Bedroom
The main goal in the bedroom is to promote healthy sleeping habits. A young child should get 10-12 hours of sleep each night. It is helpful to establish a bedtime routine and stick to it. Sometimes bedrooms contain a quiet reading area with a chair for the child, natural lighting or table lamp and a few well chosen books. When choosing books for your child, look for stories that could be true and are beautifully illustrated. Some of our favorites were: Babies by Gyo Fujikawa, Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey, A is for Annabelle by Tasha Tudor, A Child's Garden Book of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson and Pelle's New Suit by Elsa Beskow. Reading to your child each day helps to promote literacy and a lifetime love of reading. This is also a wonderful bonding period for the two of you.
Another goal is for the child to be able to dress themselves. Be sure they can open their dresser drawers or have their clothing in baskets or hanging at their level. I have seen parents pre-fill baskets with an acceptable outfit in each basket for the child to chose from, when parents are particular about what their child wears. Usually parents just say proudly, "they dressed themselves." Above is an example of setting up the child's clothing; hung at her height and baskets easy to reach and organized. The child should also have access to a full sized mirror, placed where they can see their entire body. Michael Olaf makes a wonderful floor mirror that can be changed to a standing mirror as the child gets older. We used it for my son, who loved looking at himself, as most children do.
In the nursery below, light contrasting colors have been taken into consideration. Infants are developing their vision, so you will often see them staring at objects of high contrast (black, white, and red.) You can see a colorful mobile over the glider; another good location would be over the changing table. There is lots of natural lighting, a beautiful painting hanging on the wall and comfortable seating for the parent.
Activities for the child can be: making their bed, folding and putting away laundry, sorting clothing, and putting toys back into their place when finished playing with them.
We found that the European way of making beds; using only pillowcase, duvet cover and fitted sheet made it very easy for our children to make their beds in the morning.