Pregnant

Nesting and Anxiety During Pregnancy: What to Expect

Lauren Hays

Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, PMHNP

Anxiety and Nesting During Pregnancy: Everything You Need to Know

What is Nesting in Pregnancy?

Many pregnant women experience a strong urge to prepare their home for the arrival of their newborn. This nesting instinct may consist of deep cleaning, organizing, decorating, shopping, or starting projects. You may find yourself working on something to make your house a safe space for an infant, or you might find yourself alphabetizing your spice rack (just me?!). The term “nesting” is often used to generally refer to any action taken by expecting parents that aims to ready their house or prepare their lives for parenthood. This does not quite adequately describe the specific accounts of pregnant people. Some feel nesting anxiety as a sudden burst of energy accompanied by an urge to do and/or complete a task. It can happen at any time during your pregnancy, but most women report it happening during the third trimester, right before baby arrives. You’re likely to go through something like nesting, mama. It may feel wholesome and exciting or it may feel closer to anxiety. Below, we explore nesting and what it could mean to you as an expecting mama.

Is Nesting an Instinct?

The baby is coming, it’s a fact and there is no fighting it. There is a deadline, the day you become a mother, and you have from now until then to get your home ready to welcome your child. You likely have a checklist of everything that needs to get done. Anxiety and stress drive you each day to shop and research and clean, working down that daunting to-do list. These feelings are all completely natural, but they are not necessarily the nesting behaviors that we are talking about.

As I’m sure you’re aware, pregnancy involves hormonal changes in your body that causes you to, occasionally and temporarily, exhibit atypical human behaviors. Nesting is one such example of intense hormones creating impulses that result in cravings, outbursts, and overwhelming emotions. Because of this, nesting is not reported as a sober, logical moment like working on your checklist to create a safe nursery or something else essential. Rather, mothers describe their experiences as random impulses and intense cravings that drove them to work on a task that might not have been important or was something they normally didn’t care about.

If you are experiencing this, it’s possible you might not notice at first or even after the fact. The nesting urge is an irrational impulse that is paired with a burst of energy to get your butt in motion. This often causes you to focus on tasks that aren’t necessarily important to help you prepare for the coming due date. Yet, in the moment they will feel incredibly important. The fact that they are not done will persistently bother you and may even make it hard to sleep at night.

Women report a pressing urge to clean and organize. This could mean cleaning all the baseboards in the house, straightening up your medicine cabinet, deep cleaning the kitchen, washing all the windows, ironing your curtains, deicing a freezer, and so on.

We should reiterate that some pregnant people do not experience nesting at all. Others have reported similar symptoms over an extended period of time, rather than just during the third trimester. You can use the act of nesting more productively, like fixing up the nursery and organizing the baby clothes. However, prolonged nesting can lead to unnecessary stress, as constantly trying to work on your to-do list as you prepare your home is exhausting. This is sometimes called extreme nesting, and we hope you can seek out some ways to reduce anxiety and de-stress instead of sticking to your never ending to-do list. Try one of our meditations for anxiety if you need a break.

When Does Nesting Start During Pregnancy?

Most reported that nesting peaks in the third trimester. A high percentage of those in the last trimester were also in the final few weeks prior to giving birth. There are plenty of stories of women up at 3:00 am, cleaning the cabinets under their bathroom sink, when suddenly their water breaks. Or they were in the middle of mowing the lawn, because their house was fully cleaned already. Some say they were using a toothbrush to scrub between the floor tiles, or something similar, only hours before starting to go into labor. This is not the case for all pregnant women, and again some of us don’t experience nesting at all. It is normal to have anxiety during pregnancy, don’t add to it by trying to anticipate when you will experience your nesting phase. Instead, focus on your daily responsibilities while setting aside an hour or two each day to continue preparing everything necessary for your new baby’s arrival. Do wait and depend on the nesting instinct to suddenly kick in and force you to finish all the needed preparations for when you bring your little one home.

Nesting Can Soothe Anxiety

Feeling unprepared while being a mom-to-be understandably creates a lot of worry and unease. That’s why we highly suggest you create a list of what you actually need to get done and try to vaguely map it over the full nine months of pregnancy. This list should include what you need to bring your baby home, but also for your own needs during postpartum.

Such a checklist might include: filling a dresser with baby clothes (especially onesies), getting the nursery ready, stocking up on diapers, preparing or buying a healthy supply of freezer meals, and considering what you’ll need to pack in your hospital bag. You probably don’t need to scrub your floors or spend time rearranging the furniture.

The general cleaning and organizing that is necessary to create a safe space for the little one’s arrival, can be joyful and calming. This is much different from the nesting instinct that many experience as a driving urge to work on something that is potentially senseless or random. Different, but not necessarily bad.

How to Tell if You're Nesting During Pregnancy

There is no medical diagnosis for nesting and only a few studies, which have contradictory conclusions. However, self-reported surveys show that many women experience it. They also show that a majority of women report cleaning and organizing more while pregnant than they normally would. So, what exactly are you experiencing, mama? No one knows you better than yourself. You know how you typically are – or were – prior to pregnancy, and can compare that to your actions while pregnant. If you’re not the one that cleans the house, makes shopping lists, and plans out projects but are suddenly doing one or all of these, it might be nesting. However, if you do some of these things and find yourself doing them more intensely while pregnant, it could just be you getting ready for the baby. Remember to listen to your body and not over do it if you do feel the need to start nesting. Of course, the natural hormonal changes of gestation affect your body and mood; these might also cause some women to clean their house more. It’s also possible that historically, societal expectations and household positions give moms-to-be with hormonal anxiety little else to do. There really isn’t enough research on this experience that is reported by so many women. However, becoming a parent changes you. Take it from us, having your first child is a sobering challenge. You’re going to grow up a lot, alongside your child. It’s possible you are already personally growing in anticipation. The main physical symptom that is commonly reported with the nesting instinct in pregnancy is feeling a surge of energy. It can feel wonderful, especially when you’re often exhausted in the third trimester. This can be incredibly subtle, hidden as deep desires or cravings to start or finish some project. Or, it can be the driving force that gets you out of bed, earlier than you should, and started on some task that is suddenly incredibly important to you.

Thriving in the Third Trimester and Beyond

Pregnancy, birth, and motherhood are going to take a mental and physical toll on your body, but they can also be the most rewarding thing you undertake. The best way to survive and thrive (like we know you will, mama!) is to be prepared and make a plan for postpartum.

As with most aspects of becoming a mother, you should learn about it, talk about it, and find ways to move through it with grace. That’s why we created The Matrescence®. We focused on you first, because there aren’t many spaces out there just for mama. As a community member, you’ll have access to online forums where you can learn from other moms and offer your support as well. We created this app to serve as the whole village that’s needed to raise a child in one place and we hope you’ll join us there.

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