Best Realistic Baby Gifts for New Mothers

As a mother of a two year old boy and a four month old girl, I have become incredibly adept at choosing the most appropriate and practical gifts when I am invited to a baby shower or when I decide to visit a set of new parents to celebrate their newest arrival. I have sifted through numerous newborn sized blue outfits that still have tags and pretty pink onesies that are still in their packaging. They’re cute, for sure, but children have this habit of growing out of clothes pretty fast.

When I receive an invite to a baby shower, I go right online to the registry and so that I get first crack and purchasing the bathtub. I then proceed to fill it with all lavender (for boy or girl) because it has brought me such luck at nap time and bedtime with both children. I also buy the hooded towel set (bath robes don’t really work for wriggly babies that tend to pee irrelevant of whether the robe is covering them or not) and the temperature gauging little rubber ducky. I learned about those from my sister-in-law who has had a lot of experience with burn victims who have scars from getting placed in hot bath water as a child.

When I find out a friend is expecting, the first thing I always tell them about is my favorite type of baby monitor, the motion detector. With so much SIDS exposure in society today, it really baffles me that more monitor manufacturers do not offer motion detection monitors. For those who don’t know, there is a pad that gets placed UNDER the crib mattress and counts the baby’s movements. If there is no movements detected for twenty seconds, an alarm sounds. It’s wonderful because I never had to get up ten thousand times a night and risk waking my baby to go and check if my baby is breathing. I also never had to sit up all night staring at those uber expensive video monitors to watch my baby breathing. The only scare we ever had with the monitor was when my son was six months old (at the age where SIDS risk decreases dramatically) and the realized that when he knelt on all fours and stayed really still, the monitor would not detect motion and mommy and daddy would come running into the room only to see him smiling from ear to ear!

The next thing I tell them about is, of course, the foam rubber shaped seats that are fashioned for children who can’t quite sit up by themselves yet. I think they are rather pricey as they are only useful for about 3 months (maybe we are just broke from having two kids!) but, for those three months, they are invaluable. They provide proper support to allow babies a different perspective with play gyms and activity centers and I am convinced they help babies develop the necessary muscles to actually sit up on their own. They are stain resistant and easily cleaned with most household cleansers.

The most unique gift I received at my baby shower was my diaper cake. The girls from work assembled it during down time, rolling up size 2 diapers and stacking them in the shape of a cake on top a cake tray. Then they decorated the cake with baby spoons and ribbons. The best part was that they used size 2 diapers. Anyone who has kids or knows someone who does knows it’s almost impossible to take time to disassemble something like that AT LEAST until the baby is in size two diapers!

As far as gifts unique to boys and gifts unique to girls, I know there are plenty of beautiful toys and outfits and bedding sets out there but, I subscribe much more to the concept of gender neutrality, at least for the first year or so. My son plays with a doll house and a race car track equally. His baby doll was an invaluable tool in preparing him for my daughter’s birth. My daughter, at four months, is as likely to eat her ballerina doll as she is her brother’s old firefighter doll. I think it’s more important to expose all children to many varied experiences. The activity cubes are wonderful and thought stimulating and nesting blocks are huge favorite.