Non-Traditional Baby Shower Gifts

‘Tis the season … for baby showers!

Springtime always seems to bring lots of baby celebrations, and I find myself lately searching for great gifts for moms and babies.

Registries often list many of the standard items: burp cloths, sleepers, crib sheets and high chairs. To be sure, moms need these things (especially first-time moms). But sometimes I feel like being a little more creative in my gift-giving, yet still helpful and practical.

Here are a few ideas that aren’t on the typical baby shower registry, but that just might be a “good risk” – meaning perhaps a mom may love them as much as what she scanned at Target. These ideas are also useful for moms having repeat babies or as hospital gifts.

1. Coffee, coffee cards, or coffee-making accessories. The importance of coffee in the life of a new mom is self-explanatory. In 20/20 hindsight, I would have bear hugged anyone who had gifted me a Starbucks card or a stash of my favorite coffee beans at my baby shower… and I’m pretty sure they would have been used more than newborn shoes (cute, though they are!).
2. Your own favorite baby item. People have different and passionate opinions about gifting off-registry. But several of my favorite baby gifts were not on my baby registry. As a first-time mom, I simply didn’t know everything I needed! I’m glad a few wise mom friends were brave enough to ignore that I had registered for a traditional baby tub, and instead gave us a Puj sink tub and a portable bath sling. For some mom personalities, this type of gifting might not fly, but sometimes it’s worth the risk. (Just remember to include a gift receipt.)
3. A free date night. Wrap up a restaurant gift card or two tickets to the movies with an offer that you’ll babysit, and give those parents a “get-out-of-house free” pass! I still want to hug the good friends that watched our month-old baby while we went on our first date. Come to think of it, I will always hug you if you babysit my kid for free.
4. A Kindle/Kindle cover. Here’s a true story: when we were setting up our baby registry on Amazon, my husband added (without my knowledge) a Kindle cover he had been wanting. He did it as a joke, thinking no one would actually buy it – because clearly it wasn’t a baby item. But a few weeks later, my cousin bought it for me, telling me how fantastic the Kindle has been for her during midnight nursing sessions. She was right – it turns out anything you can read or watch one-handed is a pretty marvelous parent invention!
5. A roll-out or tri-fold floor mattress. OK, this seems strange, I admit. But does anyone else find themselves sleeping on the floor of their child’s room from time to time? (Or do you feel like your house has ever become a game of musical beds?) When my son was a newborn, he slept mostly in a bassinet in our room, but once we moved him into a room of his own, there were times I wanted him to sleep in his crib but still be near him – when he had the croup or flu as a small infant, for example. But we have hardwood floors, which are not exactly prime for sleeping. Enter a foldable floor-mattress: a parenting back-saver! A good floor mattress can also double as a bounce house for high-energy toddlers in the wintertime, which makes it a gift that keeps giving.