Friend didn’t get me a gift for baby but invited me to her baby shower

I buy gifts if I see something someone might like. I feel a bit awkward if they then feel they have to reciprocate!

I also would not go. She’s not acknowledged your baby birth so I would take that personally too. You can see her when the baby is born with a card and smaller gift if you want

I think that’s a perfectly reasonable decision.

I’d probably send an e-card or a nice text saying you hope it goes well but again it’s down to you really.

Better to back out than to go and feel resentful later.

Ditch birthday presents for each other, buy a small baby gift and don’t overthink it.

If I only saw friends who I gave a 100% reciprocal gift exchange relationship with I wouldn’t have any friends left. So many times one of us have bought a little something for the other at Christmas without receiving a gift in return and the same with birthdays. It’s not been a thing, we show our friendship in other ways such as being there for each other.

I think it’s the right decision not to go. Also stop the birthday presents.

People do use gifts to play power games. For some reason, she has decided your nor worth a gift anymore, so I would take a step back.

I have bought a gift for every baby shower I have attended but will be adding a note in the invitations to my baby shower that gifts are not expected (if they really must - a book). I hate seeing a list of expensive baby items circulated before a baby shower, it makes me cringe. I love to gift but I think the expectation these lists create, takes the fun out of it for me.

Give if you want to but don’t gift with any expectations.

YANBU

It’s a very one sided relationship.

I would make a polite excuse and not go.

A lot of people in life take the piss and she’s one of them. Also £100+ for a present is beyond ridiculous.

Don't go then, you don't need anyone's permission to not go to a nany shower or to not get a present. But if you want to get a smaller gift than you think other people will then you have the perfect out. You can just say you prefer to do the traditional thing of waiting until the baby is born.

@Marmiteontoastgirlieyou sound like me x I've learnt people don't think the way we think and they can't be changed unfortunately.
If the friendship is worth more to you let it slip but keep it as knowledge of what happened.
Your protecting your own that's all it is you are right in how you feel.
I used to send my nieces and nephews cards and gifts not to receive anything back I just stopped it in the end as would rather use that money on my own. My reason was if they couldn't afford it a homemade paper card would of meant more to my kids .
Xx

I wouldn’t think too much into this.

It Was probably completely innocent and she just forgot. I know both myself and my friends have sent gifts for the babies months, even years after they were born. One of my friends messaged the other day to say she’d just found the gift she’d brought for my first baby (she’s now 7). It just made me laugh.

I would say don’t think too much into it, and don’t turn it into a ‘tit for tat’ situation. I would go to the baby shower and I would buy whatever you can afford/want to get. Crazy that people will be buying gifts of over £100 for it! That’s mental. I would just buy an item of clothing or something.

If you really feel this way about her and the friendship then back off,but it seems a shame to value yourself and others based on gifts or not and money spent.

You only really care about how you look?

Not the gift for the actual person?

Yabu and petty.

I don’t think you should go.

Stop buying birthday gifts for her. If you want to go to the baby shower take a gift. If not decline and don’t get anything.

my friends and I don’t get gifts but if one had a pa rty I would get them something

Perhaps have a reset on the gift giving!
Go to the baby shower if you want to bit either just take a card or a very small present and then forget present giving going forward.
It isn't the main aspect of a friendship but i can understand your hurt.

I'd try not to worry about it too much or read too much into it. From my own perspective I'm pretty good with my own family but I'm so flighty with friend gifts that I don't even remember what I've done. I think I've given most friends baby presents but I've definitely missed a few. (I've moved countries a couple of times so that's my excuse.) Maybe your friend is the same?

If you go to the shower, take a small gift. If not, you don't have to bother.

Sounds like a lot of posters see this as unreasonable though so perhaps I am reading too much into it/maybe she’s been part of the lavish gifting but not the organiser so not actually good at organising gifts herself etc.

Do what feels comfortable to you Op no matter what everyone else thinks. I’d suggest you go along with a small gift, but if it persists in the sense she is never giving gifts to your child - but clearly is for other children - and is then expecting gifts every year for her child, without giving back then obviously don’t go along with that. It could just be an oversight this year due to her earlier fertility issues.

I had a baby shower for the baby who is now nearly 20. Wasn't my idea, a friend organised it, but it was lovely. They have been around a long time now.

If gift giving is something you usually do then YANBU about being upset. You're entitled to your feelings either way and you can skip the shower if you don't want to go or don't want to get her something. Make a video greeting card for her, email it and call it a day, or don't if she never acknowledged your birthday at all and just say you already have plans or something but congrats anyway.

I think you just have different attitudes to gifts. It sounds like she started the gift giving, so it was probably prompted by seeing something she thought you'd like, rather than a duty gift on a certain date. She didn't come to your shower, and probably found going into baby shops quite hard.

If you want to go to the shower, just go, stop keeping track and letting your expectations sour a good relationship.

God I don't know why people have to ruin something as pleasant as a baby shower - all your friends show up, most with gifts to make a fuss of you, eat lovely food and have some laughs - with all this high maintenance drama.

You were reciprocal with birthday gifts. She didn't give your baby a gift but maybe she's intending to, maybe she forgot or maybe she hasn't really thought about it but wouldn't care if you arrived with nothing.

I attended my friend's baby shower when my own baby was four months old. I arrived a little late with my baby as childcare fell through full of apologies as given the chaos of the day I hadn't had a chance to collect the gift. My friend mum-to-be burst out laughing and reached under the table for a gift which she handed to me. I was momentarily confused till she explained she had arrived to my baby shower five months earlier having forgotten her gift. I had zero recollection of this.

I don't think it's about the gift itself, I think OP is feeling dismissed and unimportant by her friend not acknowledging/celebrating the birth of her baby. I think it's about what the gift represents. I don't think she sounds grabby; I think she sounds hurt.