I have had baby showers on my mind. Don’t worry Mom, I am not pregnant again. This may have to do with the upcoming baby showers I will be attending. But I attend baby showers all the time, so really it may just be the season. I mean, Spring is coming up, and that is the season for fertility. It is also the season for a lot of other stuff… but those are like five different posts that have nothing to do with baby showers , so  we will get into that later.

I have been doing my baby shower shopping (because I have leaving things for last minute). Now, none of the lovely women who will having baby showers are first time mommies, which means they already know what they want or need. They also already have the big ticket items. But nevertheless there are a few essentials that are welcome to most baby showers.

Most baby showers have a diaper raffle, where everyone brings diapers, gets a ticket and someone wins a prize of some sort. Even if there is no diaper raffle, diapers are always welcome. A diaper cake is just a super decorative way of bringing diapers. Also, depending on what you got, you can put most, if not all, of your gifts inside the “cake” for an added surprise. If you have no idea what I am talking about, thisis what a diaper cake is.

It takes time. I remember the first few I ever made. They were horrible. I practically wanted to cry. Now, I do a pretty good job. In fact, people request them. So if yours doesn’t come out the way you wanted. Don’t give up. Keep at it. If you are nothing like me, and don’t attend 523 baby showers a year, which means you won’t have time to practice and hone your diaper cake making skills, then call me. I will do it for you (because I love you, and making diaper cakes is super fun).

Itsy bitsy newborn onesies are adorable. But guess what, everyone is going to be getting them for the mommy to be. She will be overloaded with tiny onesies. More than the kid may ever wear. I have almost an entire box of really cute onesies Munchie never got to wear (I am saving them for when my brother in law or my best friend has a kid… and with my luck they will both have boys that probably won’t want to wear Munchie’s pink and frilly onesies).

9-12 months baby clothes are also cute. And it will save the parents having to buy as many clothes when the child grows. Also, from personal experience, some babies are bigger and grow faster than others. Ducky was huge, and he grew very, very quickly. Some newborn onesies never even fit him. And the ones that fit stopped fitting within a month. He is five months old wearing twelve months clothes.

Bigger is better when shopping for baby clothes. Babies grow at different rates, but eventually they will fit in the outfit you got them.

I love gift cards. When I get gift cards it allows me to buy all the stuff for an occasion that I did not receive. For a baby shower they are great because the mommy to be can hold on to it until after the baby is born and use it for stuff she didn’t even know she needed. For Munchie’s baby shower I received a lot of gift cards and they became very useful in her first few months. As a new mom I did not know everything I would need. And all babies are different. Just because my friends used product X doesn’t mean I will have any use for it. There is also the stuff I thought I would not need, and turns out I was wrong. You really can’t go wrong with one of these.

You can’t have too many. I received three of these at Munchie’s baby shower. I thought I would surely return at least one because what do I need three for? Turns out, they were great, and I ended up using all of them. At the time we were living in a two story town home, so I had one upstairs by the bed for night feedings. I had one in the living room so Munchie could lay on it during the day and I could use for afternoon feedings. The third resided in my car for when we went anywhere. We are now using them for Ducky.

Make sure you get the kind with a removable cover. Babies spit up. Enough said.

Honestly, you can’t really go wrong with a baby shower gift. In the end, it is the thought that counts. And anything is usually appreciated. If the mommy to be has a registry, consult it. If not, hopefully this gift guide has been helpful.