Anxiety and Nesting During Pregnancy: Everything You Need to Know
What is Nesting in Pregnancy?
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?
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
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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Lauren Hays, PMHNP
Lauren was a licensed and trained registered nurse in the NICU and has since made a career shift to focus on mental health. Lauren is now a board certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, focusing on women’s health and wellness. She is a mom of three precious little men who has turned her pain into passion.
