The Gift Exchange

Is the new mom you know emotional these days? You will definitely bring her to tears with this gift. Tears of joy that is! The Motherhood Mirror for a New Mother is not only beautiful, but incredibly touching. It is designed for the new mom and her baby girl. It comes with a tri fold box that has a little story about a mother and daughter and their relationship. It also contains a poem from daughter to mother. Also included is a compact mirror in the shape of a heart. One side comes engraved with the word Mother. You can also have the other side engraved with whatever personalized message you would like! The best part about it is the price, 39.95 including the engraving!

Do you ever wonder why your child screams when you put him to bed? How about why they are obsessed with their pacifier at naptime? Well I may have a little insight for you.

It’s important that when your baby is young (3-6 months) you create a bedtime routine for them. This includes putting your baby in it’s own bed, awake. Now I know how tempting it is to cuddle up next to Junior in your nice big bed, but this is part of the reason bad bedtime habits occur. For instance, if you are always rocking your baby to sleep while it is feeding, he or she will always want to be with you and sucking on a pacifier or bottle at bedtime. Once you think they are old enough to sleep by themselves, they don’t want to. It’s out of their comfort zone. If you have a daily routine and consistently put your baby to bed on it’s own they will begin to “self-soothe.” They become accustomed to putting themselves to sleep without need of a rocking chair or pacifier. Make sure your routine consists of at least 2 activities that you do every night, also make sure bed time is the same time each night. Consistency will eventually plant a trigger in your babies head that it is bedtime. If your routine is bath time then a book, by the time you get to the book your baby will naturally become drowsy as they know it’s bed time.

Another great tool that a lot of parents employ is some sort of soothing noise, and no I don’t mean one of those obnoxious mobiles. Some parent use CD’s, I suggest the Lullaby Lamb with Nature Sounds. This cozy little lamb has a variety of soothing noised to choose from, along with a volume adjustment and a timer. Can’t beat that! Remember that a baby that self soothes is more likely to be able to go back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night. I promise, you will thank yourself later!

Remember back in the day when you were a kid, wandering down the street with your friends and you come across some freshly poured concrete and you absolutely can not resist planting your hand right in it? Did you ever put your initials or the date next to it? I did, as a matter of fact as a kid my parents laid a slab of concrete in our back yard and all of us kids put our handprints with the date and names next to it. We’ve all long moved away and I often think about that place with all of our memories. When I have kids I want to be able to produce those same memories, although I don’t want to have to leave them behind. I was browsing through our New Baby Gift Ideas and came across the Baby Handprint Tower. We had a similar gift for as long as I can remember, but this is a new one with an updated look! These are great for preserving your little ones prints for 3 different uses. Capture those little digits in these cute little tins full of nontoxic plaster. The best part is that they travel.

Crystal Taves, Customer Service Representative

I got so excited when I saw our new Lullaby Lamb with Nature Sounds!  I even want one for myself. I love hearing the rain and that’s one of the sound options. I also know a couple of expecting mothers who will love this. What a great gift for new moms. Not only is it soft and cuddly, it has 4 options: Mothers heartbeat, spring showers, ocean waves and whale songs. It even has a convenient timer so it’s not playing all night long, just long enough to lull baby to sleep. It has a velcro strap so you can anchor it to the crib and most important, the batteries are included. So for all the fussy babies and new moms-to-be, this is the perfect gift to help promote a great night’s sleep.

Not only does GiftTree have a large selection of unique baby gifts, we also have a a nice selection of gifts that contain the necessities of child rearing. I think that the most complete of these is the Baby Basics. This gift includes baby shampoo, baby powder, baby wipes as well as onesies a teddy bear and a rattle among a bunch of other things! These items are packed away in a comfy cozy blanket in a cute little wicker basket. You have to know what’s coming though because you have to pick between pink or blue. If the little bundle of joy is yet to be determined there are some similar items with the essentials of child care that are free of pink and blue such as the Little Froggy Bath Tote.

So my cousin got married last year to the sweetest girl I think I’ve ever met! Now this blissfully happy couple is having a baby. We have so many fun baby gifts here it’s hard to decide what to get them. That’s where you come in. I need your help. Please give me some suggestions! So here’s a little background, to give you an idea. We spent many a holiday at each others houses. There were a gang of cousins, about 8 give or take the holiday or year. We were all pretty close when we were kids. Not so much now, but I still want to get them something really nice and original. With such a large family they will get lots of stuff. So, go to our New Baby Gifts page and give me some ideas! Oh and we don’t know if it’s a boy or girl yet, I’ll keep you posted….
Thanks!

How many times did you feel around in the dark under your kids pillow for that tooth? Trying to capture the elusive tooth beneath the pillow and artfully replace it with money without waking your child can sometimes be quite the undertaking. With that being said, you really need to get the Twinkle Twinkle Engraved Tooth Fairy Box. For yourself or a dear friend that is expecting or has a child about to lose some teeth. It has a string attached to it so it is easily found under the pillow.

There have been so many books and children’s stories about the tooth fairy it’s hard to count. The tooth fairy actually started out in the early 1900’s as the “Good Fairy” with a professional specialization. The tale was the same as today, she would take the tooth from under the pillow and exchange it for a gift. It wasn’t always money at that time. Sometimes a small token gift of some sort and more commonly candy. The first children’s story about the tooth fairy surfaced in 1949. From then on it spread like wildfire. Fortunately for all of us the Tooth Fairy is not encumbered by a mythos, therefore she has no religious, racial or holiday affiliation. We can all enjoy her!

Read the rest of this entry »

Need something BIG? We have it! Don’t you hate it when you have a group of people pool their funds together to get their friend or co-worker a new baby gift and you end up with so much money you have to get a bunch of gifts in separate boxes and none of it goes together? Well, check out the Mother Goose Tower in our New Baby Gifts section! This thing has something for everyone in it. The very top tower is filled with candles, bath salts, tea, shower gel and lotion for Mom & Dad to enjoy. The middle box is filled with an assortment of organic cotton sleepwear. It also has a super cute picture frame with a first tooth and first curl box. I’ve never seen anything like that before. The very bottom has a cuddle bear for the new baby to cozy up to at night while wearing his new pj’s! Even the boxes are cute. They are hat box style containers with Mother Goose characters on them. Perfect for storing anything!

Everybody has that one pregnant friend that doesn’t want to know the sex of her unborn child. Boo!! That really makes gift giving difficult sometimes. GiftTree has a really great selection of neutral gifts that can be given whether that little one is a boy or a girl. There are 2 in particular that I really like. They actually match so you can purchase them both for a larger gift or separately if you are on a budget. Baby’s Box of Socks comes in this cute little keepsake box that has a picture of a duck, with 6 pair of yellow sox in different patterns. It goes perfectly with Just Ducky Bath Set. This little yellow suitcase includes a cotton hooded towel for bath time, and a matching wash mitt. You can’t go wrong with yellow! If you need something neutral and can’t stand the thought of yellow, check out our selection of new baby gifts just like this, but not yellow.

So, I was reading about another new study. Infants that don’t get enough sleep are more likely to suffer from childhood obesity. I guess babies that get less than 12 hours of sleep per day, between birth and 3 years of age, are at the highest risk of a slew of issues including obesity and aggression. The crazy thing about it is that the Mother, simply trying to bond with or soothe their baby during sleep, may be part of the problem. So next time you want to goo-goo over your baby when they are sleeping, cover them up with the Pea Pod Swaddling Blanket and Bear to keep them nice and cozy and let them have their nap time in peace.