Most baby shower gifts are outgrown within a few months. New parents end up with a drawer of tiny clothes and three of the same blanket. The gifts they remember are the ones that are personal, the ones that last, and the ones that make the first weeks easier.
This is the one we make. My Star… is a 32-page illustrated book about one child, written from the exact date, time and place of their birth. It describes their personality, feelings, talents and needs, and it speaks to the parents by name. Facing every page for the parents is a page in the child's own voice.
It arrives by email within one business day, as a page-turning flipbook and a printable PDF. That makes it a good choice for a newborn gift too, once the birth details are known. You can flip through a sample first.
Giving it at the shower, before the baby is born? The book needs the birth details, so it can't be written ahead of time. You can give a card promising the book, and order it once the baby arrives.
Ask each guest to write a short letter to the child: one to open on the first day of school, one at ten, one at eighteen. Collect them in a box. It costs almost nothing and it becomes more valuable every year.
Ask any new parent what they needed most and the answer is usually food and sleep. A delivery gift card, or a rota of friends who each drop off dinner, is used immediately and remembered for a long time.
A sturdy box for the hospital bracelet, the first hat, the first lock of hair and the cards from the shower. Parents rarely buy one for themselves, and then wish they had.
A height chart that hangs on the wall and moves house with the family. Unlike pencil marks on a door frame, it comes along when they move.
Everyone buys newborn sizes. Clothes for six to twelve months, in the right season, are the ones that actually get worn. It is less exciting to wrap and much more useful.
Parents take thousands of photos in the first year and print almost none. A prepaid photo book gives them a reason to choose the best ones.
Five or six board books chosen with care, each with a note inside the cover from the person who gave it. Books are read hundreds of times in the first years, and the notes are read again much later.
A simple rule: pick something that is either used in the first month or kept for twenty years. The gifts in between are the ones that end up in the drawer.
My Star… is written for one child only, from the exact moment they were born. From $27.20, delivered digitally within one business day.
Order My Star