Parenting & New Baby Advice Blog

Like Oprah always says, being a stay at home Mom is the hardest job in the world. She’s right – Mom’s work hard and deserve a break every now and again. Likely you have a circle of friends or group of Moms that you’d like to get to know better so schedule a Mom’s Night Out and let the fun begin! Once you try it, you’ll be setting up Mom’s nights at least once a month so that you can get out of the house, bond with and get validation from other Mothers in the same situation, have some adult interaction and build long-lasting relationships. Get Dad to watch the kids or hire a babysitter so you get the much needed break that you need to rejuvenate. Try some of these great and affordable ideas to kick off Mom’s Night Out.

1.     Go to the Spa or host a spa party where you give each other manicures

2.      Have a Bunco dice game or group game night.

3.      Go out to a local dinner theater or see a musical show

4.      Throw a pool party or backyard barbecue

5.      Have a dessert or progressive dinner night

6.      Go bowling

7.      Go to a movie or watch a DVD at someone’s home

8.      Do an outdoor activity like biking, canoeing, walking in the park, etc.

9.      Start a book club and have a book discussion

10.   Go to a comedy club show

Share your ideas for Mom’s Night Out on the Mom & Motherhood Forum at Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets.

This time when your sister, girlfriend or co-worker has a baby, give them something different and fun. After all, they probably will receive more clothes and toys than they’ll know what to do with. These ingenious and memorable gifts will be appreciated by the new parents.

 2 Week Dinner Circle - We all know that the first few weeks are so overwhelming that they just go by in one big blur so during this period of adjustment for Mom & Dad, put together a plan for your group of friends to cook dinner and dessert to bring to the family each day. This gift does double duty by relieving Mom of the daily grind of cooking and by giving her a chance to have some adult interaction with her friends. It is a great excuse for you to stop in a make sure that she is doing OK. Depending on how close the friends are, they could stay for dinner and then clean up to do the dishes or a little housework for an extra special treat.

Diaper Service Gift Certificate - When it comes to giving gifts to welcome the new baby to the world, giving the gift of time can be the greatest gift of all. Having a baby can be very stressful and takes a great deal of time. Diaper services can help relieve some of this stress so give the new parents a gift certificate for a week or two of services to help get them over the adjustment period hump. They have the option of extending the services as long as they’d like. They might love this gift so much that they’ll extend it until baby is potty-trained!

Disposable Diapers - Diapers might not seem like a great gift, but with the astronomical cost of diapers these days, this is a practical gift that will surely get rave reviews. If you’d like to dress the diapers up a bit and really turn them into a unique gift, you can make a diaper cake using instructions from someone like WikiHow or buy one online from Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets. Diaper cakes are beautiful, yet practical, gifts that are constructed from usable items so that nothing is wasted.

Photography Gift Certificate - Grandparents and family members love getting pictures of the little one so why not give a gift that’ll help offset the cost of professional photography? Places like Sears, Wal-mart and JCPenney have great package deals for baby photographs so buy a gift certificate to one of these photo studios and wrap it up with a beautiful 8″ x 10″ photo frame for a beautiful and unique gift that will certainly be used and enjoyed by all.

Going to a baby shower or giving a congratulatory gift to the new parents? Toys are a great gift option, but make sure that the toy you select will actually be used by baby and not tucked in a corner never to be seen again. Choosing that perfect toy can be difficult without some guidance so here is a list of some sure fire winners. All of these fantastic finds can be purchased at Amazon.com. And one of the best things about Amazon.com is that you can see customer reviews from Mom & Dad’s who have received the product.

1)      Gymini Super Deluxe Light and Music by Tiny Love ~$55

This colorful 32” square activity mat features a soft cushioned where baby can lay on their back to play with the items hanging from the two overhead curved arches. The animal and bird hanging items that make unique sounds such as a parrot whose wings crinkle and a monkey that rattles. Music and lights complete this fun package for baby. And best of all, this durable activity mat is super-portable, folding nearly flat for travel.

2)      Ocean Wonders Aquarium by Fisher Price ~$60

Designed to help baby fall asleep, the Ocean Wonders Aquarium attaches directly to baby’s crib. Calming music, the sound of bubbles and swimming fish will have baby snoozing in no time. And when naptime or nighttime is over, baby will have a great time playing with this toy as they spin the starfish or open up the clams. You can choose the music setting for either playtime or naptime.

3)      Baby Einstein Caterpillar Discover & Play Entertainer ~$80

Designed to entertain and stimulate baby, this stand-up activity center features nine different interactive toys all within reach of baby’s hands as the seat swivels a full 360 degrees. The intriguing colors, shapes, textures and sounds will keep baby engaged for long periods of time and help them learn to distinguish between them. The push button animals make realistic sounds. Other learning items are a shape tower, hand puppet, spinning toys and books. They’ll be entertained for hours at a time.

4)      Multi-Sensory Clutch Cube by Learning Curve ~$15

An affordable toy gift option, this brightly colored soft cube is ideal for young babies (from 1 month and up). The bright colors, various textures, peek-a-boo flaps, clinking rings and jingling chimes will hold their attention for hours and improve the child’s hand-eye coordination. The cube is scented like apple for some reason.

5)      Tiny Love Trio ~$23

Another affordable gift option for younger babies, this unique set of 3 colorful toys stimulates baby’s motor skills as they learn to rattle, pull, grasp and more. The super-portable size makes this toy trio great for Moms on-the-go.

Does your newborn baby have a favorite toy? Share your toy information with other parents on the Toy Discussion Forum at Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets.

Choosing the baby shower theme is one of the most important aspects of throwing a baby shower. After all, the theme sets the mood for the entire baby shower. From the invitations, plates and napkins to the balloons, centerpieces and favors – the theme will show through everywhere. While some shower hosts might prefer not to have a theme, they may want to reconsider as even a simple theme like pink or blue will give the shower a cohesive effect and make it appear well organized. Some of the most popular shower themes are:

• It’s A Boy or It’s A Girl – This shower theme focuses on the color schemes often associated with baby boys and baby girls, blue and pink.

• Moon & Star – One great idea is to ask guests to bring lullaby and sleep or bedtime gifts. Many online companies sell moon & star themed items from balloons to dinnerware to moon-shaped bath salt party favors.

• Yellow Ducky – The ducky themed shower offers many interesting possibilities for displaying duckies. One fun and unique idea is to float some little yellow rubber duckies in the party punch bowl. You can even color the punch blue to make it look like the ducks are floating on a pond. Shop online for duck themed plates, napkins and invitations. How about playing duck, duck, gray duck for one of the shower games? They’ll think you are ever so clever.

• Nursery Rhyme – From Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to Baa Baa Black Sheep to Humpty Dumpty, there are tons of options for invitations, decorations and food at a nursery rhyme themed shower. You can decorate with nursery rhyme books that can be given to Mom as a gift after the shower. During game time, you could make up game sheets that list lines from various nursery rhymes. Give your guests a few minutes to guess what nursery rhyme the line comes from.

• Peas In A Pod – Perfect for twins or multiples, this shower theme plays well with the two peas in a pod (or three peas in a pod) theme. A green color scheme should dominate the shower and pea themed items such as balloons and plates can be purchased online. Several companies sell pea pod bath bomb party favors. For dessert, consider making a pea pod cake out of a 13” x 9” rectangular cake that is cut and shaped to look like a pea pod. Then bake two (for twins) or three (for triplets) cupcakes that you remove from their wrappers and frost completely in green frosting with green sugar sprinkles. Place them on the pea pod to look like peas and decorate with piped green frosting to make the plant tendrils.

• Noah’s Ark – Perfect for twins because Noah loaded the ark two by two so everything comes in pairs. When making the food for the party, make two of everything: two bowls of chips, two plates of sandwiches, etc. For desert, bake cupcakes that you decorate with frosting and candles to look like various animals – be sure to have two of each (e.g. monkeys, elephants, pandas, frogs, lions). Serve animal crackers to munch on. Use pairs of stuffed animals to decorate for the party. You can find Noah’s Ark themed party supplies at most local party stores or online. For favors, do it yourself by giving animal crackers or other little animal themed gifts or shop online for things like Noah’s Ark photo frames or themed chocolate bars.

• Sports – When a bouncing baby boy is on the way, this shower theme is the perfect play (especially if Dad is a sports junkie). Use ball shaped invitations and say something about an “All Star Baby Shower” or “Welcome The All Star Slugger Shower” if you want it all baseball themed. Decorate with sports equipment, team pennants, baseball hats, big foam fingers, etc. Of course, the cake should be a sports ball. You can buy sports themed serving pieces and favors at your local party supply shop or online.

• Little Prince or Princess – The royalty will soon arrive so decorate the party so it is fit for the King and Queen to visit. Mom’s chair should look like a throne and give her a crown or tiara to wear during the party. Decorate with wands, crowns, tiaras and more. If you want to go all out, you could make some cardboard castle walls too.

• Pitter Patter – Soon Mom & Dad will be hearing the pitter patter of feet so throwing a baby feet themed shower is a great idea. Decorate in pink, blue and white. Give Mom a sock corsage and make sure that she receives a baby footprint kit as a gift. Try the baby feet lollipop centerpiece and baby shower favors from Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets to make the event even more festive.

• Frog – From Froggy themed invitations to balloons to plates, you can find tons of frog-themed baby shower supplies online. For food, think about serving a frog shaped cake or grasshopper pie. Since green will be the color scheme, you could serve green jello and green M & M’s as snacks. Frog themed diaper cakes would be an excellent centerpiece that you can give to the parents-to-be as their shower gift. If your guests are adventurous, how about a game of leapfrog? If not, you could buy some fake flies and do a ‘guess how many flies in the jar’ game.

Share your favorite baby shower theme or other baby tips on the new Baby Discussion Forum sponsored by Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets.

Instead of sending out the same old card-style birth announcement like all of your other friends and family members who have had babies, spread word of the new arrival with one of these unique birth announcement ideas. These announcements will have them oohing and aahing over your ingenuity. Of course, if you want to stick with the ever popular card-style birth announcements that feature the baby’s name, birth date and weight along with a photo, just do a quick search on the web to find one of the many internet stores that sell this type of announcement. However if you are up for something fun and different, here you go:

1) Cookie Birth Announcements from Cookie Gift Baskets.com. It’s like getting two gifts and one – a unique outline of all the baby details along with an edible photo cookie that the recipient can savor. We can’t think of a sweeter way to announce the new little baby boy or girl. You just send in a digital image of baby and they’ll print it on edible paper that is adhered to an extra large fresh-baked cookie. You can choose frosting colors and ribbon colors to match the photo or gender of the baby.

2) Candy Wrapper Announcements from Welcome Baby or another candy wrapper vendor. These candy wrappers are available in numerous colors and themes ranging from Noah’s Ark to Yellow Duckies. You can even get a photo of your little one added to some of these customized wrappers that also include the baby’s information like name, weight and birthdate. What a sweet way to announce the arrival of your little sweetie pie! Usually the vendor prints the labels on glossy paper which is then wrapped around the chocolate bar of your choice – milk, dark, Ghirardelli mint, milk chocolate and almond, etc. Mailers are often available so that you can either drop these birth announcements in the mail or hand them out to friends and family.

3) Coffee & Tea Birth Announcements from Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets. Whether you’ve had a sweet little baby girl, bouncing baby boy or set of twins, this company has a coffee or tea packet that is appropriately themed. Pink stripes, blue stripes, baby carriages and teddy bears are just a few of the motifs available to let your friends and family know the big news. Each coffee or tea packet includes the baby’s name and birthdate. They even have an adorable ‘New Additions To Our Line’ theme that is perfect for multiples. Again, these fun and unique announcements can either be dropped in the mail or given out by hand.

4) Baby Announcement Photo Magnets from The Magnet Queen. These unique birth announcements will be displayed on the refrigerators of friends and family for years. They won’t soon forget your child’s birthday! Each magnet is customized with the child’s photo along with their birth information and name (that you supply). Magnets are available in numerous sizes and come with matching envelopes making it easy to send them via the US Postal Service.

5) Personalized Honey Jars from Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets. These little jars are literally the sweetest birth announcement available! Small glass jars are filled with pure clover honey and then a custom label featuring the baby’s name and birthdate is applied to make these announcements extra special. Numerous colors and themes are available including a clever ‘Bee Loved’ jar with a bee carrying a bundle of joy on the label.

Add your favorite Birth Announcement Idea or join the discussion on our DIY Baby Announcements message board.

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