How to Select a Gift for a Newborn Girl

After selecting a gender-neutral gift for the baby shower, the long-awaited event has arrived, and it's a girl! Now it's time to go nuts selecting the perfect gift for the precious newborn, and you can have so much more fun shopping because you now know whom you are choosing a gift for. Get your checkbook ready and think pink!

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Do some sleuthing and find out what the parents still need. Even if a shower was given for the parents before their baby girl was born, chances are that they received duplicates of certain items or don't have enough clothes. Once you find out what kind of a gift is the best choice, you can then buy the item tailored to a newborn girl.
2. Get personal. This is a huge trend in baby gift-giving today and is the perfect alternative to a more generic gift. You know her name and birthday, and you can find out her birth weight and the time she was born. This information can be engraved or stitched upon just about any item, from picture frames to beautiful baby blankets.
3. Send a gift basket. If you can't decide on just one particular item, check with boutiques or search the Internet for companies who specialize in putting together wonderful gift baskets. Let the store or company know that the basket is for a newborn girl, and it will include rattles, bibs, combs, brushes and other items in shades of pink, purple and yellow.
4. Consider a traditional keepsake. While not exactly practical for new parents of a baby girl, a keepsake gift is sure to bring smiles and kept for generations to come in her baby box. Gifts such as silver baby mugs or rattles can also be personalized with her name and birthday.
5. Utilize your own gifts for gifts. Can you knit or crochet? Are you an accomplished seamstress? Do you love to scrapbook? These are talents that you can put to use to give a personalized gift for a newborn girl. Make sweater sets or blankets in pretty pastels, or offer to sew the newborn's christening gown. New parents are tired, overwhelmed and busy, so you can ask for doubles of all the great pictures that are being taken and put together a terrific scrapbook for the family to treasure.

Tips & Warnings

• If you decide to make a scrapbook, you can put it together over the course of the newborn girl's first year and present it to the parents at her first birthday party.
• If you can't think of anything that particularly suits the parents' needs, get them a gift certificate, offer to babysit and let them get out for a few hours to shop.
• When choosing a pretty outfit, buy in size 3 months or larger. She probably has a lot of newborn onesies and outfits and will soon be wearing the next size.