Shopping for baby shower gifts is always a treat. If you are giving a baby shower gift try any of these 15 mom tested favorite baby products. Give the mom-to-be things that she really needs for the new baby, even though she may not know what it is!
Before I had a baby of my own I loved going and picking adorable little newborn outfits, cute stuffed animals, and whirly light up toys for shower gifts. After having my first child I quickly realized, while those things are super fun to buy and give, they are not what a new mom really needs! I had duplicates of many things for my new addition when he arrived, and not a lot of the essentials. Because of that, I started putting together gift baskets for new moms that included things that are not quite as fun to give, but that moms need to make those first few months of baby’s life a little easier. When a group my friends found out that the last lady in the bunch was finally expecting her first baby we were thrilled to go shopping for the new addition. Three of us in the group, together now have had 6 babies over the last 5 years. Four baby boys and two baby girls later we have tried everything that they sell for baby. I’m not saying we are experts, but our baby gifts are certainly baby tested and mommy approved. We decided that we would go in on a gift together and so we headed for Target. After deciding on a rough price limit we looked at the big ticket items, and decided we wanted to instead, pick up all of the things that we used and loved for our own babies. We had a blast walking up and down the isles of target reminiscing about that past few years and the trials and tribulations when it came to baby products. Through trial and error with our babies we found products that we loved, hated, and tolerated. The gift that we ended up giving our dear friend was a collection of things that we used and LOVED for our own kids. We were just grabbing and throwing things into the cart, ohhing and ahhing of the products that we could not live without. It was a sad realization for me that I hadn’t shopped those isles in a while, but a good reminder of how much we were saving on diapers, formula, and baby food!
After we filled our cart to our hearts content we decided that, instead of a gift bag or even a basket, we would “wrap” the gifts in an adorable plastic pink tub. It was the perfect size to fit all of our goodies, and will make the perfect toy bin for all of babies new playthings! I have these in my own home for toys, and the are awesome and indestructible. It was only about $7, which is only a couple dollars more than a huge gift bag and far less than a decorative basket. At home I painted a heart on the front of it using chalkboard paint so Mom and Dad can label baby’s bin. It was a simple way to personalize the gift, and make it even more functional.
Here is a list of all of the things that we added to the tub for baby. Our choices are simply based on what worked, and didn’t work for our own children and are, in our opinion, great gifts to give a new Mom.
1. Diapers – We all agreed that we loved Pamper’s Swaddlers for Newborns and the Target brand diapers for older babies. We each bought a different size for the gift tub. We considered that not all baby’s wear newborn sizes and didn’t buy all newborn diapers. My daughter never even fit into newborn sized diapers but my friends kids wore them no problem.
2. Non scented Target brand wipes – a favorite of all three of us moms with babies that had sensitive skin.
3. A huge tub of Triple Paste – Desitin works great too. Skip getting the small tubes – they will need the big one!
4. Baby pain reliever and Gas relief drops – I will never forget the panic I felt after my son’s first round of shots when I got home and had nothing to give him when he spiked a fever! Save that mom from that panicked feeling – make sure she is all stocked up on those things she will need so she doesn’t have to go get it while baby isn’t feeling well
5. Instant ear thermometer – I so wish I would have had one of these when my kids were that little ( and now too). Nothing is worse than torturing a sick baby with a slow thermometer, not to mention trying to get a decent temperature reading from a squiggly toddler that wants nothing to do with it when they are sick
6. Sophie The Giraffe – The best teether out there. An adorable teether that baby can actually hold onto and fit into her mouth when they have sore gums.
7. Munchkin Twisty Teether Ball – Another great teether for soothing baby’s sore gums
8. DIY Wipes Container Toy For Baby – I came up with this toy for my kiddos after they wasted countless boxes of wipes playing with them. They loved them so much! Her kids are going to pull wipes out of the containers, why not make them their own version and save her some money on wasted wipes!
7. Target brand baby shampoo – A mild tearless shampoo and body wash that was all of our favorites – especially for the price
8. Target Brand Soothing Vapors Bath – A great option when baby has a cold
9. Munchkin snack catcher Cups – We all had these for our kids. I still use our cups daily – they wash and wear great!
10. Munchkin dishwasher basket – By far the easiest way to wash bottle nipples, and bottle components. Who has time to was all that stuff by hand – snuggle that baby and run the dishwasher instead.
11. Crib soother – We went for the Baby Einstein Neptune Crib soother because a couple of our kid’s couldn’t fall asleep without it.
12. Taggies Blanket Toy – An adorable little toy that is baby approved – little tabs keep baby’s attention
13. Books – We each picked a book that was one of our own Children’s favorite first books: Barnyard Dance, Pat the Bunny, and Good Morning, Good Night!
14. Baby sign language book Collection: By Linda Acredolo , Susan Goodwyn , Penny Gentieu – Both of my kids adored these books the entire first year of their lives and so did I. My kids could communicate simple things with me before they could talk!
We also decided that, instead of spending money on cards for the baby shower, we would each buy one of our children’s favorite books to get babies library started.
After I filled the tub with all of our baby gifts, I used some grosgrain ribbon in bright pink to attach chalkboard covered heart tags to each book. I wrote the name of which family choose the book in chalk on the heart in lieu of a card. If you want to make these gift tags for yourself you can check out my step by step tutorial here.
We put all of the gifts together, tied it with a bow and were very happy to give our dear friends this gift for their baby shower. We couldn’t be happier for them, and can’t wait to see the new baby use every last thing in that tub! We are so happy to have pretested hundreds of baby products for them so that they don’t have to!
Love It!!!
have any idea how much you spent?? love this idea!
Oh my, I wish I could tell you exactly but we kind of lost track as we went up and down the isles. I’m guessing about $75 each (3 of us). You could definitely make it really nice for less. We got 3 times everything (clothes, books, diapers, and etc.)
I did just about the same gift but in a basket and we have just about the same things and I wentto walmart and I only spent 48 bucks on the stuff I got and my sister got the triple paste and a set of nipples and she may have spent 15 bucks and she got that from babys r us
Amazing point about the seasons! my daughter was born in June and everyone got me such cute outfits but all of the 6 month and up clothes are short and sleeve less. Not so practical now that it’s February in Michigan.
I always give this as a baby gift, but instead of a tub I give a small round dirty clothes basket (I line mine with tissue paper), and it ALWAYS includes Dreft, Dreft stain spray, and a small mesh laundry bag to wash socks and other small things so they don’t get lost in the washer.
Those are all fabulous ideas! I will be sure to add those to my next baby gift.
It had not occurred to me to wash the little socks in a mesh laundry bag. What a great idea!
I have 4 zipper mesh laundry bags that are marketed for women’s lingerie. 1 is never enough since who is ever caught up with their baby laundry! I also put my washable nursing pads in there since they should also be washed in gentle detergent.
I have 3 babies (well, 12yr, 7yr, + 5yr) and after my first one, I also used the mesh laundry bags for their socks and scratch mittens. BEST. IDEA. EVER. I include them with my baby shower gifts and the looks on the new mom’s face is always priceless until I explain, then you see the collective “forehead slaps” from the other moms wishing they’d have thought of that! 🙂
I always do Dreft too and hand sanitizer for visiting family and friends. Also, alcohol and Qtips for navel care. 🙂
I have done similar gifts but I do them in a 3 drawer tower, the one’s about 3-4 feet tall, they’re great for closets or toys. I fill it with all kinds of things that the new mom will be able to use. I usually go to Sam’s and get a huge box of wipes also. They always love them.
love that – I had those in the nursery when the kids where little! Great gift!
Where did you buy the plastic tub?
The tub was from Target.
You can buy them at Walmart too.
I can not wait to try this… I want one of my friends to have a shower so I can do this…. LOVE IT!
I did something similar for a friend once, and used a cute set of Post-Its stuck to each item to describe why it was so essential to me when my guy was little. The little snippets of advice were loved by the mom and all the guests as she read each one out loud.
That is an adorable idea! Thanks for sharing – I will have to add the post its to my next baby shower gift! So fun!
My sister and I do something similar when we host a baby shower. We break it down into rooms that the baby will spend a lot of time in and encourage guests to pick a room that they purchase things for. We picked the bathroom and got the baby tub as the basket and then filled with things like ducks that check the water temp, cups to rinse hair, and the essentials for the bathroom baby lotion, soaps and a storage basket for it all. This has worked out so well and follows along with your tested items.
This is super cute and oh-so practical! I especially like the baby pain reliever and gas meds… having them on hand before you need them would make so much sense.
Thank you!
This comes at a perfect time!! I’ll definitely be picking some of these out, soon!
I always do this too, but included All Free and Clear detergent, a sleeper with zippers (I hate using snaps in the middle of the night), gas drops, and a zipper lingerie bag (you put all the baby’s socks in it and throw it in the washing machine – No more lost socks!), a Tide Pen, and Burt’s Bees Shampoo (a regular size bottle lasts for YEARS because you only need one or two drops per bath!)
LOVE THIS! I make this as well for all my soon-to-be-mamas! I use a large rubbermaid tote that can later be used to hold clothes, toys, etc. PLUS.. it limited me to buying only what could fit, so easy to go overboard. 🙂 I opted for 4 sleeves of diapers (LOVE the swaddlers, but understand that other moms loves baby dry, and huggies…), as well as 4 types of wipes (i was given some that I would never have purchased, but they ended up being my favourite!).
I do a similar thing. I call it “baby necesity kit” when I had my son and got released from the hospital first thing i had to do was stop at rexal and buy a ton of stuff. so not fun.
In my kits I include:
alcohol wipes: for umbilical cord
gripe water
baby tylenol
A+D diaper cream (love this)
camillia (for teething)
concytol (for gassy/collicy babies)
baby orajel
travel pack of wipes (i only had large containers which were no good for the diaper bag)
and Vitamin D drops (for winter babies)
Do a search on the dangers of baby orajel. I would avoid that item.
Hyland’s teething tablets are homeopathic and work wonders….Have given these to MANY new moms!!
Just FYI The Hyland’s teething tablets have been linked to seizures 🙁 I don’t recall the link but if you google it you will find a few articles. They say that the particular batch that caused the problem was mixed wrong and contained a higher than normal dose of Belladonna and that they have fixed the issue and they are supposedly safe now but I didn’t feel comfortable using them after that.
The Orajel seemed to increased my baby’s crankiness so i only used that once or twice.
The BEST thing I found for teething was a wet washcloth stored in the refrigerator. I stored about 6 in there at a time so she could ches and suck on one until it was too warm to help and then toss it in the laundry and grab another one out!
WOuld also be a good idea to use a baby bath instead of a random tub! If they don’t already have one. That’s what I’ve loved giving.
Thank you so much for this idea. My grandson and his wife were expecting our first great-grandchild and I had no idea what to get them. I followed your list, ordered everything from Target and some of the other sites, added a few of the things my grandson liked as a child and an infant braclet. Two weeks after my beautiful great-granddaughter arrived, I received an e-mail saying
the gift was the best, most thoughtful and useful gift they received. Thank you so much for making the solution to my gift problem so easy and something they will always remember.
Oh, thank you so much for the kind comment – it totally made my day and warms my heart that your Granddaughter found it so useful and thoughtful! I hope your great granddaughter is enjoying the useful gift each and every day, and congratulations to your whole family on one of the greatest gifts in life – a new baby!
Thank you for this list! My brother and sister-in-law are expecting their first child and I had no clue what to choose to give them. I have been looking for useful suggestions and this is perfect!
This is amazing. My friend will be having a baby in March and not being a mom myself I had no idea what to get her. And i’m all about useful and needed gifts for people. Hope she will love it.
I love to hear that this helped you decide what to get for someone special to you! Props to you for giving useful and purposeful gifts! I hope she will love it too! My guess is – she will – and she will be impressed with how you knew what she needed 😉
I would include the “Sleep Sheep” for the crib soother, and I prefer the “California Baby” brand for butt cream and shampoo. Love the Munchkin Snack Catcher cups though! I would also add the “Happi Tummi Colic and Gas Relief Waistband” with the drops. And, last but not least, in the clothing section, the most useful items for a newborn/infant are plain white onesies and sleep gowns for easier late night diaper changes.
I love the sleep sheep – great idea! Never tried the gas relief waistband – sounds like a great option! Thanks for stopping by!
I have been thinking of doing something similar for my friends that are planning to breast feed. I have a 10 week old and sent my mom out many times to pick stuff up after my daughter was born. Mom can’t be forgotten during this time.
I got something like this when my son (now 6) was born. It included, nail clipper, thermometer, baby tylenol, gas drops, Take and Toss cups (which we are still using by the way!) and a few other essentials but not cute stuff for new Mom’s. I was so impressed and thankful we had those things on hand that ever since then I have gotten the (as one Mom put it) non-cute shower gifts. All the new Mom’s have been so thankful for them and glad they received the things and most had been used so much more than the “cute” outfits. Great idea with the toy tub. I have used an infant bath tub to hold all the stuff too.
We mom’s have to look out for each other 🙂 Great idea with the baby tub!
I always use a Landry basket and line it with a fitted crib sheet
I add a Lingerie bag and shout wipe or clorox pen from the laundry section. The bag is great to keep next to the changing table to throw socks in so you don’t lose any of them.
I love that idea – wish I would have heard about that trick when my kids were babies 🙂
You are a genius with the baby wipes toy! Thanks for a great idea!!! My son is obsessed with getting into the wipes.