New Mom Gifts
Recently I had some friends asking what to buy for a new mom. Yes, it is funny since I am in this category but I think it applies more to a first time mom that doesn’t know how to ask for help. I am not above tweeting at someone and they bringing me milkshakes or asking a friend to swing by Whole Foods for supplements on their way home. I know this would have bothered me the first go round. I didn’t want to bother anyone. Also? I didn’t have mommy friends. They didn’t know what to offer but blanketed “help”. Nothing against them, just the way it is. Now I am armed with amazing mommy friends and my fridge has nevered been so well stocked!
So while I was driving Ollie around during his car nap after our trip to Target, I started to come up with creative gifts for a new mom. Cheap to pricey but all helpful. You don’t realize the little things that can help someone who has precious minutes and new life is driving the airport terminals listening to a vacuum cleaner to keep a baby asleep.
The Thought the Counts ($-$$)
- Google map the mom’s address, get all restaurants in close range, and make a booklet of takeout menus – When you are sleep deprived, the last thing you want to do is be thinking of where to get takeout. I like visuals. While bringing home cooked food is always super awesome, this will help them in the weeks and months after the meals stop coming. Bonus points for a list of drive thrus!
- Gift cards for drive thrus – Once again, I spend a lot of time driving around trying to get a few more minutes of napping. Gift cards to things like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and even McDonalds make me feel less guilty about impulse drink purchases and donuts 🙂
- Gift Cards to Target/Baby stores/Walmart/malls – I get stir crazy and need somewhere to go walk around. If I can actually spend money, even better!
- Baby holding – This may seem kinda “duh” but I mean active extra hands. Like right now, I REALLY want a pedicure but I can’t guarantee Oliver will sleep the whole time. I could use a set of hands to come along and hold. Same applies for bringing dinner. Let them eat and hold screaming baby. Thanks to Uncle Jeff and Aunt Johanna for the other night!
- Nap nanny – come watch the baby so I can nap. This is really kinda baby holding too but specifically unsupervised baby care. Gotta be ready for poop blowouts and rescue missions from the evil swing naps.
- Smoothies – Sometimes meals get put off and you aren’t eating the healthiest stuff. I always feel like a hearty smoothie hits the spot between nutrition and treat. Note: you can get really good smoothies from McDonalds (DRIVE THRU!).
I’ll Just Buy Her Shit ($$$)
- Video monitor – If she doesn’t have one, for the love of pete buy her one. Some laugh at it. Yeah they aren’t cheap but holy shitballs are they worth their weight in gold. With Landon, I never knew when he was trying to put himself back to sleep. The grunts and cries were foreign to me. With Oliver, I can see he is trying to go back to sleep, just getting settled. He cries for 30 seconds and then crashes. With Landon, I would have ran in there and woke him up. Lesson learned. If you want my monitor recommendation, go here.
- Baby carrier – If she doesn’t already have a carrier of some kind, please buy her one. Like right now, Oliver wouldn’t sleep in his crib, seat, chest or swing. I strapped him on to my chest and BOOM…out like a light. I can eat with 2 hands and keep him happy. I can blog. I can walk the dog without a stroller. MAGICAL. There are plenty of kinds. I have an Ergo, Moby and Bjorn. Pick your poison.
- iPod dock – Luckily I did some freelance work a year or 2 ago and used the money to buy a nice dock. It had been kickin it in the kitchen when we would have dance parties. Now it resides in Ollie’s room. Most of the night and day it plays pink noise but it can play anything from my iPhone…or Kevin’s…or Landon’s…or the 3 other iPods we have. Yeah…we have a problem. I am hoping soon we can start streaming Rockabye Baby during naps so at least I can listen to Foo Fighters for 45 minute spurts.
So what are some of your new mom go-to gifts? Anything that would have been a help to you in those early days?
Sweet I win at life. A good friend is about to have her first. Outside of giving her ALL my things, I’ve bought her an Ergo, and ensured she put a video monitor and sound machine/iPod doc on her registry.
The other thing I will do, which falls directly in line with your food ideas is help her prep food for her freezer. While I TOTALLY appreciated all the freezer meals people brought me when I had E, I found quite a few of them to be, things we wouldn’t traditionally eat. Some went to waste unfortunately. So I’ve printed off a ton of freezer meal recipes and accompanying shopping lists and her and I booked a day to stock her freezer with their types of food.
And I’ve already told her I will come over every other Friday (when I’m off and E is at school) and make her shower, nap and eat while I hold on to her baby and (hopefully) do some chores.
Great list. The gift cards to grocery stores and Babies R Us were among my favourite gifts too.
You rock!
You always win at life 😉
I would say just buy the ergo, for sure skip the bjorn. With my first I didn’t borrow anything, now I know borrow as many of the things as you possible can. Also craiglist. There is no reason to pay retail for the whatever gadget you need to make your baby happy that’ll only work for a few weeks.
Ah yes. I forgot about that. I got almost all our stuff hand me down. Pays to be the baby at work sometimes 🙂 I agree with Ergo over Bjorn but often the Bjorn is cheaper and available via hand me down more often.
I totally agree with the gift cards for food/drink…I find myself going to drive thrus especially WAY more than I did before I had a baby. Who wants to get out and lug the stroller and carseat around just to run in to Starbucks? Also, I was so excited to find that Starbucks has all of their locations with drive-thrus listed on their app, just FYI.
Another gift I’d suggest is a gift card for Mom to do something guilt-free. My toes are ATROCIOUS, but I haven’t been able to let myself both give up the time with baby AND spend the money on getting a pedicure since H was born. However, if someone gave me a gift card to get one done, well then I’d just have to, wouldn’t I?
And thirdly…if the mom is breastfeeding/pumping, ways of storing milk (OXO freezer containers for example) are awesome gifts…those things get pricey when you need a bunch!
Nice! I just found some trays made by Fresh Baby that I am loving more than OXO. Way less spillage in transfer.
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