10 Ideas for Better Baby Shower Gifts

Know someone with a bun in the oven? Headed out to a baby shower but totally turned off by the overpriced baby paraphernalia on their extensive registry that you know will be completely useless once the baby arrives? I am totally guilty of indulging in ridiculously adorable baby gear, usually more costly than useful, and I am a sucker for a brightly colored stroller or a retro print on a piece of muslin.  I love it all.   And now my garage overflows with unused baby stuff, waiting to be passed on to the next garage.  It might be time to refocus the intent of the baby shower back to its original purpose: to help mom be prepared for the life changing event that is about to happen.  When the new baby turns one, the tags will still be on that hand-crocheted, over-priced, French sailor layette, but these gifts will still be giving.[hr]

Pacifiers

This item is possibly on the registry already. But get more. Lots more. If mama’s new baby turns out to like an after lunch binkie, or a night-night nub, then it will be important to have like ten of them in every corner of the house/car/diaper bag. Pacifiers are known to disappear, probably into another dimension, just when you need them most. Every once in a while they will all decide to reappear at the same time, sticky and covered in some kind of fuzz, creating a pile-up at the kitchen sink. Having a surplus of pacifiers is an excellent gift for any parent. It’s possible your mom-to-be friend has already decided that her baby will not be dependent on any kind of soothing crutch. Even more reason to gift them to her! This way she can have them around the house when they become needed without feeling like she caved on her principles. If you are feeling lame about offering a few pieces of silicone as your gift, try presenting them in a pretty vase or basket. Tie a ribbon on and, Viola!! Pinterest ready![hr]

Wipes

Parents are confronted with a wide range of messes on a daily, or even hourly, basis. Children secrete mess in any number of ways, leaving their mark on the home, car, and parent in a kind of primitive territorial marking ritual. The infant sized child is no exception. Your friend can expect to be wiping up messes including, but not limited to: poo, pee, spit up breast milk, spit up formula, spit up mystery fluid, spilled milk, spilled oatmeal, squeezed baby food pouch, coffee splashed as it was hastily removed from reach of baby, or banana, off of her: baby, floor, table, tile, carpet, shirt, shoes, face, hands, elbow, dog, cat, and so on… With all the different combinations of mess and surface, a single “baby wipe” is obviously insufficient. Get your friend an assortment!  Wipes that disinfect, wipes that are chemical free, wipes that scrub, wipes that moisturize! And, my personal favorite, the wipe that serves as washing your face at night, saving you an extra three minutes of sleeping time.  Feeding, soothing, rocking, bouncing, and cuddling call for one or more hands, leaving the parent with little resources left over to clean.  Because most wipes are easy to use with one hand, they are an invaluable addition to the shower gift table. If your friend doesn’t fully appreciate the gift right away, don’t worry, she will. If you are feeling lame about offering a stack of wipes, try presenting them in a pretty vase or basket. Tie a ribbon on and, Viola!! Pinterest ready![hr]

Video Monitor

Again, it is possible this item is already on an official registry list somewhere. And well it should be. I don’t know how parents did it before being able to tune into the “baby channel” and watch their child’s every toss and turn. By watching hours of a baby sleeping, a parent can learn to distinguish between the cry that means “I’m just having a fuss, I’ll go back to sleep in a minute” and a cry that means “I just took a giant poopie in my diaper and it was really uncomfortable and I cried for you but you didn’t come and so I have removed my diaper myself and now am spreading its contents on every thing in reach which is also really upsetting to me so I continue to cry.” Without the visual aid of the video monitor, parents have no way of knowing if their child is wimpering in a manipulative attempt for attention or is actually being mauled by a bear. You just don’t know. What did parents do before the help of a video monitor? No one is really sure. But, I imagine there was more cleaning poop off walls, as well as an alarming number of nursery bear maulings. So, be a good friend and make sure this item is accounted for at the shower.[hr]

Protein Bars

Being a parent is hungry work, and, as your friend is about to learn, finding time to fuel up with a freshly tossed arugula salad with sliced grilled chicken (marinated overnight in a basil vinegrette) topped with shaved pecorino cheese is not gonna happen. And if it does, call CPS because her child has probably gotten himself lost in a laundry hamper or something. Otherwise, how would she have the time?!?  Sitting down to eat at an actual mealtime becomes a rarity, and is made even more unappealing by the way a sleeping baby will, without fail, wake up screaming just as you place your napkin on your lap.  So, how can the hungry parent nourish herself? Protein bars, granola bars, nut bars, etc. Find the box that has the highest nutritional value listed and get a bunch of those. Your friend can stash these handy snacks around the house and car, as well as in the diaper bag.  And, like the wipes, this gift has extra value in its ability to be used with one hand. Tiny baby hands are amazingly ninja-like when there is the possibility to disrupt someone else’s meal, so remind your friend to eat her bars quickly!   If you are feeling lame about offering a box of granola bars as a gift, try presenting them in a pretty vase or basket. Tie a ribbon on and, Viola!! Pinterest ready! [hr]

House Cleaners

New babies are cute and all, but man, they take up a lot of time, am I right? So how are new parents supposed to do all those chores that barely got done even before the bundle of joy arrived? It’s almost impossible! Give mom and dad a break and arrange for someone else to clean their house, or at least their bathrooms. IT’S A FACT*: Cleaning one’s own bathroom is INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS! (*might not actually be a fact, but what follows is totally true.) Allow me to share a personal story: Two months after my second child arrived, I foolishly decided to give the bathroom a quick clean, something that hadn’t been done for a good long while because I was too busy wiping things and eating protein bars and looking for lost binkies. One small misstep on a wet towel and Whammo! A rib on my right side cracked on the edge of the tub. Okay, so there is not really a good time to have a broken rib, but trust me, when your days are full of lifting strollers and car seats and carrying toddlers and wearing babies in the grocery store and trying to sleep comfortably during those thirty minutes when the baby finally dozes off, IT IS NOT A GOOD TIME. Safety first: get your friend a professional. Professional cleaning companies can be found in most areas, or ask around for a reference (you might be surprised who isn’t cleaning their own home!).[hr]

The Number for Poison Control

I know, you’re thinking, “but that thing’s not even able to roll over at first, there will be lots of time to child proof and what not…” Perhaps. Or, your friend might look away for only a second in order to, oh, I don’t know, scratch her nose, and by the time she looks back her baby will have somehow shimmied up on to the bathroom counter and started sucking happily away on a tube of toothpaste. Yipes! This scenario, or something like it, WILL HAPPEN! Help your friend be prepared. Provide a sheet of preprinted labels with the number for Poison Control so she can stick them to all the phones in the house. Make a DIY magnet displaying the info for the kitchen fridge, knit the number into a baby blanket. Or, my favorite idea, make a beautiful cross-stich of the phone number and Mr. Yuck’s charming face to hang in the baby’s room. You might get a few sideways looks from people without children, but those “in the know” will congratulate you for such a thoughtful, and lifesaving, gift. [For a poison emergency in the U.S. call American Association of Poison Control Centers: 1-800-222-1222] …now get stitching…[hr]

Protective Mobile Phone Case

Having a baby often means your connection to the outside world is strained, maybe even severed, for a while. The importance of bonding with, not to mention keeping alive, that baby tends to override long lunches with friends, date nights with other couples, and meeting at the bar to watch the game. The mobile phone becomes a parent’s link to the outside world. It is also an important way to show off share pictures of the baby and share amusing anecdotes with family, friends, and the general public. The rise in popularity of the “parenting” blog is proof enough that ALL parents use their phones to check the Internet for affirmation that their thoughts, feelings, and actions are correct. The smart phone allows for an anxious parent to calm their fears about the little rash on the baby as well as to spiral out of control into a panic about the very same rash. With the phone playing such an important role in the lives of today’s parents, what better gift than a shatter-proof/water-proof/drool-proof, totally wipeable phone case![hr]

Doorbell Sign

Picture it: Your friend finally gets her baby to sleep after a week-long nap strike. She creeps out of the nursery and quietly gets a protein bar from the kitchen. Just as she is about to sit down on the couch, the door bell rings. Suddenly, life falls apart. The dog barks, the baby screams, and mama sighs, fights back the tears, and goes to sign for the package being delivered. This dramatic scene can be avoided with a sign placed by the doorbell indicating that there is a sleeping baby inside. These signs are available at a number of stores and on-line vendors, or, for the personal touch, you could make your one yourself. (Tie a ribbon on and, Viola!! Pinterest ready!) Be warned, if the sign is not specific enough, you may have some smart-ass delivery guys knocking really loudly instead of ringing the bell, the result of which is the same chaos. Mr. Funny-pants, our mailman, always does his best (and loudest) “shave-and-a-hair-cut” knock right at nap time.[hr]

Wine

Because. But you don’t want your friend to think you don’t care about the wellbeing of her new baby, so include a box of alcohol screening strips for breast milk. This set will allow the new mom to relax with a glass of wine, and then relax about having that glass of wine.[hr]

Yoga pants

Let’s face it, parenting is a sport. Why not dress for it? All that lifting, stretching, pulling, pushing, carrying, and balancing totally counts as a work out, right?  Yoga pants seem to be the unofficial uniform of moms everywhere. They are forgiving on a post-partum body (even years after that baby was delivered), and are comfortable to wear during the trials of caring for babies. They are usually machine-washable, and can hold up to a good wipe-down. Even if your friend is planning to return to the workplace right away and cannot wear yoga pants to the office, get her a pair to slip into immediately after getting home. Yoga pants have other benefits, like reminding the wearer that people who do yoga are supposed to be totally chill and zen-like, which can help mama find her inner peace when she needs it most (like to calmly call Poison Control after the baby was found chewing on a permanent marker). It may also inspire an impromptu yoga practice in the thick of the parenting crazies. I recommend a little pose called Shavasana…