Is this the new CF normal?

I disagree when someone is generous to give you £200 or £300 good manners would dictate a proper thank you.
Anyone behaving in that manner wouldn't get anything else from me

When you invite people to a wedding you are laying on a party but when you give birth you are not holding an event. Friends and relatives may well want to send gifts and in my experience close family will often give money as many people like to open a savings account for their kids. But to be so entitled as to send a fancy gift registry list is the height of entitlement. Anyone not sure what to give can always ask. When I had my kids I was grateful for whatever I got.

Okay, so I understand that people may think it’s a good idea to set up a gift registry because having a baby is so expensive and some friends and family do prefer to buy something rather than give money, so it’s helpful to have them buy the things you need BUT…WTF are they doing not putting a range of different things on the list with lower prices 🤦‍♀️. Having the lowest item at around £50 is not on when they know that some of the people they are sending the list to may not be able to afford it. I wouldn’t mind betting that there weren't many of the lower priced options either, meaning that unless you were quick you’d miss them and be stuck with the expensive stuff. Not having a range of price points on a registry is tacky and definitely CF imo.

All fine, very practical and completely acceptable, but a personal thank you is required. It probably takes less time than pitting together the wish list.

Also I’d like to add that I am going to put £50 each into my goddaughters’ premium bonds at the end of the month to congratulate them on their exam results (one has just done her A-Levels, the other her GCSEs). I’m seeing them at the same time - guaranteed a couple of weeks later there will be two lovely thank you cards in my post box. Their Mum is adamant that you say thank you properly for gifts - be they money or something else. (And I’m going to get them necklaces with their initials locked into a geometric design as an ‘opening’ present).

Yes absolutely, I had some amazing small gifts which were so useful for new baby.

If you cba to say thank you and not hust generic you won't get anything from me next time.

Sorry but you are off my Xmas card list, it's the minimum to send a personal thank you for any gift, small or large imo

Stopped giving cards/money to some family as never got thanked. Rude.

YANBU however you are to generalise it as age related as opposed to your family and friends.

I am in my thirties and have never come across this.

I asked my son and DIL what they wanted when they had babies, but I'm not getting anyone else gifts. A card and that's it. Nobody even writes thank you letters anymore.

Weddings (evening reception only) £50. For baby showers and new babies, I knit a cardigan/jacket/shawl. DP and I seem to get invited to a lot of anniversary/significant birthday parties where we are told no need for a gift, but I always email a £25 gift card for a local restaurant. Everyone seems happy with the above, especially the knitted garments for new babies!

I found after a while that it was easier just to accept that young people don't generally bother with thank you letters for gifts. I try to give and not worry if they don't thank me but I do wonder about it - what it says about their connections to other people/the older generation and also what it means for us all if we just don't bother to acknowledge each other? I also find it odd that with so many ways of communicating the recipient has chosen not to bother. When a lovely thank you letter arrives (like three or four years ago for a wedding gift from a young couple) it stays with me - especially if its thoughfully and carefully written.

The request for cash, I'm fine with that. I get that young people live in small houses and are tight for cash - their mortgages are well in excess of anything I've had to pay - but the lack of acknowledgment of cash or gift is careless even though I chose not to dwell on it too much.

You're not wrong, OP, that sounds incredibly grabby.

We said that gifts were strictly optional but that if people wanted to get us something then to use their own judgement.

We sent everyone who came to our wedding personal thank yous whether they got us a gift, gave us money or didn't give us a gift at all.

I used to give my great nieces and nephews money/gift every Christmas.
3 years ago I decided that if my nieces and nephews didn’t have time to put a quick message saying
Thank you, the gift / money arrived safely - then I would no longer give a gift.
It’s cut my list by half.

my goodness that is generous. my mum gave us £25 each birthday and Christmas for almost 40 years.
which was fine as she had a lot of grandchildren.

This is really grim. I was so grateful for everything we received when we had a baby. Some of the most useful gifts were the £5 muslins and I didn’t even expect them.

It’s very cheeky isn’t it?
I have the same thing happen to me a few times over recent years. In the eighties and nineties it used to be a gift list that they would send out. Now it’s always money that they ask for - and like you said hardly a thank you afterwards.
I have started to decline the invitations and just send fifty pounds. At least I am not bankrupting myself with that because not only is it the cost financial gift, it’s the outfits and cost of the day that all mounts up if you attend.

YABU. I’m the same age as you and we had a wedding list, as did all my friends who got married around the same time. I think we just asked for John Lewis vouchers, but could be wrong. Certainly I recall some people had itemised lists.

I totally understand if nowadays people just ask for cash (I mean presumably the origin of a wedding list was to furnish the married home, which let’s face it probably a lot of people have already furnished). More likely nowadays they’re saving for a deposit.

And it’s far too risky to get a random gift you don’t want. I vaguely recall getting some random soft furnishing from my aunt which we both hated but had to roll out every time, she came to visit (fortunately she lived abroad!).

As for a baby gifts, I’ve never asked or been asked for baby gifts. Maybe that’s just my family and friends, but I’ll tell you for nothing, having random gifts turn up is to totally unmanageable. You’re 100% likely to get things you don’t need / want / or have already bought. A supply of nappies and wipes is the most useful thing you’d get.

OP, I agree with you. We’ve given a lot of money as wedding gifts (inc to CFs who had a ‘donation’ pot at their wedding) and didn’t even get a text to say thank you quite a few times.

I know a lot of people my age (early thirties) striving for ‘financial freedom’ and very early retirement now which I agree sounds great - but in order to get there the people I know seem to take, take, take and not spend a penny on others in return. I had a friend in my late twenties who invited me out to dinner for a catch up (with just her) around her birthday a couple of times. I footed the bill as a gift and never got so much as a card in return. She later showed me how she divides her (huge) salary between various online ‘pots’ and it all made sense because apparently there wasn’t a pot for anyone but herself! 😂 I find it hard to have close relationships with people who are so stingy now. I’m very generous with my money, time, effort in relationships. I know not everyone can afford to be with money but it’s the lack of manners and thought which is what galls.

I find this pretty grim … it seems incredibly grasping and at the same time weirdly controlling and influenced by greedy feckers on Instagram …
I am a knitter, welcoming new babies is always a joy , so as a gift they receive a blanket , jacket , hat , toy or similar in colours I have checked will be appreciated . Wedding gifts will be a tree or rose bush for the garden , or mirror or handmade blanket ,or cushion cover . I’m not giving anybody money or transferring funds anywhere . If parents , Grandparents want to of course , anybody else absolutely not and incidentally my own children who are probably a similar age wouldn’t dream of making these horrible requests..

It’s super tacky to ask for money and unbelievably rude to fail to send a personal thank you. Good manners should never go out of style. It’s not you, it’s them!

I'd rather not get that kind of Thank You at all

If that's your level of effort then I'll match it in the future