Functional Birthday Present

[RandomUser456878]

Wanting to hear opinions on this birthday present

My girlfriend is 39 weeks pregnant, its her birthday this week & she's due the week after. For a while she's mentioned about getting either a coffee machine or a kettle for our bedroom. Everytime we go to a hotel, we say we should get one for our room.

Anyhow, a few days back I saw an Ad for a Russell Hobbs 'Calm' Kettle. Its a 'quiet boil' kettle that places soothing, meditation like sounds while its boiling. Video linked here Hadn't seen anything like this before and thought it was quite unique.

Also Thought it would be perfect for making cups of tea in the night/Morning, while soothing the baby with the noises instead of waking it up with the noises of a kettle & we could use for sterilising if we needed too.

Along side the kettle, I got some nice mugs from Dunelm, some little spoons & a matching tray & matching bowl for used teabags. Teabags, Coffee Sachets & Milk Sachets.
Essentially made up a little area like a hotel in our bedroom
Spent £150 in total

It arrived today so set it up & said she can have her birthday present early. But she was abit disappointed. She thinks its a 'house purchase' and shouldn't be a birthday present.
By 'House Purchase' she means just a standard thing we should just buy for the house.

To add some more context on our situation... We have alot of disposible income each month & pretty much buy whatever we want/need so we're hard to buy presents for.
We're also pretty much sorted for the baby so don't need anything there. Our parents gave us money for Christmas which we've just banked for the baby.

AIBU - Crap Present, It should be a standard buy
AINBU - Good Present

Travelling with a newborn is easy in my experience, travelling short haul above that is fine (again just my experience) but long haul with a mobile baby who isn’t old enough to be distracted for any great length of time and doesn’t understand was awful, and I felt terrible as clearly she didn’t enjoy it either and was so out of sorts the whole time 😥 short haul though is perfectly manageable.

I think a few posters including were just pointing out that exploring Thailand with a mobile baby, and then exploring New Zealand / Aus with a not yet 2 year old might not be particularly enjoyable for anyone!

I would have adored this as a present.

My (our) opinion on travel is that it's no different to being at home. You just have less stuff with you at any given time. But anything you need or have at home, you can get in any location

It’s not just about having stuff. The location matters too. Lots of places aren’t baby and toddler proof. For travelling, sometimes you have to remain seated in a plane but your baby wants to crawl on the aisle and doesn’t understand why you won’t let them.

Yes I agree with the flights with a mobile baby completely!

It’s stressful just eating in a restaurant with my 10 month old. He just wants to get out of the highchair and crawl, but he’s too little to understand why he can’t. I can’t imagine taking him on a long haul flight unless I had to!

Travelling when he was a newborn was easy, we drove 4 hours to visit family when he was a few weeks old and took him on holiday a few times.

I would have cried. That's a house purchase not a birthday present. Seriously?

I agree with your wife that the kettle is more of an essential in your particular living situation than a lovely treat. Bear in mind she is about to birth and breastfeed your baby so the least you could do is provide a convenient means of making a cuppa!

How about a silk sleep mask with inbuilt headphones do she can listen to a podcast at the hospital without disturbing anyone else on the ward... (musicozy on Amazon are excellent)

Or a lovely pre-baby trip to the theatre or similar date night that may not be an option for a while after the birth?

Wanted to provide an update.

I stuck with the kettle & she remained unimpressed 😂

Our baby is now 4.5 months old, came 2 weeks late & delivered by C-Section. We did end up going wales when the baby was 5 days old, although it was rather wasted as we stayed in the caravan & was more hassle than it was worth so should have listened to the advise on the thread

Since then though we’ve been back to wales along with Cyprus & Mallorca. Travelling was different but 100% do able.

The baby’s been to Oasis at heaton park as his first gig.

Australia & Thailand are off the cards for this year but we’re currently planning a 6 week trip around Europe to close out summer so we’ll see how that goes