Here at Mum’s Back we are obsessed with beautiful gifts for new mums. It’s what we are ALL about. Our mission doesn’t come from the desire for material gifts, it comes from a wish for mums to be more valued and understood in our society. I’d love to see more companies valuing the mums in their teams, especially the rollercoaster journeys they go through in those crazy, hazy early new mum days. Obviously, it takes much more than just a nice maternity leave gift to do that, but a gift to show you care is a good start! I wanted to find out if “new mum gifts” were the norm in people’s lives and work places. Some of the evidence I found was rather shocking….and I must say in some cases pretty funny (in a “if you don’t laugh you’ll cry” kind of a way).
I asked some of my community if they got a gift when they had a baby or were about to go on maternity leave and here are some of my favourite worst new mum gifts!
- A diet book (just NO. A million times no)
- A satin spangly baby ballgown complete with teeny tiny buttons down the back (a new mum’s worst impractical nightmare. If you’ve ever experienced what’s known as a newborn “poonami”, or tried to change a tiny wriggling octopus like baby you will know)
- A boot remover because the lady in question was “so fat she couldn’t get her shoes off anymore” (no explanation necessary really. It might win on practicality, but in the “making her feel good” stakes it definitely loses)
- Flowers – bunches and bunches of them (when we are really struggling to keep a newborn baby alive, the last thing we want is the responsibility of more things to keep alive)
- Instead of a gift, the boss turned up unannounced with the contents of employers’ desk drawer because “I didn’t think you’d be back given that you’re having twins” (oh my LORD. Not cool…not cool at all)
- Anti-wrinkle cream (newsflash – we couldn’t give 2 monkeys about wrinkles in the early stages of motherhood, we have bigger fish to fry)
- Exercise equipment (please see reason above)
- NOTHING (sadly this was an all too common answer)
- Out of date body cream
- An electric waist trainer (do you see a pattern emerging here?!)
- A cashmere ‘dry clean only’ baby cardigan (please see reason above for baby ballgown – anything “dry clean only” is a big no no at this point in our lives)
- Chrysanthemums – they smell of wee
So there we have it. A painful and somewhat disappointing run down! Want some ideas of GOOD new mum gifts? Thankfully, we make it easy. Head over to the mumsback.com/shop. Over and out!
This blog was written by Sally Bunkham, founder of Mum's Back. New mum gift boxes, focussing on the yummy stuff denied in pregnancy. £1 from every hamper purchased goes to perinatal mental health charity PANDAS Foundation.