Baby Shower Guide

Now having been on both sides of the baby shower - a participant of many and guest of honor at my own - I'm qualified enough to dole out advice. The next shower I go to, I will rock that party.

In the past, I usually bought something off the registry. I put the gift receipt in the card and couldn't care if they returned it or not. I never look through Facebook photos to see if the baby was wearing the thing or playing with the thing or puking on the thing. I bought it, stuck it in a bag with some tissue paper,  and wiped my hands of it.

Sound familiar?

If you'd like to break out of the baby shower doldrums (because what's worse than a Babies R' Us registry print out? I mean seriously, can the item descriptions get any more vague?? You have to match barcodes just to be sure it's what they asked for.), here are a few tips on gifts to give the expectant mother.

1. She's going to get a lot of clothes. New clothes, old clothes, cute clothes, different size clothes. Give her a way to organize it. The next day after the shower, I bought these closet dividers because I needed some way to separate the sizes and keep them that way. It's one of those things you don't think about until you see the mountain of onesies, sleepsacks, and wee little things that you have to wash and inventory.

2. Speaking of laundry, nothing like a bottle of Dreft as a gift. It may not be fun or glamorous but the parents will need to wash all those new and used clothing items. This is another thing I didn't think about on the registry but had to buy right away.

3. Oh those gift receipts. Babies R Us is the worst. There is no item description - just a bar code. So picture this scenario: you open the gift, pass the clothes around, and when they come back, they get loaded into another bag that fits into the car. Now you have a gift receipt with no clue what it's for. It's not just one gift receipt either; it's a stack of them. If you give clothes, blanket, bibs, burbs....basically anything cloth, pin the receipt to the item directly. If it's not a fabric item, tape the gift receipt to the gift.

4. Instead of toys, thinking about a toy chest or toy storage device. Maybe shelves or bins or something that slides under the crib.

5. Think about groupons or gift certificates for photography services, meal/grocery deliveries, birth announcements, or a housecleaner. Something to help out the family after the baby arrives.

6. Batteries.

7. Don't get something that requires the parents to do extra work. Like journals, scrapbooks, keepsakes, etc. There's already so much assembly for every piece of gear you get. Plus all the laundry to wash the clothes and sheets before the baby comes. Organzing the nursery is a chore too. While a scrapbook might be an awesome thing to have, I'd prefer not to have an empty one.

8. Or go with funny signs to keep solicitors away. I don't know about you, but we get a ton of people to the door asking for donations and to seal the driveway. Last night, I just let the dogs bark at the person until he left. (he was wearing an orange shirt and had a clipboard. Dead giveaway for magazine salesman.) Another thing you can do is a garden flag or outside banner to announce the new arrival to the neighborhood. Something to welcome the new mom home from the hospital.

So if you want to give a thoughtful gift but don't have time to sew a quilt or crochet a blanket, I recommend one of the options above. Even if the new mom doesn't know she needs it yet.