9 useful and practical gifts for mums with new babies

This post is part of the baby daze series. In the annual survey I ran last year, when I asked what topics did readers want me to cover, the baby stage came up as a popular one. Over the next month, I will be sharing some of my experiences with babies and some collective wisdom from the readers of Planning With Kids on adjusting and coping with life with a new baby. You can find more post in this series here.

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We have quite a few babies being born around us at the moment and I love celebrating the birth of a new baby by buying something that is useful and practical. This is especially the case when this is not the first baby. We often receive lots of beautiful outfits, which is lovely and often useful, but I try to buy something a little different than clothes when I can. And it seems that I am not on my own either with preferring to buy non-clothing related gifts for mums with new babies. I asked on facebook a couple of months ago the following question:

I think the most popular answer was actually home cooked food!  This will be the topic of another post, but there were also some great suggestions for useful and practical gifts. I have included some of them in my list below along with some of my personal favourites.

1. Baby care pack

BBD Baby range non 3D clear cut 640 One of my favourite gifts to give is a baby care pack, filled with beautiful products that will help clean and soothe baby without chemical nasties. My lovely blog sponsor ecostore have this area completely covered, so I will put together a pack that includes:

  • Baby body wash
  • Sleepytime bath
  • Baby moisturiser
  • Baby soap
  • Baby shampoo
  • Baby nappy cream

I often buy a nice wicker basket to place it all in as it then works as a cute storage device for babies things.

2. Baby first aid

baby first aid

While I don’t wish for anyone’s baby to be unwell, a baby first aid is so useful and not always something you think of as a new mum. It can include:

3. Baby bath pack

baby bath rest

I was lucky enough to receive a towel set for each of my babies. I loved having new soft towels for baby. A baby bath pack can include:

4.Baby feeding pack

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Often what we receive at birth is for using straight away. Something that can be used six months down the track can be incredibly helpful. Exactly what you put in your baby feeding pack will depend on the mum, but this is something I have put together before:

  • Food storage tins
  • Baby cutlery
  • Baby bowl
  • Baby bibs (ones that have long sleeves)
  • Freezer trays

5. Nappy service

Nappy service was suggested by reader Katey Milne and personally I found this was one of the best gifts I received, from my lovely in-laws for our first child. They provided a cloth nappy service for us for the first three months. It was perfect for allowing us to find our feet as new parents and still use cloth nappies.

I did try to find a cloth nappy service online for Melbourne, but struggled so not sure it they even still do this any more!  I did however find some fantastic environmentally friendly nappy options which could make great gifts:

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Eeenie’s compostable nappies

starter pack

Newborn prefold starter pack. As this is $299, this would be a great gift to purchase where you are buying as a group for a new mum.

 

6. Survival pack for parents

loving earth chocolate

The newspaper from that day as a keepsake for bub and a ‘survival pack’ for mum and dad… Nice coffee sachets and tea bickies, snacks, panadol, lollies. A anything to get through those night feeds and changes in the first few weeks.

This was a fantastic suggestion from Natalie Zwaan and one I am going to use for a friend who is having a baby soon. My survival pack will look like this:

7. An app

babies diary

I always send something useful like The Baby Diaries App (gifted through the App store)! Let’s mum & dad keep photo’s, milestones, daily routine (nappy, breast/bottle/solids) and sleep all in one place. Then i couple this with something cute for baby.

This was suggested by Tara O’Connell and was not something I had ever thought of. Obviously this is a gift for the tech minded mum. The description of The Baby Diaries App says:

Babies Diary is a community website for families and friends to securely share photos, videos and memories of their babies. Now you can use our new app to upload photos and video right from your phone, from anywhere and instantly share them with your specific friends and family. Your information is kept completely private and only available between you and those you choose to share with. The best part of all, it’s completely free.

For instructions on how you gift an app click here.

8. Clothes for mum

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This makes me sound super old I know, but there has been such a change in clothes for the breast-feeding mum over the last few years. When you are outlaying lots of cash for things for baby, often mums don’t buy for themselves, so a purchase of a handy feeding top or undergarment can be well received.

There are many online sellers to make this purchase easier as well like:

9. Baby sleeping items

grobag

Depending on your baby and there propensity to discharge fluids, you can find yourself changing baby’s cot very regularly. Potential baby sleeing gifts could be:

  • Cot linen
  • Baby sleeping bag
  • A night lamp
  • Electric oil burner and essential oils (this could be for mum’s sleeping too!)

ecostore baby pack giveaway

BBD Baby range non 3D clear cut 640

This giveaway has now closed!

And thanks to blog sponsor ecostore we have a fab baby care gift pack to giveaway to a lucky reader of Planning With Kids. While we should always care about the toxins we bring into the home, we need to be even more vigilant when we have babies in the house.

Did you know babies skin is actually 5 times thinner than adults? When you are an adult your skin has a dense protective barrier, but the fatty acids and elastic fibres can take up to 12 months to fully develop – making your baby’s skin super absorbent, all the way up to age one. You can read more about it in this post – Caring for your baby’s skin.

All ecostore’s products including their baby range are made from plant and mineral based ingredients from natural and or renewable resources whenever they can and the ingredients are biodegradable and have the lowest possible hazard rating in terms of environmental safety. ecostore founder Malcolm Rands will be talking on a panel at the Environmental Film Festival Melbourne discussing the topic “Are the thousands of untested chemicals in our environment linked to rising rates of cancer, infertility and autism?”

The panel will take place after a screening of The Human Experiment. The Human Experiment is a documentary directed by narrated and executive produced by Sean Penn, investigates the impacts of the thousands of untested chemicals in our everyday products, our homes and inside our bodies.

Take the time to watch the 2:15 minute trailer for the documentary – it is very powerful. {Click through here if you are reading via email to see the video.}

The Baby care pack from ecostore has products that contain no nasty chemicals and is valued at over $70. The pack includes:

  • Baby Shampoo 200ml
  • Baby Body Wash 200ml
  • Bubble Bath 200ml
  • Sleepytime Bath 200ml
  • Baby Moisturiser 200ml
  • Baby Soap 80g
  • Nappy Balm 60ml
  • Laundry Powder – Fragrance Free 1kg
  • Hand Wash 250ml
  • Hand Cream, Light 75ml
  • Lip Balm – Stick 4.5g

Terms and conditions

  • To enter simply comment below on how you try to reduce the toxins in your home.
  • The giveaway is open to Australian residents only and if you are from Melbourne, please note that in the comment as ecostore will also provide a double pass for the screening of The Human Experiment at the Kino Cinema on Sunday 7th September at 3pm for a winner who will be in Melbourne on that date.
  • The winner will be notified via email. You must have a valid email address to enter. If no response is received with 72 hours, a new winner will be selected.
  • The give away will close Friday 29th August 2014.
  • Please see full terms and conditions here.