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Buying for a baby

What do you get for a someone who can’t speak?

By Elizabeth Sharp

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

A baby’s first Christmas should be a joyous occasion. But for some people, trying to find the perfect gift for someone who can’t pronounce “Christmas” — let alone understand the holiday’s significance — can be more frustrating than shopping for an adult.

Fortunately, with a couple of helpful tips, you can strike the perfect balance between practicality and thoughtfulness when you’re shopping for your favorite baby. And like so many things around the holidays, it really is the thought that counts.

“I know for us, it meant a lot when people gave us gifts,” said Heidi McCartney, 27, of Little Rock, whose son Ashton celebrated his first Christmas last year. “It says, ‘we care about you and your child enough that we want to give them something.’ It’s nice to know that they care.”

Of course, letting someone know you care — specifically, an infant — can be a lot harder than it seems. For Vicki Gibson, 35, of Conway, the biggest challenge she’s had while shopping for her 11-month-old daughter Maggie this season has been what every parent faces, regardless of their child’s age: The natural inclination to indulge.

“My biggest challenge is not buying everything I see,” Gibson said. “I think everything’s so cute, and I want her to have fun.”

McCartney said she experienced the same feelings while shopping for her son’s first Christmas last year.

“I think at least for me, one of the challenges is that I want my son to have everything,” McCartney said.

But for some parents, friends and family members, the concern isn’t buying too much for a newborn — it’s figuring out how to buy anything at all. Kristen McConnell, 33, of Little Rock, is preparing for her 2-month-old daughter Anna’s first Christmas, but it won’t be her first time facing the excitement and challenges wrapped up in that special event: Two years ago, her son Cade celebrated his first Christmas, and for McConnell, the biggest challenge was simply not knowing his interests.

“You don’t know what they like. You don’t know their preferences yet. I know my son got some gifts when he was 6 months that he never played with,” McConnell said.

So how do you pick out the perfect gift for that special someone in your life who has yet to graduate to solid foods? First, whether you’re buying for your own child or someone else’s, establish some guidelines for how much you’d like to spend. Gibson said she and her husband, Gary, made a budget for how much they want to spend on their daughter for Christmas and are dividing their spending between “fun” things and “practical” items, like clothes, developmental toys, and a forward-facing car seat that Anna will need in the near future.

McCartney recommends that parents of newborns compile a list of specific things they’d like for their child, and gift-givers should be ready to ask the parents what’s on that list.

“I had to really think — and even as we asked for things for him — what was practical, and what we really did need, and what was going to help us,” McCartney said. “I think we even put diapers on Ashton’s Christmas list.”

Next, don’t be afraid to keep it simple. McConnell said that two years after he received them for his first Christmas, her son still chooses to play with a set of small squishy sports balls and a set of blocks over fancier toys.

“I know that we were trying to find toys with a lot of cool things, but really it seemed like he just enjoyed his plain blocks most,” McConnell said.

If you’re still at odds concerning what to buy, do what you’d do for an adult friend: Get them a gift card. McCartney said that a gift card might be the perfect gift for a family who recently discovered they need a certain item — from an Exersaucer to an extra package of diapers — that they didn’t receive at a shower or can’t afford on their own.

“It’s fun to open a gift, but when they’re a baby, they’re not opening it anyway,” McCartney said. “Get them a gift card, and the parents can get whatever they need.”

And if they decide to hold on to the gift card for a few months, they can wait until a time when their child’s interests are more apparent and there’s a smaller risk of buying something that the child isn’t interested in, McCartney said.

“As we got past Christmas, we saw ‘oh, he likes trucks,’ or ‘he likes Baby Einstein videos,’” she added.

Finally, many parents are taking advantage of their childrens’ limited understanding of Christmas to do something that will help them in the long time: Open a savings account.

“We decided to just set aside some money that we would have spent on him to open a savings account,” McCartney said. “It’s a good idea, especially when they’re so young and gifts don’t mean so much to them yet.”