Before I begin this post about baby registries, I would like to make an announcement: ONE! WEEK! LEFT! Thank you.
Registries are most useful for the first baby, because there is so much crap you need/want all at once. But first-baby registries tend to be…silly. It’s no one’s fault: you’re pregnant for the first time and you go into a big baby store and what are you going to do? Basically click the “one of everything, please” button on the scanner. Tiny leather slippers for $29.99? Click! $5.00 Johnson’s baby shampoo that you could get at Target for $2.50? Click! In utero flashcard set? Click! $24.99 receiving blanket that is exactly like the pack-of-4-for-$7.99 type except that it’s rolled up and tied with a natural canvas bow? Click! White bibs? Click!
I think we can use many of our wedding registry questions here. For example, what did you put on your baby registry that you later used as an example to mock your own naivete? What did you register for that turned out to be pure genius, whether you knew it would be or not?
Registry or no, what did you get a ton of? What did you not get any of? Everyone told us not to buy anything in newborn sizes because we’d get inundated with it, but apparently everyone had heard about that because we got no newborn stuff and a ton of things in sizes like 18-24 months and 2T, which I then had to find a storage system for, and which then often turned out to be the wrong season when the baby finally hit that size. We also got four million hand-knitted baby blankets. Four million, seriously.
Did you find that parents gave you better, more practical gifts than non-parents? I found that some of my non-parent friends wanted to give me gifts long after it was too late. One non-parent friend visited when the baby was a month old, and she complained that I already had a car seat–she’d wanted to buy me the car seat. Um…I needed it…earlier than this–but thanks for the thought.
Did you get anything dreadful? We got a set of religious children’s books for a religion we don’t belong to, but I wouldn’t call that “dreadful,” just presumptuous and annoying. I am trying to think back, but I don’t think we got anything that was “homemade toilet paper holder” bad.
What were your best baby presents? I’m thinking here mostly of things you didn’t register for but that surprised you with their usefulness or sweetness. My brother gave my first baby a copy of a book he and I both loved to scraps as children–he’d had to search online and pay a million dollars for a copy, because it was long since out of print. One of Paul’s co-workers gave us a Baby Morgan mini-blankie, which Rob still sleeps with, and in fact we bought four more of them as spares–and good thing we did, too, because the whole company went out of business and you can’t even get them anymore.
Gift certificates were especially awesome for a baby present, because we didn’t really know what we’d need. We got the basics (crib, car seat) ourselves, but we were looking at everything else and thinking, “Well, do we need a frontpack? Do we need a bouncy seat? A mobile? A swing? A playgym?” We didn’t know. Gift certificates let us go out later and buy what we had figured out we wanted.
And what about non-first babies? Did you register? Did you get anywhere near as many presents? We got presents from what seemed like the entire world for our first baby, and then a little smattering for the second–but that seemed appropriate. It’s almost like the difference between a first wedding (“set up a household” level of gifts, even if you’ve been living on your own for years and years) and a non-first wedding (“She can still use the crock-pot we gave her for the first one, even if she’s cooking for a different man” level of gifts). First-baby gifts are to get you set up with all the stuff you need to move from non-parents to parents; non-first-baby gifts are mostly from people who love to shop for baby stuff.
A final note on baby gifts. Two of you have emailed me to ask if I have a baby registry or if you can send me a gift for the new baby. You are so, so nice, and also pretty and skinny and you have great hair and everyone secretly copies your fashion choices. But this is our fifth baby, and Paul thinks we already have twice as much baby stuff as we should (hello, it was on clearance), and besides, I can’t give away my secret identity: even Paul doesn’t know my real name isn’t Swistle. But I am touched, and I thank you.
ahh the registry is sort of an “amused bitter” kind of topic for me. I registered for stuff based on what my friend, who had a baby the day I got pregnant, told me I needed. And no, she wasn’t full of it. :)
However I think out of my whole registry, people bought me three things. All of my thank you notes from my wedding must have gotten lost in the mail.
I can’t think of what I put on the registry that I laugh about now, except clothes, that I only put there so people would have something to buy. I feel silly about registering for the “medical kit” but 3 years later I still use every single thing in that cheesy little kit…
I got a ton of clothes.. some of them hits, some of them misses. I did not get any blankets, other than the fleece one with bugs that I registered for (and my daughter uses it! It wasn’t a mockery!)
I didn’t get any useful clothes, mostly cute frilly dresses. I was not into dresses with my girl until she could walk on her own.
I had some parents give me good gifts, some parents tried too hard (the sucky bathtub I never used full of crap I never used; the bottles; the pacifiers) My aforementioned friend gave and recommended some great stuff.
No one would buy us the car seat, because you can buy cheaper ones at walmart and they are just as good! And I am a car seat nazi and only the best will suffice! (sorry.)
A few things I got that I thought were dumb, I ended up loving in the end. One I can think of is this cheesy book with “real life” pictures in it by Roger Priddy. But they loved it and we have about 10 of his books now. Also, my daughter stayed tiny, so I ended up using a lot of those frilly 3-6 mo dresses the next summer. And I use them as little tops now.
We didn’t get a ton of anything amusing though. hmph. Though we do have an amusing amount of johnson’s baby wash (the yellow kind) and while I love the smell, the spanish on the bottle irritates me and the soap makes my son break out in hives.
Sorry about the novel. I am still sad that no one likes me enough to buy me stuff off the registry. I promise it was all normal stuff that I’ve since purchased on my own and do use… I did kind of get bent out of shape about the “assumptions” people make about bottles and pacifiers, so now I never give those unless they are on the registry, and I never stray from the registry. My favorite is to give a big bag of misc small items because those are more useful. I double up on some things, and add a few p ersonal things/toys/books/frames.
We had a girl in July in an area that spends most of the summer in the 90-100+ range. We got tons of little outfits, mostly dresses. We used very few of them. We also got so many hand made blankets of different sorts, we used only a couple of these. Sadly they were all so beautiful I never wanted to use them for fear they would get ruined but also because it ws just too damn hot for blakets. Our girl lived in onesies for the first 4 months or so. We really loved the footed sleepers that were thiner cotton material and that zipped instead of snapping (who wants to fuss with 20 gagillion snaps on a squirmy baby at 2 am) but we hardly got any of those so we had to go buy a bunch.
Gift certificates were the best! We used them to get stuff we didn’t realise we would need and when the girl got too big for the infant carrier car seat we had enough left to purchase a really great larger car seat. Also the best , best thing we registered for was the Fisher Price Healthy Care booster seat. We still take that thing every where with us and the girl is almost 2. It’s easy to carry, you can store wipes a bid and a spoon or fork in the lid and you don’t have to use the germ infested high chairs in resturants or keep the kid in you lap while visitting friend or relatives because it attaches to any chair.
Oh also a friend made me a baby book personalized with my girls name and stuff individual to us and I think that was one of the best, most thoughtful gifts we got.
My only complaint with baby gifts was that everything had ducks on it. probably my fault because I mentioned to one person that I thought one pair of carter’s pajamas with ducks on them was cute. After a month of my son always wearing something with at least one duck on it I was ready to chuck his whole wardrobe. Also our fault for not finding out he was a boy and everyone trying to buy gender neutral stuff.
As far as what I give now – the day we got home from the hospital my husband had to go out and buy all the stuff we hadn’t gotten yet for me that we really hadn’t thought of. The poor man went to Walgreens and came back with armfuls of tuck pads, giant maxis, stool softeners, nipple cream and all sorts of other things I’m sure he was thrilled to purchase (I never used the stool softeners but thanks to the nurse who INSISTED I needed them). So now, for close friends and my sisters that I want to embaress, I put together a giant basket full of all that good stuff. Who doesn’t want to open nipple cream at their baby shower? oh, and just to be nice, I do always include diapers since you can never have too many of those
We did have a registry and most of the important items on there were given to us at one of the 4 baby showers that were thrown.
The thing we were given a million of? Receiving blankets! I washed them all up before I really realized how many we had. Once I had folded them out of the laundry there were 2 two foot stacks of receiving blankets. The most ironic thing is that my daughter was 23 inches when she was born and the standard receiving blankets were a little too small to swaddle her in after the first month or so. We mostly used them to help prop her up in her crib. We registered for and received 2 microfleece blankets that were bigger and warmer and worked wonderfully for swaddling. A co-worker ended up having a girl and didn’t have any receiving blankets so I gave her half of mine. I still have about 10 or 15 of them that were never used. Hopefully she’ll grow up to like dolls or something.
The best surprise was a laundry basket full of things like diaper cream and disposable changing pads, outlet covers etc. We use the basket all the time for her toys and it was so nice getting all of the lotions and ointments and soaps and things that we didn’t register for.
Oh! Baby things!
What we registered for: I don’t even remember. Everything. Blankets, onesies, thermometers, socks. Billions and billions of socks. We could insulate our house with the baby socks my five-year-old got. Did he even wear socks? Once or twice, perhaps.
The best gift was of course not on the registry: a family friend, a wonderful woman I barely knew and who was confined to her house by illness, sent a basket with a towel set, organic baby soap, organic baby oil, and a book on baby massage.
And the gifts that shocked and horrified me, for which I said “um, oh, thank you!” in a stiff and offended voice–I used them the most of all. (“I’ll never just leave my baby in a swing,” I said. “I would never use a PACIFIER,” I said. “I want to be able to hear him when something’s wrong.”) Oh. My. God. I think I brought pacifers to the hospital for the second baby, and I probably would have brought the swing, too, if I hadn’t been in labor.
Since Darsie came so early, I never got around to that sort of stuff,which I am actually kind of grateful for. We ended up with the bare essentials that we purchased in one mad rush the day before she came home from the hospital.
I did have a cyber shower with my cousins which they sent a ton of clothes. It took awhile for D to grow into them, but it was much appreciated.
the only amusing thing we got was a sculpture from MIL of a man and his woman (I would say wife, but we weren’t married yet) holding a baby. We got the same sculpture sans baby when we got married later on.
Lack of sleep has made me forget the question now…sorry.
I love this topic, and I truly empathize with the registering new mother. We are so busy trying to think of what A new baby will need, we forget that it’s really about what OUR new baby will need. Which, of course, we don’t know. That’s why I fell squarely in the “register for it and ask questions later” camp.
The good (for me):
The swing. My daughter slept in it, and ONLY IN IT, for 4 months.
The video monitor. I know this is the type of thing that makes our grandmothers cry with the over-the-topness and the not-in-my-dayness, but I think it totally kicks ass. Baby crying but a visual evaluation reveals no intervention is needed?=stay in bed. Also good for watching them play in another room while you work through your TiVo queue in peace.
The totally unnecessary (for me): Vibrating bouncy. I KNOW! I was most bitter about this one, because babies are supposed to love that crap! My baby hated it. Sigh.
Boppy. I never ONCE used this to nurse, and used it for maybe 1 or 2 weeks to stablize while she was learning to sit up. One of the most overrated baby items, IMO.
Baby bathtub. Also bitter about this one, because it turns out she only wanted to take a bath WITH ME. And there’s not enough room for the 3 of us, especially after on of us just had a baby, if you know what what I mean.
Honorable mention in this category:
Little hair accessories. No hair. Bitter. Sigh.
Receiving blankets. 2 or 3 of these had their place for the 1st few weeks, but they were utterly useless after that. At least until she is old enough to tie 50 of them together like a rope to sneak out of the house.
Being the last in line of a large family, I didn’t register. I got most of everything I needed handed down from my sister. Free swing? check. Free bassinet? check. 6 boxes of misc. clothes, both genders? check. Also, being the last in line and having an obnoxious amount of nieces / nephews, I was very practical.
That being said: I didn’t find out the sex, which annoyed EVERYONE esp. because when asked when I wanted my shower (before or after the baby) I was firm on my ‘before’ decision (and thank goodness for that considering all the problems I had!). I did this thinking I would get really, really unisex practical things that we could use for future babies, not knowing there would be no future babies!
So we got a lot of lotion, soap, gift cert for formula, blankets, wash cloths & towels, board books (yay!), etc…very practical.
We got MULTIPLE sets of toenail clippers. Like, an embarrassing amount. You could use a new one for each nail! We got a Bumbo, which was sooooo nice.
The best present was a baby bathtub (which is useless in my opinion! but makes a nice holder!) filled with everything you could think of: wipes, towels, those rings to dangle toys off things, rattles, etc. FILLED. Nice.
Also nice was a bag full of me stuff: truffles, magazines, sparkling lemonade, foot scrub. Soooo thoughtful.
Goes into the “thought that counts?” category was a friend who bought some 6-9 mo. outfits and…never gave them to me. Always brought it up that she had them on her counter, but I never saw them. About a month ago, she asked what size he was in now (12m) and said, “well…I did think about you! Maybe (mutual friend) could use them…”. Nice.
So, all in all, we got great things and started off with a lot of what we needed and very little stupid stuff.
Oooh, tessie…My baby HATED the swing. The only time the boppy got used was for one of us behind our head while we are on the floor with the baby. But never in conjunction with the baby! We never did vibrating bouncy seats or anything. He was most happy laying on a fuzzy blanket on the floor in nothing but a onsie. For the first…4 months? of his life. It IS all about the individual baby!!
i’ve yet to be knocked up….which is a good thing because J and I hope to plan our children in a couple of years. Let’s hope that goes well.
Anyway…being a nanny for 5 years full time and still part time although i have this annoying real job with benefits, i think i’ll be rather level headed about the baby register thing.
PLUS: if you read my wedding registry story, you know that i’m an ocd freak and that i’ll have a handy dandy spreadsheet that we will pre-plan and shop from.
No one’s mentioned this yet but one of my favorite things on my baby boy’s registry was the decor, and I got a lot of it (matching lamp, comforter, bumper, sheets, dust ruffle, even switch plate covers). Lots of moms said (rudely) to me, “oh, that stuff is so useless and expensive…” but I’ve always thought my son’s room is ADORABLE, and I used the comforter myself, threw it over my legs for those middle of the night feedings. SO THERE. Was too useful. :)
Other than that, I was glad I registered for my glider/rocking chair, even though I knew my parents would buy it for me so didn’t really need to “register” it.
I think the single best thing I received was a can of formula, “just in case.” I never would have thought of it, but my neighbor had one in the pantry, and the night baby came home from hospital and my milk had not come in and he was screaming and crying of hunger, it saved us. I gave one to a pg friend recently, along with the other gift items I’d gotten her.
oh this is such great timing for me! i’m three months away from having my first and the family keeps telling me to register so they can send us things. i had an early baby shower with friends (we are getting married just before the baby is born so we thought we would get it out of the way when people aren’t sick of celebrating with us yet!) and got all kinds of fun cute things that friends felt like buying, but now the family wants practical requests and i have no idea where to start! i’ll be checking back frequently for ideas…
Hmm, I have so many random thoughts about this topic flying through my head. Where to begin? First off: If people are kind enough to throw you a baby shower, or in my case, TWO, do be good enough to find out the sex of your child, or you will sorely regret it when said child is dressed in all neutrals for the first three months of its life and you have to slap a bow on her head so that people aren’t forever congratulating you on your new son! But in my defense, I tried many times to find out the sex and she just never cooperated! I was as sad as a person could be about the yellow and white gowns and green blankets and the ducks appliqued on everything- because, apparently, ducks are a strictly gender-neutral animal, where puppies and kitties seem to veer into more masculine or feminine territory!
But the bright side of all this neutral clothing is that our upcoming son will have plenty of perfectly appropriate hand-me-downs from his sister for the first few months!
We got a bazillion receiving blankets, too, and also lots of the hand-knitted variety, which I personally find scratchy and not nearly as nice to cuddle a baby in as fleece. So we hardly ever used those.
I wish I had registered for a baby bathtub with the sling in it that kind of lifts them up out of the water a bit so you can rinse their hair and body without jostling them around. My friend had one and I was always jealous.
The best gift I got, in my opinion, was a beautiful handmade scrapbook that my husband’s cousin sent, which she had begun personalizing with the name, date, height, weight, etc., and also with a few pictures which had been emailed to her that she printed on photo paper. But she also left lots of spots blank, and all I had to do was choose pictures and pop them in! It was so beautiful and must have taken so much time and thought. I nearly cried when I got it.
el-e-e: I heartily agree on the decor stuff. I loved my stuff, including the “unnecessary” quilt and diaper stacker and the “verboten” crib bumper. If a cute room at 2 am makes us feel even REMOTELY better, I say it is well worth it.
Also, forgot to mention what I think is an incredibly useful and incredibly cheap gift: those microwave disinfecting bags. Works for bottles, breast pump parts, toys, pacifiers, etc.
AND that is my last comment on this post. Probably. CRIPES.
i got a billion blankets- really a billion. oh and baby wash i got about 8-9 bottles. and lotion, around 6 bottles. other than that i mostly just got stuff from my registry.
my sister went with us when we registered. she told me what was good and what was a complete waste of money. so i guess i have nothing that i regret registering for.
best gifts:
one of those play mats with the toys hanging down- used it literally EVERY DAY until she could sit up.
fisher pricer booster seat- still use it and she’s almost 2
the most thoughtful- my sister-in-law has a friend who is a nurse at a chldren’s hospital. she made me a little binder that was full of common baby problems (gas, fever, etc) and what to do in each case. it also had instructions for swaddling a baby and other stuff like that. it call wrapped with two of the pacifiers that the babies at her hospital LOVE. it was nice because she put so much effort into it… and because she knew my husband and i had very little first hand experience with babies.
We didn’t do a baby registry… I don’t know anyone who did. I guess it wasn’t a big thing here 6 or 7 years ago.
However, my friends and family took care of me by buying or lending me pretty much everything I needed to get me started: high chair, car seat, stroller, playpen, bassinet, crib, boucy seat, clothes, bath items, etc. The down side of that is that I didn’t actually research or select any of my baby’s stuff. The upside is that I didn’t know anything about baby stuff, so their selections were fine with me!
I got 2 Exersaucers, 1 of which has remained at my parents’ house for use by all the grandchildren.
I think if I were to register for anything, it would be cloth diapers in different sizes. I had a bunch of newborn hand-me-downs, but would have appreciated the bigger sizes instead of having to make that big purchase myself.
One gift I got for my third was the Bumbo chair, which I loved. I now recommend it to all expecting parents.
Just like Gabby, we got quite a few hand-me-down items from my sister so we had a fairly short registry list; miraculously, we got most of the things we wanted. I think not knowing the gender encouraged people to buy off the registry since they couldn’t really buy clothes. My poor sister-in-law got very few things off her registry and got about a milion pink, frilly dresses instead.
Thinking that it was a stupid idea, we didn’t register for a diaper wipe warmer. Someone gave one to us anyway and all it did was dry out our wipes and convince us that we were right to not ask for it.
We did register for and get a Diaper Genie. Also a waste of money and space. We left it up in the attic for #2 and just chunk the diapers in the regular old garbage can.
I really do think *recent* parents give the best gifts. A co-worker with two year old twins gave me a small, purse-sized, insulated diaper bag. I have used that thing to death transporting pumped breastmilk and homemade babyfood that would spoil almost instantaneously in our blistering summer weather.
I also (surprsingly) love the Tupperware travel spoons and mini-containers that my mother-in-law got us. She’s of the “registries are just suggestions” mind and generally gives completely useless gifts. Surprised the heck out of me!
My husband was afraid of the little scanner at the store – seriously. “What do we need? how many do we need? what if we don’t need it?!?” It was exhausting.
We received a billion blankets, which we’ve used maybe half of. We received a lot of 3-6 month clothing “because they grow out of clothes so fast” but our daughter was barely 6 pounds, so we had to go buy some small stuff. My sister went nuts with the cute dresses that are really kind of impractical. We didn’t get anything that we really needed right away, though, which was annoying. The gifts that are no fun to buy, like changing table pads and covers, car seat carrier covers (because it’s February in Minnesota, people), and the everyday practical stuff. We had to go out and buy that ourselves. We will totally buy straight off the registry for everyone from now on. Anyway…
The best gifts I got were from other new moms. I got a huge bag of three brands of diapers (so I could try them out and see which were best) and other things that her son loved and that she used often like thermal blankets, a dishwasher caddy for bottles and stuff, and those disposable changing pad covers for use in public restrooms. My favorite, favorite gift was a small box of Lansinoh breast pads; because they actually work and my boobies leaked like crazy (and still do, thankyouverymuch). The only gift that was a little strange was a blue handmade blanket for our “son” when we knew we were having a daughter.
As mentioned before, I didn’t register because I figured I needed everything. I got tons and tons of receiving blankets that I hardly used. Most everything else was very much needed and appreciated.
My SIL gave me the best stuff–being the most recent “mom” of the bunch. Tons of hand-me-downs–clothes and bathtub (and maternity clothes!)and bouncy seat and all kinds of stuff that I used more than even all my new stuff.
What I thought would be useful but wasn’t was a set of disposable diaper bags, crib sheets, bibs, etc. meant for traveling. We travel a lot to visit our long distance family, but I’ve never even opened the package–I just use the “real” thing.
The best thing I got that I actually asked for was my pack ‘n’ play. My mother bought it and was very apprehensive on whether or not I’d use it. I used it as a bassinet and also for traveling–it was great!
For my third baby, I got a surprise un-asked-for shower as my co-workers realized that I kept talking about how I needed to upgrade my infant car seat and how my baby swing bit the dust. So they bought both those and even more stuff than I ever dreamed they would. I was so grateful! (Although I DID get more onesies that I didn’t need–and MORE receiving blankets and more burp cloths that I didn’t need).
I love buying baby clothes, so I always give those out as gifts (can’t help it–they’re so cute!). And I usually include a board book and/or a rattle. For my best friend, I made sure to buy her a compact diaper bag that the hubby wouldn’t mind carrying, too. I don’t know about her, but I found that most useful for myself and my hubby. Oh–and I filled it with all the ointments and breast pads that I knew she wouldn’t think to get….
I just did this last year for my first and it was F-U-N! However, since the big baby megamart was very intimidating, I took along a friend who is a mother of 2 young boys so she could show me the “must have” items and steer me from the “waste of money” items. It was a smart move because I don’t regret anything we got from the registry or feel like we missed anything. I did not register for clothes but got a lot anyway, many of which didn’t fit when the correct season rolled around.
We got nearly 100 bibs, literally. I know we’ll use them one day but wow. We also got a ton of blankets, some cute and some not so cute. We didn’t find out the baby’s gender, so that seemed to throw people off. We also got a lot of baby wash which we’ll never use, a couple bottles of children’s motrin that you can’t use until age 2 but that expires before then, and a lot of tiny socks that were cute but fit for maybe 4 weeks.
And as a knitter, I feel I have to defend the handknit blankets, even though I have never given one as a gift myself. Knitting can be quite time consuming, depending on the pattern, and people do it with a lot of love. It’s more expensive than you might imagine, and unless the person is using really cheap, yukky yarn (something your ancient Aunt Thelma has had in her stash for years, probably), more often than not it is much more expensive to knit a blanket than to buy a cute $20 one from Target. My mom made one for my daughter out of a really nice, soft yarn that ended up costing $120 just in yarn alone (not considering the time).
It’s funny how things work so well for some and not for others. I love my Boppy and use it daily. I love the swing and would not have survived the last 8 months without it, but the bouncy vibrating chair and Bumbo were pretty useless for us. & that’s why every baby is his/her own special little self, right?
I’m saying this now while I’m thinking of it- haven’t read the comments yet so somebody else already might have.
You can actually register under the name Swistle and people can order stuff online and click send without knowing your address. :) It’ll be more fun than tracking you down and sending you the four million and first blanket.
The best thing we got was a basket full of things we didn’t know we’d need. Like an ear thermometer, tylenol, nasal aspirator – things that we didn’t know we’d need until we REALLY needed them and didn’t want to run to the store. So, now, that’s what I give as baby gifts. And now, mothers-to-be expect them from me, so if I were ever to give anything else, I’d disappoint people!
Oh the gifts, we received: there was the silver spoon (it came already tarnished); the a disposable camera (before the days of digital cameras) so we could take a photo a day to record the changes in our daughter; a full meal, which was a welcome change from cold congealed scrambled eggs and cold pizza. I can still remember the wonderous tast of that meal 19 years after the fact!
http://www.fromskilledhands.com
I’m embarrassed on behalf of all non-parents that someone thought you could not leave the house for a whole month for a carseat. How did she think you’d gotten home from the hospital? JESUS.
Shelly, I agree with you about handknit blankets. Frankly, if someone is kind enough to take the time to MAKE you something, it should be appreciated, no matter how useful(less) it is.
Swistle, I’m loving these registery talks. If only I knew then what I know now! My first pregnancy was w/ twins, so EVERYONE was so excited. We did register, and we needed many of the big ticket items (2 cribs, double stroller, pack-n-play etc) so we thought people would pitch in together and get us that stuff. Well, no. We got lots of useful stuff, but none of the “big” stuff. Lots and lots and lots of clothes. And even more blankets, many homemade. My favorite was the matching baptism gowns/blankets/hats/booties that my grandma knit for us. They were so beautiful and old fashioned and so much cooler than the satin frocks that you buy at JC Penny’s for baptism.
My 2nd pregnancy I had all the basics, so we got lots of “fancy” stuff- we registered at a local baby boutique and got everything off of our registery there and then some. Very fun to get so upper-end blankets, toys, and gear to throw in the the hand-me-downs. We also got a baby bjorn active carrier, which we love.
And I agree, as a breastfeeding mom of three, that the boppy sucks.
I love reading all of the responses. I ended up just putting mine into a post on my blog because it was so long and i wanted to spell check.
Thanks el-e-e for the new perspective on the expensive room decor.
And Marie Green I know exactly what you mean about getting all of the little stuff and none of the big stuff. Thankfully people gave us gift cards which we were able to use for the car seats and such.
I don’t think anyone has said that hand-knit baby blankets are a bad, cheap, or non-labor-intensive gift, just that some of us got a lot of them. Like with toasters. It isn’t as if the giver can anticipate how many of something the recipient will receive, so there’s nothing bad about giving someone something that turned out to be one of many.
I don’t have babies, so I can’t really contribute. The baby shower I’ve been to I didn’t even think to check a registry; I bought some clothes, diapers, and a four pack of those little flannel blankets that I’ve seen babies puke on. And maybe some wash cloths. I can’t remember. Also, some candy bars.
That’s how I roll, I guess.
In other news, ONE WEEK! I’m so excited for you!
The mega baby stores terrified me, so I didn’t register. (Shelly above was very smart in enlisting a veteran mom to go with her to register – wish I had thought of that.) Lucky for us, my MIL was very organized and must have coordinated the gift-givers at the shower she threw for me.
In addition, we got so many kick-ass hand-me downs: a sidecar co-sleeper crib, a pack-n-play, a high-quality breast pump, an umbrella stroller, an infant bathtub, tons of clothes, a crib.
The only thing I got too many of was blankets and bath towels.
I asked my mom to make a sling from a pattern I found online, but my son was a really big baby and wasn’t really comfortable in the sling.
I am looking into the flexible mesh slings for baby 2. Also I’d love a Bumbo seat and a bouncy chair for our second.
Family members really wanted to buy us the big ticket items, but I was in no frame of mind to remember who had said what they’d buy. So I think we stepped on a few toes when we went out to get what we needed. (Note to gift-givers: don’t assume the mother-to-be is the sole expert on these things. This would have been a great thing to discuss with my husband, who wasn’t busy growing and giving birth to a human amid a hormone-fueled haze.)
Anyway, thanks Swistle for the great topic and best wishes on the baby’s arrival!
I actually registered for mostly practical things and got them. We also got a TON of baby blankets and clothes. Still have a ton of them in fact.
We didn’t register for the second baby at all. Same season, same sex, and all we needed was one or two big things we bought ourselves.
We actually got mostly good gifts, except from my MIL who insists on things that are age inappropriate, clothes that are horribly ugly and NMS or embroidered pillows with bunnies. Again, NMS.
Ah-ha! But I already know your name. Does that mean I get to send you a present? How about if I promise to get it on clearance?
also – looove the booster seat we got. It folds up and everything!!
we also got a basket full of baby socks – most of which we’ve never used.
Beth Fish: Nope, still cheating!
Seriously this is the longest comments section ever.
Anyway, I didn’t register for this baby, but did for my first. Never received any bad gifts, except a dress for my son. In all fairness, there were two of us in the Babies R Us registry with the same name in the same state. Easy mistake to make.
I received much better gifts from parents than non-parents. I personally give much better gifts now that I’m a parent.
And I have a post in the works about the sheer number of CLOTHES i’ve received for my daughter versus my son. She will never even get a chance to wear all the clothes. It’s not humanly possible.
I, like many others, have totally loved this series of posts you’ve been doing lately. Thanks, Swistle!
I second the tons and tons of knitted/crocheted blankets. It was a sweet gesture, but enough already! Some people gave me some used toys. In addition, I got a picture frame that said “Babies first haircut” with a little pocket to place a lock of hair. There were leftover hair pieces in the frame! I almost died! Those were my worst gifts.
Wait! One more thing about awful gifts. I personally hated the gifts that smelled like cigarette smoke when you opened them. Ew!
My best gifts (not on my registry) were a potty seat, step stool, and the swaddle me wrap thingie. It was nice to not have to run out and buy the stool and potty now that she’s old enough for it and the swaddle me we would not have survived without during the first three months of our child’s life. I also got a pretty cool beach bag filled with baby beach stuff. Unique and useful.
I got tons of blankets too, but not one plain flannel receiving blanket! We wound up swiping two from the hosptial when we saw the nurses wrap up our little burrito.
Oh and I’m super picky about baby wash and such so I didn’t use those gifts.
Another miss for me was picture frames that were baby themed. Seriously I’m not going to use 20 picture frames with pastel colors and teddy bears on there…ever. There was no room for them in the nursery and they looked silly anywhere else in the house.
Oh and the clothes. The best advice I read was to only wash one weeks worth of newborn sized clothes. I took it one step further and returned/exhanged all but one week’s worth. which was awesome ’cause 1) my kid was out of that size in a couple weeks and 2) I then had enough store credit and clothing in bigger sizes that I didn’t really have to buy any clothes until he got closer to the 9 mo sizes.
My fav gift to give (for close friends) is a basket of nursing supplies, pamper mom items, stuff like that… Earth Mama Angel Baby New Mama Bottom Spray is the BEST! I’m also a huge Boppy fan. Stuff that only a mom who’s been there done that would know. : )