Anybody else lament for weeks or months about gifts? I just LOVE giving gifts. I aim to find something useful and special, but I’ve found it can be hard for babies and toddlers. A LOT of kids this age have SO MANY TOYS. Many moms are offloading and giving things away, there are constantly appealing Amazon Deals, and many opportunities from holidays to trips, to just because to buy things for your kids. It builds up and becomes overwhelming.
I think this became most evident for me when I held a 2nd birthday party for my son. We were so glad to start connecting with my son’s classmates almost 2 years into the pandemic and we were thankful for all the gifts we got. However, I didn’t expect the level of overwhelm I would feel staring down a table of gifts my son didn’t really know to open (all while holding my newborn too). I love giving a gift. I would not want to take that away from anyone, but I do try very hard not to add to that mom overwhelm when I give gifts. Here are some of my favorite gifts for littles! Feel free to share with grandma and grandpa too!
Experience Gifting
Gifting an experience is my favorite type of gift. This typically requires more coordination with the parent, but it produces no clutter for mom and facilitates lots of good memories with the family. Is there anything really better with littles than the gift of time with each other?
Zoo Membership
My favorite “Experience gift” is a membership to a local zoo. I’m a big fan of these and it is very easy to make the membership worth it for young families. It would typically only take 2 or 3 visits in a year to make the cost effective over individual tickets. This would be a great grandparent gift – depending on family size, it might cost around $200. If you’re giving a gift for a friend at school, it’d be a great idea to gift this together with the other parents (or just contribute part of the cost towards it) IF you know the family is interested in this. We LOVE our zoo membership and get great use out of it. It is nice even with younger babies that aren’t interested in animals yet. Its very easy to get out and go for a walk at the zoo and see some beautiful animals.
Local Museum (or museum membership)
Another experience gift I love is tickets (or membership) to local museums. We loved the Colorado Railroad Museum so much that we recently gifted some friends tickets for their birthday. Science museums tend to have great activities for kids – we have yet to check out the Denver Science museum but plan to soon! If you have a local activity that you’ve enjoyed with your kids, it can be a great gift for another family.
Gift Card for a Mom/Little Date
For a family you may not know as well or isn’t local, I love to gift a little Starbucks Gift Card (or something similar) and write that it is for a mommy/little date. It makes it easy to grab a coffee for mom/dad and maybe a little treat for the little. It creates an opportunity for a fun experience and no clutter.
Books
Books are the one thing that doesn’t feel like clutter in our house. We LOVE a new book. Bonus points for books that appeal to a newfound toddler interest. Here are a couple of our favorite types of books that have been gifted over the years:
- Touchy Feely Books are great for a first birthday (or baby around 1 year old)
- Truck book – my toddler still calls out trucks based on this book
- Things That Go – The flaps on this book are so fun (for the transportation lover)
- Ultimate Spotlight – all of these books are so interactive and cute
- Disney Stories – these are not 5 minutes, but captivate the Disney lover
- Goodnight Construction Site – great rhymes entertain kids and parents alike
- Little Blue Truck – first book we were ever gifted – sends a great message and love the tempo
One other special category of books I like to gift is books that relate to the parent. The Baby Loves book series highlights a lot of engineering/science based professions and is a great for babies. The Rosie Revere Series has a female based take on engineering/architecture professions that is great for older kids. There is a Goodnight Book for almost anything including colleges – great opportunity to find something the parents will get a kick out of reading.
Activity Based Clothing/Shoes
As kids get older, they tend to get into more activities. Grabbing gear for these activities is super useful. In the past, when other have asked for gift suggestions for my littles, I have asked for re-usable swim diapers, Hiking Shoes, or anything else like that! Asking the parent what activities their little is headed into is a great opportunity to get a thoughtful and useful gift.
What are your favorite gifts to give and receive? Let me know in the comments!