Baby Shower Gift BasketI copped my best baby shower gift idea ever from a present given to me when I was pregnant with my firstborn. I got it from a childhood friend of mine; it looked like a mini drug store in a basket—full of all kinds of things I neither had nor knew I needed. There was an assortment of infant medicine for fever and stuffy noses, thermometers, those bulbous snot-sucker thingies, medicine dispensers, baby fingernail clippers, pacifiers, lotions and lavender, a bottle scrubber and Lasinoh and breast pads and super maxi-pads and gripe water. It is fair to say that I had no idea I’d need breast pads. Or maxi pads. And I hadn’t a clue what in the hell gripe water was. Not. One.

Until I needed it. And then, all of a sudden, that basket of baby goodness was magical. If Mari had scratches on her face, all I had to do was fish out the baby mittens and the fingernail clippers to handle that. There was no need to run to the drugstore in the middle of the night; when she got a fever, I had that Infant Tylenol and Motrin on deck. Getting mucus out of her nose was a breeze with that bulb thing. Who knew my boobs would leak milk every second of the day? Or that there was magical stuff to slather on my sore, cracked nipples in those first days of breastfeeding? Or that I’d need those pads for all that bleeding for damn near a week after giving birth? And why didn’t What to Expect When You’re Expecting tell me about this gripe water? This magical, mystical bottle of stomach-settling awesomeness?

I didn’t get it when my friend handed it to me, but that new baby basket was EV. VER. REE. THING. to me. And now, when I give baby shower gifts to my friends, that basket full of baby goodness is my go-to gift. Bump the onesies and the blankets and the monogrammed diaper cloths and stuffed teddy bears: I’m here for the basket. The same side-eye I gave my childhood friend when she gave me that gift is the one I get from my friends, too. Until, that is, it’s 2:37 a.m. on their first night home with the baby and they gotta reach for the snot bulb, the maxi pad and that gripe water. Yup.

How about you? What was the best baby shower gift you got when you were pregnant with your babies? And what’s your go-to baby shower gift idea? Holla in the comments section.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Denene Millner

Mom. NY Times bestselling author. Pop culture ninja. Unapologetic lover of shoes, bacon and babies. Nice with the verbs. Founder of the top black parenting website, MyBrownBaby.

6 Comments

  1. These are my favorite shower gifts to give!!! So glad you posted this.

  2. I love to give people monogrammed stuff and engraved stuff. It is usually in a basket of awesomeness. My best gift from my shower was an engraved keepsake box. I love it b

  3. I adopted but hope this qualifies. Most people gave us toys, or outfits. The best was the basket of socks, T-shirts and underwear. And every gift giving we do I always add at least a six pack of socks to the Toy or whatever.

  4. The most thoughtful gift I received was a nightgown, robe and slippers, for myself. Lol, I now give this gift in return.

  5. Home made baby quilt And believe it R not my hubby bought me the samething as your one side eye ball but it came in the plaste drug store bag my hubby said he knew I would need it we were having our second child 16 years apart my little menopause baby and I didn’t save all that stuff from my first baby I guess not I wasn’t even thinking about having another baby at age 42 but god bless us with another son. And women let your hubby take the baby to get their first shots its start the baby bonding right away and let them read goodnite books to them my hubby works on a oil rig so he offshore for 14 days and in for 14 days and daddies like do that believe it R not.And that made my hubby the best daddie in the world his brothers kid always wish their daddie was like their uncle tommy

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

CLOSE
CLOSE