I’m a former new parent, and a new parent once again, and I’ll tell you the things we need the most are extra sleep and extra hands. Taking care of babies is easy if there’s nothing else to do, but that’s never the case.
Honestly, the thing that had me the most stressed was the doctor bill, and I make enough money that it’s not really a true concern. I can’t imagine the anxiety I’d feel if I had a noble profession like teaching and couldn’t cover the tab. So honestly, a gift of money from a grandmother is incredibly thoughtful. Unlike a birthday or Christmas gift, it’s not a cold, “I barely thought about you” gesture. There are real bills tied to having a kid, and money isn’t just a “nice to have” thing. Coming from a neighbor or coworker, it’d be passe, but from a grandmother, it’s definitely permissible.
For material goods, though, I have to disagree with your changing table opinion. It’s a life savor, and by that, I mean a lower back savor. It’s just so much more comfortable changing diapers at waist-height, and when (not if) they pee all over it during a change, it’s not as psychologically damaging as to a couch or (gasp) your bed.
And to go a different direction from “things”… one of the thing I did for my mother when my wife and I were expecting was to sign us both up for a new-baby course specifically designed for grandparents. Many grandparents come to their first grandchildren with beliefs and experience that is in many cases decades out of date. The course allowed my mother to hear the latest in baby care from a professional, minimizing possible friction between how we do things as parents vs. how she would do them based upon what she did 30 years ago. Look into your local hospital’s course offerings for expectant mothers for this type of class or check local maternity shops.
Homemade, frozen, one dish dinners. By the boatload!
By dinner time every new Mom is usually spent. Being able to just pull out lasagna, (or spaghetti sauce, Chilli, casserole, beef stew, curry, etc) from the freezer, instead of having to think of something and prep it is so, SO, awesome. Plus you know exactly what she likes!
Of course, that’s a lot easier when new Mom lives just a few hours away!
(Freeze it solid, pack it well in a cooler and arrange delivery with a friend maybe?)
Not having to cook dinner, beyond popping it in the oven, is truly a huge blessing, I think. Especially when it’s healthy and home made! With love, by the original Mom!
When my brother had his kids, my mother got them ceramic piggy banks that were hand painted to say things like [Child’s name]'s College Fund. If you Google, you can find places that sell these, although my mother bought them at a local store. We also got them some nice wooden toys (like a wooden car or a wooden train engine). These are to play with but also as decorations for the kid’s room as the kid gets older. (Somehow the wooden toys don’t seem as disposable as the plastic ones that are commonly available.)
My brother and sister-in-law were lucky (or perhaps not) in that both sets of grandparents were and are within ten minutes of their home. So my brother’s children saw both sets of grandparents often as they grew up. (To a certain extent, I envy them for that.) So if the OP’s daughter moves nearby, that could be a good thing for the grandparent-grandchild relationship.
As an alternative to just sending a check, how about a year’s Amazon Prime membership (assuming they don’t already have it) and have them set up a Wish List that’s set public? Very handy for far flung relatives to pick an item, purchase it and have it sent along, no shopping needed beyond browsing online to set it up.
This. Diapers, diapers, and more diapers. And the last I heard (25YA) was that the disposables are slightly better for the environment–less fossil fuels used. And I suppose you can compost them by now. Clothes and diapers can be washed, but diapers take ages to dry.
I wouldn’t buy disposable diapers for people. They end up getting a bunch of the wrong size and have a bunch to get rid of or give away. I’m not familiar with the subscription service but that sounds like it might be a better idea if it allows the parents some control over which to get.
New parents get way more blankets than they’ll ever use; every well-wisher goes out and buys a blanket.
What they’ll need from week 1 is a baby bathtub. For an infant, it’ll come with a mesh hammock, so the baby’s not directly laying in the water. Lots of soft washcloths to go with the bathtub. Someone also got us a rubber duck with a temperature-sensitive disc on the bottom; you let it float in the water, and if it’s too warm the word “HOT” appears in white.
Another thing my wife’s mom did that was very handy: once we found out my wife was pregnant, my MIL would buy a pack of diapers at every paycheck (basically every 2 weeks for months). That let us build a good stockpile, and we went the first few months without having to rush out for diapers at all.
I think the lowly wipe warmer is an underappreciated tool. When you add water to it it keeps the wipes super wet and makes poop cleanup a lot easier. It keeps them warm too, which I guess is important to the baby getting his booty wiped!
My daughter saved all of her books, including the shiny cardboard volumes, and they’re all in my attic. I should probably pull the box out and make sure they’re all OK. But this kid will start out with quite a library!
Now that we’ve got all the warm and fuzzy stuff out of the way, I want to mention that secondhand car seats, while cheaper than a brand new one, have expiration dates. They’re stamped on the seat itself; once expired the seat cannot be guaranteed to protect the child and is only useful for putting in a cart/stroller or donating to police/fire for their demonstration/practice purposes.
