New Baby Gifts: Three Piles and What Goes Where

This piece is a map. Each pile has its own rules, and individual types of gifts have articles of their own.

Before you buy anything, sort it into one of the three piles. Most disappointment comes from aiming at one pile and hitting another.

A newborn needs surprisingly few things and gets through a lot of them. Which is exactly why it pays to buy ahead and buy big.

In the first weeks the scarce commodities are time and food, not another object. This pile tends to be the least showy and the one parents remember most.

The third pile is the only one that makes sense even if the child doesn't notice it for years. You can spot it with one simple test: is it still worth having if it doesn't get used at all this year? A footprint, jewellery with a date, a letter in a sealed envelope or a book with the child's name in it — none of them clutter up the flat, and in ten years they'll be the only things left from that whole heap.

Two things can ruin a keepsake even when the intention is good. The first is unfinished work: a print kit that an exhausted parent has to make at three in the morning stays in its box — more on that in the piece on how to make a print and keep it. The second is a botched inscription: an engraving with a misspelt name or the wrong date can't be fixed, which is exactly why jewellery with a name and date gets an article of its own.

A book where the child is the hero counts as a keepsake too. With a newborn, it's only fair to spell out how it works: they get nothing out of it themselves and will spend the first couple of years chewing it. It makes sense either as something waiting for the child on the bookshelf, or — and this is usually the smarter play — as a gift for the older sibling, with a new character added: the baby. The three-year-old brother gets something of his own at the moment when everything else belongs to the newborn. At Hero of the Book the illustration is created from a single uploaded photo, so the hero really looks like that particular child, the name is typeset correctly throughout the story, and it's a one-off purchase — no subscription.

And a warning that belongs in this pile: with a personalized book, check the spelling of the name first. Isabelle, Isabel, Sophie, Sofie — the name runs through the whole story and the dedication, so you'll be reading that typo over and over. Think about who the book is addressed to, as well: gift-givers often enter the newborn's name, even though it's the older sibling who'll actually be opening it. And bear in mind that before you pay you'll see a draft title, a story sample and the dedication — but not the finished illustrations; those are created from the photo you upload. If you're writing a dedication, it's worth thinking it through — what to write in a dedication is a chapter in its own right.

Duplicate gifts don't come from stinginess or indifference — they come from being too shy to ask. Here's the order of steps that sorts it in one evening.

The hardest part of coordinating gifts is the first message. These are written so they don't boss anyone around, and you can send them as they are.

Some newborn gifts sell precisely because they photograph well. The NHS recommends keeping the cot clear: no pillows, duvets, bumpers, loose blankets, soft toys or so-called nests and positioners meant to hold the baby in place. The American Academy of Pediatrics gives the same advice in its safe sleep guide. So a decorative bedding set with a bumper, or a big soft toy in the cot, isn't a gift for the baby — it's decoration for adults.

With toys, look at two things. The "not suitable for children under 36 months" mark (the crossed-out face in a circle) isn't an age recommendation, it's a warning about small parts that can be swallowed — and it still applies when the toy is in the cot "just for decoration" and an older sibling picks it up. The second thing is provenance: toy safety rules in the EU rest on the Toy Safety Directive and the CE mark, but with products from marketplaces outside the EU nobody guarantees the mark reflects reality. Specific recalled products can be looked up in the European Safety Gate rapid alert system.

The last category isn't dangerous, just pointless: perfumes and cosmetics for newborns, sets of ten garments all in the same size, giant soft toys over a metre tall, and anything that needs batteries and plays a tune. A full rundown, including why people buy this stuff, is in the piece on what to avoid with a small child.