What was your favourite gift?

[2021ComeAtMe]

Hope I'm ok asking this here it's looking likely that our wonderful friends will be bringing a son home in February, we're thrilled for them! He'll be about 15 months.

The FC has said that he'll have lots of clothes/toys to bring with him, so I'm going to wait and see what he may need before I buy anything for him. However, we'd still like to give our friends a gift, and a card, to mark the occasion.

Is there anything you received that you would recommend?

I’m just hopping on to say that as a mother of two, my heart sank when I got flowers. It felt like a chore to find more vases and to arrange them and then chuck them out a week later. So much preferred food, baby clothes, toys etc!

It is lovely that you are thinking about gifts. My adopted children arrived at the same time as a new baby was born in my church community. Sunday after Sunday we witnessed the parents of the new baby walk out the door adorned with gift bags. I think we were able to count on two hands the gifts my children received! This hurt, and said to me that children were somehow not at special or important.

I would love to have a box full of welcome cards for my children to look back on to know that they were welcomed into our family.

One of the nicest gifts we received was a voucher for a mini photo shoot. We also received vouchers for Clark’s shoes - these were great because whilst our children came with loads of clothes they actually only had a couple of pairs of good appropriately sized shoes.

Takeaway vouchers, meals delivered to the door, vouchers for a coffee shop to allow to get a takeaway coffee when I walked the streets in all sorts of weather just to get my little ones out of the house. All of these were so much appreciated.

There are a lot of things that say “baby’s first...” on them, eg Christmas themed baby grows or Christmas tree decorations. When it won’t be the baby’s first Christmas but it is their first Christmas with their parents. Obviously if he’s coming home in February Christmas is a way off. But I got my friends and their little boy an “Our first Christmas as a family” Christmas tree decoration. He was 13 months when he came to them in July.
The mum actually shared this video on Facebook recently:
fb.watch/3mLYEd4gUg/
If the link works.