Newborn Baby Gift Basket
In a show of support, friends of an expectant couple joined their efforts to provide shelter and others basic needs as a fire destroyed their home and took all their belongings mere days before the birth. We chose to offer a giftbasket and I had the responsibility of coming up with interesting gifsbasket ideas for the baby.
Because another friend of mine was donating a large supply of lightly-used rompers, sleepers, and coats, I decided that my friends would probably find a baby travel-kit most useful. I found my list of baby shower gift ideas and narrowed down the items to a short list.
They would need travel clothes for the baby. This included an easy-to-remove gown for sleeping and a bodysuit for the baby's more active hours. And the baby would need outerwear. So I included a soft hat to keep that sure-to-be bald head warm, soft shoes, and a matching blanket. All of this needed to be in easily washable fabrics.
Babies are very frequent eaters and it's usually very messy so I put in two terrycloth bibs and a nice soft washcloth. All babies need toilet items so I also put in two cloth diapers and two disposable ones. (Even parents using cloth diapers to protect the environment can sometimes find a use for disposable diapers.) Then I also added two small dish towels to use as protection for the clothing when burping the baby. A compact package of baby wipes is also a very useful thing to have so I included two of those.
All newborn baby gift baskets have to include a toy for the baby. I didn't know the baby's sex - our friends had wanted to find out when the child was born. So I had to pass up the stuffed truck and the rag doll. I chose instead a pale yellow stuffed duck.
If you pack it in a beautiful vinyl diaper bag, this will be an ideal gift basket for a newborn baby. However new parents require more than simply things to really make them enjoy their newborn baby: that's why I added a note, with a promise of many nights of baby-sitting later on, whenever they will need a little more time together alone.
Published March 9th, 2007