Recent conversations with pregnant friends have reminded me how completely OVERWHELMING the expectant parent experience can be. There is so much to learn in such a short time, so many opinions to absorb and internalize or reject (Do we cloth diaper? Make our own baby food? Is that plastic cup BPA-free? And what the heck is BPA anyway?) While all of this is going on and you are preparing to make room for a person who will depend on you for their every need and want for the next 18 years, your or your partner's body has suddenly morphed into a personal and also very public science experiment. Oh yeah – and don’t forget about pregnancy hormones. Your hormones will be out of control sometimes (all the time?) I think it also should be mentioned that no one really thinks about daddy’s feelings. The mama gets all of the attention – both positive and negative – because a giant belly is just so hard to miss. But no one really addresses how tricky it can be for the dad-to-be. The dad-to-be gets no love. You are to be a support and a stoic and you best just lay low if you are having any issues of your own. It doesn’t matter how much crazy gets lobbed in your direction, just grin and bear it. The wifey/gf/partner is carrying your child so you can just be quiet and wait for week 40 thank you very much. Pregnancy is a wonderful time of anticipation, but it can also be stressful for couples who want to be the best parents. And who doesn’t want that? In the spirit of honoring the teamwork involved in gestating your little bundle of joy, I am throwing out some suggestions for couple’s gifts.
One of the nicest things Tim and I had done for us not long after Daisy was born was when some friends of ours came over to our place on a Tuesday and simply made us dinner. It was quite honestly one of the most thoughtful gestures ever. And they even did the dishes! When you are in the weeds of new parenthood and so exhausted you can barely see straight, this generous gift is priceless. And to the child-free, a pretty easy (and inexpensive) gift to give. Plus, we will always have that warm memory of a night shared with good friends. So in that spirit, here are seven thoughtful gifts you can bequeath to new or expecting parents:
- Make a large, simple dish that can be eaten cold or reheated and deliver to their doorstep. This riff on a pesto from Food & Wine magazine is my new go-to. It can be made vegan or with chicken, is delicious hot or cold and keeps for a week. Right after you have a baby, there is a barrage of visitors. It is lovely to have something like this to nosh on for guests or a breast-feeding mama or bone-tired daddy.
- Send the mama-to-be or new parents some delicious ice cream from Salt & Straw in Portland. The favorites gift pack is a decadent smorgasbord of their hand-made, all natural ice cream and they ship all over the country.
- Gift certificate for a top to bottom housecleaning using all organic/non-toxic cleaning supplies. Greener L.A., for example, offers a New Mommy Cleaning service. We planned to do a thorough house-cleaning before baby showed up, but tick tock, tick tock. Time was not our friend in this department. In a word, genius! I would have been over-the-moon had someone gifted us with this one.
- Give the gift of hulu! Even if they have a DVR, you can bet that there will be little time to records favorite shows. HuluPLUS offers gift subscriptions from one month to one year. Or get them a roku. They will love you for it. And either option has loads of programming for the kiddoes (for when they get older, of course).
- If you have a large circle of friends, Meal Train is an interactive, online calendar and a brilliant way to organize everyone in the group to put a meal delivey schedule together. I think this one is particularly good for a couple who has experienced a c-section as they really will need some extra assistance in the weeks following the new baby’s arrival beyond a meal or two. What peace of mind to know that dinners are covered for the forseeable future.
- I was trying to keep this list to personal items for mom and dad and avoid “baby gear” in particular, but I couldn’t help myself and made an exception for this one item. We were gifted a baby backpack by my sister (almost as an afterthought since they never got much use out of it) and it has turned out to be one of our most irreplaceable and functional items of baby gear. We are a walking family and Tim and Townes have bonded endlessly over it. From the vantage point it offers way up high, the neighborhood walks have been much more rich for both of them. In the stroller, Townes is actually diffucult to communicate with effectively. You can't hear him and vice versa because he is often facing away from you and shielded by the stroller canopy. When he is in the carrier he can have a running conversation with dad about everything he is taking in as it comes into view. He’s learned a lot of vocabulary from this perch. Our model is a bit older, but this Kelty backback looks pretty sweet! If you have someone with deep pockets who wants to give you something unnecessary and fun – this is the ticket!
- The gift of no guilt – whether you are emailing your congratulations or sending a gift, let the new mom and dad know that they are not obligated to send a thank you note. They will be eternally grateful.
And finally, at times like this it is good to remind ourselves what is important and what is precious. Dad took some photos over the weekend. This is one that speaks for itself.
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