it actually gave us the opportunity to maximize space.  So now we have a tummy time area on one side and he can sleep on the other side underneath a mobile (my husband will be installing the mobile hanger on the other side of the bed this weekend).  The two mirrors that have been mounted above the far side of the bed will provide him with the ability to look and discover himself and his movements while he is on his tummy.  Hanging from the ceiling by a hook is a bell he can grasp as he begins to explore grasping movements.  Lying on his back, he can tug an pull a number of hanging things that I have purchased.

In the corner of the room, next to the bed, sits a rocking chair and small bookshelf.  On the bottom shelf is my library of infant/parenting knowledge, and on the bottom shelf are board books (gifted to us by my amazing former students!) our son will be able to explore as he learns to move about.  On top of the shelf is a tray I can put things on and take around the house for breastfeeding, etc.  The rocking chair is actually a lovely wooden chair that we had padded cushions made for.  This way, when we no longer need the chair in the nursery, we can take the cushions off and it fits well with the decor of the rest of our house.  When we remove the rocking chair, we will then replace this space with a small table and chair that our son can use materials on.  The tall giraffe, which I purchased at a farmer's market, is made of raffia and so can do no damage if it falls; although we will remove it from the room if it becomes a hazard.

The carpet you see is actually made up of carpet tiles which we purchased from a fairly environmentally sound company, Flor (www.flor.com).  They were much less expensive than buying a whole carpet for the room (especially when looking at very expensive, yet not very attractive, organic carpets).  Plus, being made up of tiles, if one gets damaged, it is very easily replaced, rather than replacing the entire rug.  If we ever move it can be patterned differently or moved around to accommodate different floor plans.

Next to the rocking chair is a small shelf.  Both this shelf and the other shelf we purchased at Michael's for barely any money at all.  Unpainted, they matched well with the furniture we had designed and painted, but you could purchase these and paint them any color you wanted.  We also sanded and rounded all the corners so that there are no sharp edges.  There are more infant toys on here than I will have once he becomes mobile; I just have them out right now so we know what we've got.  Normally, there will be shallow baskets with one or two items that we will trade out frequently.  Next to the shelf is a mirror (that will be mounted this weekend) and small rug that is texturally interesting for him to explore.  As he gets older I will put a bowl for hand-scooping activities here or a low stool with grooming objects.  It's a versatile space.

Last, but not least, we have the dresser.  We had this designed and made, although it follows the same design as an Amish Chiffonrobe (which I saw you can buy online, but are more expensive than I would have liked).  The drawers hold blankets, clothes, socks, hats, burp cloths and bibs.  The mirrored door opens to a little closet with two rods.  The idea is to have a rod low enough that, when our son gets older, he can pick his own clothes from set choices.  The night before, I will put a couple options for him to choose from (two pants, two shirts...perhaps more choices as he gets older) and that way he can began independently dressing himself.

Atop the dresser is our "changing table."  We bought a four-sided changing table pad that allows you to screw in button snaps to the back of the dresser to keep it secure.  Above it is a shelf for all our diapering needs.  A basket with diapers sits next to the pad for easy access.  Right now it holds disposable chlorine-free diapers that we will use for the first month and after that it will house clean cloth diapers.  The one lamp on the table provides enough dim light to keep the room well lit at night but not overpowering.

And that's our Montessori-inspired child-centered room.