Most Useful Baby Gifts

[DanniG1]

Hi, I have a lot of people asking me if I have any requests for a gift for our baby.

I'm trying to put aside how awkward it makes me feel to give suggestions as I know I'll end up with lots of baby clothes or duplicate items if I don't and I'd hate people to waste their money especially with the current economic climate.

So my question is - what was the most useful baby gift you were bought, or what was the best/most useful baby item that you bought for yourself or someone else! 😁💖

Vouchers/subscription for meal boxes/nice ready meals for you, or deliveries of home cooking are so much more useful than anything for the baby!
Or a massage for you as a post labour/'recovery treat.

Totally second southwestsis

Other pressie type ideas - Tuppence and Crumble star wrap, hooded towel?

I've just had a baby and most useful presents were hooded towels and sleeping bags - stuff that doesn't matter if it's duplicated.

When DS was born the best gift i received was a star projector for his room

Whenever I'm buying for a baby I buy those bibado (?) bibs. They're about £20 each so not something you can buy many of yourself (unless you're v well off) but I don't think I could ever have had too many and they save you soooo much time and energy cleaning up.

If it's your first you could also ask for books. I didn't appreciate how long it would take to build up a good collection of kids books that wouldn't leave us repeating the same ones several times a week.

You could also just say vouchers.

I reckon books, small person cutlery/crockery, or sleeping bags. You'll need lots of the first and second, and the third is fucking expensive (I mean, I'm talking £25 a time, so acceptable gift range but expensive to be forking out for yourself). You can never have enough muslins either.

We’ve been told to just ask for Boots vouchers where possible, to buy formula as I’m not planning to BF.

Agree with muslins, sleeping bags, Boots vouchers & food delivery vouchers. Also clothes for 3 months plus.

I didn't ask for anything specific which was a huge mistake, I got so many newborn clothes half of them hardly got worn & I was given 25 bibs!

A tuppence and crumble star wrap

Muslins

Books

Contributions towards a Totter and Tumble play mat

Snack foods

Just Eat voucher a hello fresh subscription and a set of Camilla reid 'Peekaboo' books

A pram toy (string of toys/bells on elastic to go across the pram)

Sunshade for the pram (I like the Snoozeshade one)

Board books

I always buy people a nail snail as a baby gift!

A mirror for the car and a bath seat.
I appreciated when people got sleep suits/vests but in bigger sizes!

We made an Amazon list so people could buy stuff off it, that worked pretty well and meant we could choose things that we liked.

Most useful non list gifts were toys that people had found their own baby loved. And chocolate for me

Where are you spending so much on toddler cutlery? I used to get them from boots for about £6 a set, and I'm sure IKEA do o one for about £3.50. you only need a couple of sets, maybe three or four if you have two toddlers at once.

Oh we did get a couple of nappy cakes with DS2 (massive age gap) those were great.

Amazing suggestions everyone thank you!

Meals
Books
Machine washable bibs with sleeves

• Vests for under baby grows
• Tommee tippee gro light
• Small square muslin cloths (the large ones were a bit unwieldy for us)
• Floating bath thermometer
• The gift or being left alone by friends and family for a bit

Oh and the shnuggle bath!

Nappies, wipes and muslins- we have a 3 week old and the amount of muslins we use a day is daft as I put them down somewhere or have left one upstairs, there's one in the wash, one covered in sick 😂 I won't lie I wondered why I needed so many but then realised you put them down and lose them so easily. Also think the food vouchers are a brill idea we lived on takeaways and freezer food for the first week so some vouchers for this or even the quick to make meals that are actually decent food would have been amazing!

@Bangendedscoots 100% agree on the being left alone one! I ended up having to stay in hospital a couple of days and with covid it was just 2 hours visiting- I couldn't wait to be home and the thought of then having to deal with everyone coming round was too much- I basically just cried and got my own way and we got left alone for a couple of days 😂

Large Bamboo muslins (so lovely in the heat or cold I rate the cuski ones but lots are similar)
Toys bots happy mat lovely soft warm changing mat, hate the cold plastic ones which seem so mean on newborns especially.
Bepanthen
Baby massage oil

I bought myself an egg nightlight from Amazon for the nightfeeds, it was a lifesaver and I still use it now, has lots of different settings and just tap on and off. Although I did tap babies head in the dark once thinking it was the light 🤣

Anything you need or don't have so if you have loads of cloThe newborn size ask for babygros/ vests larger sizes
Maybe look at what you have already and what you think would like or need and then write down and then you can give ideas