My Stepson and his wife are having a baby girl the first week of January. What are the best Christmas presents we can get for both of them and/or the new baby. So far, I’ve ordered Paul Reiser’s “Babyhood.” We also have a cute tie dyed onesie and a retro hand-made bib. What else?
“Love You Forever” and “You Are My I Love You”. Guaranteed to reduce them to sobbing balls of sentiment. 
And diapers and wipes would be greatly appreciated.
I’d split the gift into two parts - stuff for baby, and stuff for grownups.
Even the most well adjusted parents get shocked by how much of their own identity gets lost in a new baby, and presents that they can rediscover in March, when baby is 3 months old and screaming for 8+ hours a day, should be very appreciated.
That’s an idea! How about a box labeled with “Do Not Open Until March X” and filled with stuff for mom and dad - and a “Free Babysitting” coupon!
Our traditional gift is a big stack of white washcloths (Sam’s Club or Costco usually have them in bundles of 24). When my brother and his wife had twins, they got two stacks. He told me later that their first reaction was “… yay. Washcloths.” Then they got home from the hospital with two newborns, and it changed to “YAYY!!! Washcloths!”
For the baby, I’d go to the Babies R Us, Target and Walmart websites and see if they’re registered at any of those places. People love to give baby clothes and blankets, but they’re not always so good at giving really boring but practical stuff that the parents have registered for. It sounds like you’ve got the fun part of the baby gift covered.
Definitely. A present for baby is not the same thing as a present for mom. They would probably appreciated something totally un-baby-related. I know that I would.
Love and Logic Magic for Early Parenthood. Trust me, it’s not too early.
Laundry services, either by you or a gift certificate to a local laundry that does pick up and drop off service.
If they live in the area of San Fransisco, Chicago, Boston or New York, a Grubhub gift certificate. They can use it at a bunch of different restaurants registered at grubhub.com that deliver food. So you don’t have to guess what they like, and when they’re all tired and frazzled, they can order in without stressing about the cost.
ETA: If you decide to get clothes for the tot, consider something in the 12 month or larger sizes. Chances are they’ll get a zillion newborn and 6 month items, and then suddenly overnight the kid grows out of them all at once. I’ve even been known to go as big as 24 month stuff at baby showers. They’ll grow into it.
I’m not sure how close you are, but I’ve always heard from friends with kids that the best gifts they received were where a family member opted to come cook dinner one night a week for the first months.
When my nephew was born, I bought him a silver plated piggy bank. I actually bought it that very day before driving over to the hospital and had his name and birthdate engraved on it. As visitors arrived, they dropped money into it to get him started.
My brother said (same nephew here) that a friend of his bought him a bottle of scotch, saying the father is always overlooked. My brother’s idea was that you save it till the kid turns 21 and then have a drink with him and dayum, that’s smooth scotch!
That, or a gift certificate to a nice dinner out, just the grown-ups.
Savings bonds never go out of style either, for the kidlet.
When our niece was born, we bought several things, but the best ones were a silver engraved ornament for the tree, with her name and DOB, as well as a fuzzy ball for the kid.
I agree on the baby clothes. We got so much stuff that my one month old will never wear some of it. (We also lucked out in that two friends had boys a year and six months before we did, so we get tons of hand me downs). Also, our one month old is going to outgrow stuff very fast. His 0-3 month stuff is already getting tight.
Diapers are always a plus as are things like baby wipes and bottles. A great gift for the parents would be some food or spending some time there and helping out.
Whenever someone has a baby around here, all the friends and relatives make them dinner. Usually we try to schedule MWF, because everyone makes way too much food, and there are leftovers. This also has the added benefit of making the ‘gift’ last about a month or so.
As to food, nothing special, I have had frozen lasagna, soups, casseroles, tacos, even a certificate to eat out. Some people really made a huge effort to show off their culinary skills, some people threw together a bottle of Ragu and some noodles. Either way, it was appreciated, and the novelty of others cooking in their own style was cool.
It was, by far, the best presents I received.
You also get to talk to each person a little, and let them see the baby one on one, as opposed to a big affair.
WARNING : Shameless pimping of employers goods below: WARNING
A video monitor. It’s the main thing we received when The Littlest Briston was born that we still use daily (or, to be more accurate, nightly) three years later.
As others have said, the gift of food is always appreciated. We had a few people bring dinner over, which was really great; we also got a few gift certificates to local places that did takeout, which was also very, very much appreciated.
Personally, I would not have been able to use a “grownups-only” gift certificate to a dine-in restaurant, as I had no desire to leave my newborn infant with a babysitter just so I could go out to eat in the first few weeks, not to mention I was still all bloaty and bleedy and not really feeling fit for public appearances. But maybe that’s just me.
Having someone - preferably a non-judgmental friend who doesn’t give a crap how mess your house has gotten - do a good, solid scrub of my house would have been wonderful. You know how they always say that the mom should sleep when the baby does? Yeah, that’d be nice, but I’d guess that most of us don’t. There’s too much to do - cleaning, cooking, laundry. So, having someone take care of all that crap would have been a godsend. I think maybe a parents’ night out is a good gift, but usually when reserved for later. Especially when they’re very young and even moreso if they’re nursing, babies need their mothers. My son screamed every time I put him down until I picked him up again, when he would quiet and fall asleep. While I would have loved to have been away from him for a while (personal space is undervalued until you no longer have it), it would have made him too miserable to have been truly worth it. Of course, all babies are different, so your mileage will inevitably vary.
I came to post this. The best gift I received was 2 big pans of lasagna-one to eat right then and one to freeze. We ate lasagna until I was quite sure my insides were entirely made of pasta, but at least I was eating every day, which can be hard to do with a newborn!
My second favorite gift was swaddling blankets. I liked the ones from Target the best.
If you buy clothes in a bigger size, keep in mind what the season will be then. My daughter was born in June and people bought me tons of 6-month sized clothes, but all short sleeved. Six months later she can finally fit into those clothes, but it’s December and too cold to wear any of it.
Things I got way too much of: receiving blankets and bibs.
Thanks so much for all the great ideas. I should mention that we live in Southern Illinois and they live in Raleigh, NC. We’ll be visiting them in February.
New mom here.
A couple things I didn’t think of buying but that would have been great gifts:
A bath seat.. Bathing a slippery baby is just easier when you have a free hand and the baby is well supported in the water.
A natural sponge. A sponge is great for bathing a baby, especially when the bathroom is a bit cold and the baby can’t be fully immersed in water, so the upper body gets cold easily. A natural sponge is soft, holds a surprising amount of water, and looks nice in the bathroom.
CD’s with traditional songs, including a booklet with the lyrics. Before that, I sang either traditional songs cut short after the first verse or line, when my knowledge ran out, with lots of lalalala’s to fill in the gaps. Or I sang songs from the musical “the Sound of Music” "Hair’ or “Cabaret” because at least I knew the lyrics to “DoReMi” or “Big Spender”. :o
Well worth the price is the CD-series “Mozart for Babies”. I know the Mozart effect has been refuted, but they are great when mom wants to hear somethign else then the above mentioned kiddie song/Sesame Street songs, and the CD “nighty night” that I bought is very nice music that makes my baby sleepy real fast.
I got far, far too many baby clothes.
Love the Rockabye Baby CDs - love them love them love them! They are soothing, instrumental versions of artists like Nirvana, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, U2 … We got ours on Amazon but I’m sure they’re available almost everywhere now.