When you're expecting a baby, the nursery is one of the first places you start planning for. Many parents want their older kids to be involved in the process and play a part in decorating the nursery.

If your children are old enough, they can help plan the nursery wallpaper and theme choice, furniture layout and paint colors or choose artwork for the walls. This can be a fun activity that brings everyone together to celebrate this exciting new arrival.

Here are some ways your older kids can help decorate the baby's nursery:

Planning

You'll need to decide what furniture you want in your new baby's room and where it will go — things like cribs, dressers and changing tables should be decided early on so that there isn't any confusion when it comes time to move them into place after delivery. Your older children can help make those decisions by looking at pictures of nurseries online or visiting other family members' homes who have recently had babies themselves. They may even have some ideas about how they would decorate if they were given free reign!

Nursery Wallpaper Theme

Most parents plan on having a theme for the nursery, but sometimes new moms and dads just don't have the time to plan out an entire theme weeks or months in advance. Instead, they can roll with the flow after their baby is born and decorate with whatever they like. Some parents will choose peelable wallpaper that complements something they see in their baby's room or that they want in their own home one day. For example, a baby's room might have a giraffe theme and the parents may choose to use giraffe-print wallpaper for the nursery wall. Or they can opt to go for boy nursery wallpaper if they already know the baby’s gender.

Paint Colors

Painting walls is something that many families do together as part of making their home feel more like home before welcoming a new member into their family. If you decide to paint your child's bedroom walls before bringing home the new baby, let your older children give you their input into the color choice for the room. They can each choose what they think would look best and offer their reasons why. Discuss with them how you think it could affect the baby's sleep and whether it will be easy to change if you need to in the future.

Decorating

Decorating isn't just limited to the bedroom walls and bedding. Chances are that you'll want some decorations in other areas of the new baby's room, too. This could include artwork, frames, lights and anything else you want to add to the room that doesn't have anything to do with furniture placement. If your children are old enough, they can help choose all of these decorations. If you have a specific theme in mind for a certain wall or part of the room, you can give them suggestions for what kind of artwork, frames or other décor will work best and why.

Conclusion

Your older children can help a lot with decorating the baby's nursery, even if they're not very old yet. They can start planning out their nursery wallpaper choice and paint color or two while they're still young and give you their opinion on these things as they get older. You'll find that including them in the process will make them feel more connected to the baby and help them bond with him or her even before he or she is born. This can be a fun activity for your family to do together in which everyone has input.