The nursery that grows with them

Your registry will try to convince you a nursery is sixty items. It's twelve. A crib that converts (you're buying the toddler bed today whether you know it or not), a dresser that moonlights as the changing table, and the one genuine splurge in the room — the glider. You will spend more hours in that chair this year than in your own bed. Buy the comfortable one; skip the matching ottoman.

Everything else is quiet infrastructure. Blackout curtains are the cheapest sleep upgrade money can buy. The dresser-top trio — monitor, white noise, a nightlight you can nurse by without waking anyone all the way up — runs about $85 total. Book ledges beat a bookcase because covers face out, and a baby who can't read chooses books by their faces. The humidifier earns its corner every winter. That's the room. Everything past this list is decor, and decor is what baby showers are for.

The whole room, about $950. — Rebecca