an original new baby gift: 6 ideas that last

3 July 2026

there’s a new baby, and you’re invited round to meet them. the standard route is familiar: a babygrow in 0–3 months, a soft toy, something sweet for the parents. all fine — and all gone into a box in the loft within three months. we collected six new baby gifts that escape that fate: things that genuinely help in the first weeks, or that are still around ten years on. three of them you can make with us, three have nothing to do with fonkle at all. that’s how an honest gift guide should work.

original photo the book Lauren en de dino's was made from

your photos

your book

1. a pot of soup and a babysitting voucher (costs almost nothing)

ask parents of a newborn what the best gift was, and surprisingly often the answer is: food. a pot of soup, a casserole for the freezer, a bag of shopping. cooking is the first thing to go in those early weeks, and the person who quietly leaves something warm on the counter is never forgotten. finish it off with a handwritten voucher: one evening of babysitting, to be cashed in whenever they’re ready. you can’t buy this gift anywhere, and that’s exactly why it works.

2. a book about the first days

a baby’s first photos are the most looked-at and least printed photos in existence. we turn them into a story book: the first days told as a bedtime story, with the baby’s name in it and the family drawn from the real photos. three photos is enough, and you see the complete preview for free first. right now it’s a keepsake on the shelf; in a few years it’s the book the child reads back to find out how it all began. choose the hardcover and it will genuinely last for years.

see the new baby book

3. the newspaper from the day they were born, with a letter for later

simple, cheap and worth its weight in gold eighteen years on: buy the newspaper on the day the baby is born, and put it in an envelope with a handwritten letter to the child — who you are, what the world looked like today, what you wish for them. seal it, write "open on your eighteenth birthday" on the front, done. the only new baby gift that becomes more valuable with the years instead of less. no shop required — just a newsagent and a pen.

4. a gift of their own for the big brother or sister

if the baby isn’t the first child, think of the one who was already there. every visitor comes for the little one, and the big brother or sister stands slightly to one side. a gift of their own works wonders — and ours is a book where the big kid, not the baby, plays the leading role: the big brother or sister who is completely ready for this. made from ordinary photos of the child, three is enough. in our experience it’s the gift the target audience asks about most loudly on those first visits.

see the big-brother-or-sister book

5. a birth colouring page: a card with a second life

no budget for a grand gesture, or looking for something to go with the flowers? we turn the first baby photo into a colouring page: a soft line drawing of the baby, as a pdf to print at home on A4, for a euro. lovely as a personal card, and instantly something to do for the big brother or sister — who colours in the new baby while the grown-ups sit on the sofa. a small gift, but one that stays on the fridge.

make a birth colouring page from the baby photo

6. a read-aloud pile to start with

giving books to a baby feels early, but it isn’t: many families start reading aloud in the first months. put together a small pile of two or three picture-book classics you know well yourself — the books you asked for as a child, or the ones your own children read to bits. write a short note inside each one saying why you chose it. that turns a pile of second-hand classics into a more personal gift than many a brand-new box set.

how to choose: will it stay, or will it disappear

still unsure, ask yourself one question: where is this gift a year from now? clothes are outgrown, soft toy number twelve lives under the bed. the gifts that survive are the things that genuinely helped in the first weeks — soup, time, shopping — and the things with a story in them: a letter, a book, something with this child’s name and face. it doesn’t have to be expensive. it does have to be personal.