Christmas Gifts for Expecting Parents, Sorted by Due Date Instead of Cuteness | Bluegrass Gifts

The Tree Skirt Fills Up With Onesies, and Nobody Brings Supper

Christmas gifts for expecting parents tend to come in one shape: small, soft and sized for somebody who has not arrived yet. By the time the paper is cleared away, the couple owns a stack of tiny outfits, three stuffed lambs and the question they started December with: how to get through the next few months.

The best Christmas gifts for expecting parents match the due date: meals and practical help for a baby due around the holidays or in winter, help with the room for a baby due later. Anything with the baby's name on it waits until the parents share the name.

That last part is where our carved kids name sign, the Christmas gift for expecting parents that waits on the name, comes in. It carves the name in a friendly script as EMMA'S ROOM, with a crescent moon and scattered stars in the corners and DREAM BIG, LITTLE ONE, or your own line, along the bottom.

Most gift lists for this run to twenty-one ideas or fifty, mostly gear the registry already covers. This guide sorts it two other ways: by when the baby is due, because a February baby and a July baby need different things, and by whether the name has been shared, which decides whether anything with a name on it belongs under the tree yet.

Christmas Gifts for Expecting Parents, Sorted by Due Date

Here is the cheat sheet. Find their due date, shop that row first, and leave the cute stuff to whoever is throwing the shower.

Due before Christmas, or right around it. The baby may beat Santa to the house, so think about the next two weeks, not the next two years.

• Freezer suppers, labeled on the lid with the dish and how to warm it.
• A gas card and small bills for the parking garage.
• A phone cord long enough to reach from the outlet to the bed.
• A promise to feed the dog, or keep it for the week, on a phone call's notice.
• A porch drop instead of a visit: supper by the door, a text from the driveway.

Due in January, February or March. Christmas lands in the heavy, tired stretch, and the first weeks home fall in the coldest part of the year.

• A month of suppers on a sign-up sheet, one family a night.
• A standing grocery run: same day each week, their list, your car.
• Driveway and windshield duty for the first ice storm.
• Laundry picked up and brought back folded for the first two weeks home.

Due in spring or summer. They still have plans and some energy, and the nursery is an empty room with a paint swatch taped to the wall.

• A Saturday of help putting the room together; you bring the screwdriver and lunch.
• One last night out as a twosome, the check already paid.
• A share of the one big registry item nobody else will buy.
• A card promising a name sign, ordered the week they share the name.

Name chosen and shared, any due date. This is the only row where something with the baby's name belongs under the tree. A carved sign for the door or the wall fits here, and it will still be up long after the newborn outfits have gone to a cousin.

◆ From the Workshop: The name on this sign is set in a friendly script, not one of the thin, swooping wedding scripts, and that is on purpose. Before a design goes to the machine we check it stroke by stroke, because a line thinner than about a tenth of an inch carves shallow and sands away, so every letter, the moon and each star is drawn heavy enough to survive. The moon and stars are carved in the same pass as the name, from the same board, so nothing is glued on to work loose. The carve cuts through the finish into clean grain, which is why the name reads in bare wood without a drop of paint.

The Christmas Gifts for Expecting Parents Nobody Wraps: Help, Meals and Sleep

Ask a couple a few months from their due date what they want and you will hear “nothing, really.” Ask what would help, and the answers come quicker and sound alike from house to house: help, meals, rest, and, once the name is settled, something for the room.

Help works when it is specific. “Let us know if you need anything” hands the asking back to two tired people. “We are taking your trash to the curb every Thursday until spring” does not. Put the offer on a card with a day on it, and it becomes a gift instead of a favor they feel awkward calling in.

Meals are the easiest of the four to give well. Use containers you never want back, write the dish and the warming directions on the lid, and skip anything fussy. Something plain and hot by six o'clock beats an ambitious dish that needs assembling.

Sleep cannot be wrapped, but time can. A card promising a Saturday afternoon with the baby at your kitchen table, or an older sibling at your house overnight, buys them a few hours to lie down. Let them pick the date.

The room is the only one of the four you can hold, and the only one that has to wait on the parents: a nursery color can change twice before the due date, and a name can change in the delivery room. If this is your first grandbaby on the way, we wrote some honest advice for first-time grandparents, including the practical adjustments nobody mentions.

If the Name Is Still a Secret, Here Is What We Would Do

Plenty of parents keep the name to themselves until the baby arrives, and some do not settle on one until they have seen the baby's face. That is their call, and a gift that pries the name loose is not much of a gift. Christmas dinner in front of the whole family is not the place to ask.

In your shoes, we would take one of three honest routes:

• Wait until they share it. Give the practical gift from their row now, and order the sign the week the name goes public.
• Give it after the baby comes. A name sign makes a good homecoming present, or a first-Christmas present a year from now.
• Give a card that promises it. Wrap a plain card for the tree that says what is coming, and order once the name is out.

For the card, leave a blank where the name will go: “One carved sign for the baby's room. Name to be filled in by the two people who get to choose it.” When the name does come out, copy the spelling from their own text, not from memory. There are a good many ways to spell Kaylee, and the parents hold firm opinions on every one.

Once the Name Is Out: A Moon, Some Stars and a Line Along the Bottom

Printed nursery decor ages out fast. Carved wood does not, because on this sign the name is the design: it reads sweet over a crib and still right over a bunk bed, and the twenty finishes run from soft White Paint to Dark Walnut as the room grows up around it.

You type the child's first name on the product page, up to twelve letters, and it is carved as NAME'S ROOM. Then you type the bottom line, up to twenty-six characters, and watch both appear on the board. A real person reads every order before anything meets the saw, spelling checked against what you typed, because a misspelled name in wood cannot be fixed with a backspace. A few bottom lines that fit:

• DREAM BIG, LITTLE ONE: the sample line, still true at sixteen.
• SWEET DREAMS, LITTLE ONE: the soft one.
• OUR CHRISTMAS BLESSING: for a December baby.
• WANTED, PRAYED FOR, LOVED: for the couple who waited a long time.
• THE WAIT WAS WORTH IT: the same couple, with a grin.
• BORN IN THE BLUEGRASS: a Kentucky baby, wherever they end up.
• NIGHT NIGHT, SLEEP TIGHT: the old bedtime line, minus the bedbugs.
• SMALL BUT MIGHTY: for the one already kicking like a mule.
• EST. 2027: once the baby has settled which year.

Pick the size by where it will go. The Small 16" x 3.5" at $30.00 fits most bedroom doors with room to spare. The Medium 24" x 5.5" ($55) anchors the wall over the crib or bed. The Large 30" x 7.25" ($80) has the length for a long playroom wall or a reading corner, where the stars earn their keep at story time. A sawtooth hanger comes installed.

We are a small Kentucky shop with 5,000+ customer reviews, and we carve these signs on a CNC machine in our shop, on one face of a solid board: pine for the stain finishes, poplar for the paints. Every one ships free in the U.S. We wrote about personalized family gifts that actually get kept, and the short version is that the ones on a hard surface outlast the ones that fold. If an older brother or sister is about to share the spotlight, carve their door a sign the same day: the rest of our personalized signs work the same way, and any two signs earn up to 20% off at checkout.

Put the freezer suppers and the gas card under the tree this year. Then, the day they say the name out loud, type it into our kids name sign with the carved moon and stars and see it on the board, spelled their way.

Frequently Asked Questions

What to get expecting parents for Christmas?

Match the gift to the due date: for a baby due around Christmas, give freezer suppers, a gas card and a promise to mind the dog; for a winter baby, labeled meals and a standing grocery run; for a spring or summer baby, a Saturday of help with the nursery and one last night out. Once the parents have shared the name, a keepsake for the room fits any due date. Our Kids Name Sign carves that name with a crescent moon and stars, from $30.00 with free shipping in the U.S.

What do expecting parents need?

Expecting parents mostly need the things that are hard to buy in the last weeks before a baby: help with chores, suppers they do not have to cook, a few hours of rest, and fewer decisions to make before the baby arrives. A specific offer, like Tuesday suppers for a month, beats a general offer of help they would have to call in. The gear is usually on their registry, so read it before you shop, and save anything with the baby's name for after they share it.

Can you give a kids name sign before the baby is born?

Yes, once the parents have told you the name and are happy for it to be out; until then, wrap a card that promises the sign and order it when they share the name, or give it after the baby comes home. The sign is carved from the name you type on the product page, and a real person checks the spelling against what you typed before anything meets the saw. The Small 16" x 3.5" ($30.00) fits most bedroom doors, and the Medium 24" x 5.5" ($55) anchors the wall over the crib or bed.