Adoption gifts

[Loveyourlifenow]

We have friends who live far away from us and are about to become new parents and we'd like to send them a gift in recognition and celebration of this exciting event. The kids are pre schoolers. Any ideas?

It's lovely of you to want to recognise this.

You probably can't go wrong with a good silver picture frame.
I had several books which I loved - complete Paddington, Thomas the Tank etc - really nice editions with a name plate inside, the sort of book you keep for the grandkids,

Custom peg dolls (if you are artsy you can also make these yourself): https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/971332891/custom-family-peg-dolls?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=family+personalised+dolls&ref=sr_gallery-1-12&organic_search_click=1

This is a good one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Family-Journey-Adoptive-Families/dp/0811857379/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3O88FS3N85NNK&amp%3Bkeywords=my%20family%20my%20journey&amp%3Bqid=1690315822&amp%3Bsprefix=my%20family%20my%20journey%2Caps%2C105&amp%3Bsr=8-1&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

Adopters often don't get the flurry of cards that usually comes with giving birth to a baby, so every card and gift we receive to mark the occasion is particularly special. A friend of mine gave me a bunch of flowers, because 'a new mum should have flowers', and I still well up when I think of that. It is not unusual for children to leave foster care for adoption with a lot of toys and clothes, and even if they don't I imagine the new parents will want to plug any gaps, so I would hold off on anything like that. A lovely keepsake book or something that helps celebrate them growing their family, as the previous posters have suggested would go down very well, I am sure. And/or you could go for something very practical like vouchers, either generic ones, or something like Hello Fresh or Deliveroo, to take the pressure off the new parents having to feed themselves in the early days.

We were gifted a day out to a local farm when we adopted our 2YO which was just lovely and a great way for us to spend some quality family time together during those early days of continual social worker visits, LAC reviews and court paperwork!
Also we got a matching little Co-ord set for him with his new initials on which he’s now (sadly) grown out of but I kept.

A card for the adopters.

Out of the gifts given for our DC we got most use out of plastic paint pots.

I wouldn't have wanted clothes. I wanted to choose myself. (It was bad enough having to wait for them to outgrow the ones they came with which weren't all to my taste.)

I was given a family photo shoot with a long date (18 months) so we could go when we were ready. Those photos are so precious to me as a really nice record of our early days.

Every new mum should have flowers. Well that's made me cry. ⚘🌷🌼💖

When my friends adopted I bought some age appropriate games for the kiddos, stuff they could play together and bond, they adopted siblings and I thought some board games would be a nice way to bond. I was however wrong and by all accounts all hell broke loose. So I didn't nail that.
I also thought, "mummy & daddy" mugs was a good plan and fucked that up too as everyone who'd ever encountered them also bought them mum and dad mugs.
Friend also got quite alot of etsy handmade gifts, that they felt a bit strange about, they loved the fact their adoption was so celebrated but equally it felt like a shrine to the adoption, not the kids so all that stuff isn't hanging on display.

This time I'd send flowers and chocolates for parents and for the kids something like a really nice book. Anything from fairy tales to some Julia Donaldson, you can't go wrong.
(Sorry this is very waffley I know, but I had really awful Christmases as a child and many adopted children struggle with that, I think at a younger age knowing I'd be safe on future Christmases a keep sake nice arty Christmas book with lovely pictures and magic stories would have made me feel quite excited over Xmas as opposed to dread, it's a risky one depending on kids experiences, but you can always ask your friends if they think that's an appropriate call. It would be a lovely keepsake and the start of finding Christmas less traumatic)

Youre a lovely pal wanting to do this for friends x

We got a lovely Christmas tree gift, it was a glass ball with 4 penguins inside it - underneath it said ‘whatthechickenfamily est: 2018’. The glass ball has long since smashed, but the little metal penguins with the writing underneath still gets hung on the tree every year. Every year when we decorate the tree,we hang it and we retell our story of how we came to be a family. It’s become a tradition now.

whatever you decide to do, include a photograph of your family. We asked our family and friends to do this and it helped us to ‘place people’, what they meant to us and why they were important.

We adopted an older child and received only one gift from a friend. No collection from work even though I’d given to loads of new baby collections, nothing from grandparents. One sister was amazing, nothing from my other one, not even a packet of chocolate buttons when they met for the first time even though I’d done years of birthday and Christmas presents for her children. So sad.

That's heart-breaking. I have ordered something to symbolise the coming together of the family...it's being handmade so it's taking a bit longer than expected, I hope they don't feel we're ignoring the event whilst we wait. 😳

That is so sad. Have they been supportive since?

We sent out 'arrival' notes with photo, names, and dates of birth as you might do for a baby (or at least pre social media). That prompted loads of cards.

Definitely send a card - lots of people do with a baby but not an older child IME

I was lucky in that work sent me away on adoption leave with gifts inc a keepsake box and books /toy for DS.

A lovely friend sent us flowers to say Congrats Mummy & Daddy and welcome DS - that was so lovely

Other friends bought lovely keepsake special books - one sent a rugby jersey in DH national team with our surname on the back , someone else gave us build the bear vouchers

We did send out a photo card introducing our son to all relatives and dear friends

I do think the suggestion upthread about sending a current photo of you is a lovely idea