Christmas with young babies

[s_gosney]

DD will be 2mos at Christmas. Of course as her first I want it to be special, but she obviously won't be able to enjoy it much. Of course we'll dress her up cute and take lots of pictures. What did you all do? On a related note, what should I tell all the relatives to buy her? This is the first baby in a long time, so everyone will want to buy stuff. She has plenty of clothes already. What are good toys for that age? Thanks for your help!

[flagger]

Gift cards, gift cards, gift cards. Oh and did I mention gift cards? At 2 months, Cocoa would not have been able to unwrap anything as she is just now getting into grabbing at paper. You could honestly do what we are doing and just wrapping some big moving boxes in bright coloured paper for the pictures. She really is not getting much of any gifts this year.

You can get the picture with Santa, but do not expect much from her. I am the least germophobic person and it gives me the heebie jeebies the thought of Cocoa sitting on Santa's lap with all of those snot-nosed coughy, sniffling kids sitting there all day long. There is always next year for that.

[starrynight]

Eliza will be 3 months exactly on xmas and Alex was 6 weeks old on his first xmas. Your right there isn't much they can do besides take pictures :). You can get a few small musical toys or soft things that make rattle type noises or something that although maybe she can't play with right on xmas she wil get use out of in the following months. Or ask for gift cards so you can buy her age appropriate toys in the coming months. We got Alex a few small rattles but mostly clothes and keepsake type things on his first xmas. For Eliza this year we got her a few small toys, more for the sake of the bigger kids and "santa" coming for all of them then for her benefit. We got her peek a blocks and an ocean wonders whale ball for now, I might pick up more blocks.

[Momof3Labs]

Colin was 3 months at Christmas last year. We put up a tree and took his picture with it, since it was his "first" tree. We also did pictures with Santa, but not at the mall. We did them at a small fundraiser-type event where there wasn't nearly the kid traffic (actually, there was more dog traffic 'cause of the type of fundraiser it was).

One tip - have a few Christmas outfits if she is a spitter or drooler. We had 3-4 (mostly gifts) and were grateful to have back-ups when the current one got spit up on!

As for gifts, I'd suggest books for starters. Dr. Seuss books are must-haves and $8-9 a pop, so they are great to get as gifts. I'd select toys for her when she is a bit older, since 2 month old babies don't need/want much in the way of toys yet. Baby Einstein DVDs, Signing Time DVDs, stacking cups, shape sorter (a hard one, not the soft type), Celeste the sun (by Lamaze), and soft fabric books are all good toys that she will use in the next 4-6 months. Even the Leapfrog Learning Table that is so popular would be a good choice, since she'll play with it long before her next birthday. And an exersaucer or walker, if you have chosen to use either but don't have them yet.