Do you send a baby gift?

[simpsongal]

To friends of your husband?  I get invited to my friends' showers but generally I don't get invited to wives of my husband's close friends.  We do get birth announcements.  So do you send gifts in these circumstances?  I don't think any of them got me a gift.

It just seems odd or another vestige of sexism - oh the men don't go to showers or exchange gifts for babies.

[mlt]

If they are close, yes.

[shell24]

The ones we're close to, yes. But I'm pretty friendly with his friends wives. If I wasn't I probably would not.

[VillainV]

I think it's fine either way. If your husband is friends with the new dad, it might be nice for the gift to be more dad-oriented or family-oriented. Like bringing over a meal or something.

[granthamite]

Given that you weren't invited to the showers and didn't receive gifts from them, I think you're off the hook. If they were your husband's groomsmen or something, then I might send something.

[Deleted]

None of my husband's friends have kids yet, so it hasn't come up.

He did want to get a gift for his female coworker that he especially liked.

[ECB]

No.  This is a situation, though, were if we see them in a timeframe where the baby is still new and there is a specific "we need to meet the baby!" meet with them, I'll usually get a small gift to take with us. 

But if we don't see them often and enough time goes by that when we do see them, there isn't the feeling of "OMG! New baby!", then it probably won't be on my radar to take something. 

[charlotteandwilbur]

It depends on what my H wants to do. I will use almost any excuse to buy books though, so yes, we usually do.

[sent]

We send a gift card. We were floored at how many people from our past that are now scattered all over the country sent us something after DD was born. People with kids and without kids. People went on my poorly planned registries and sent stuff or sent outfits or diapers or whatever. It made us feel really bad that we had never sent anyone a baby gift in the past unless I was attending a shower. Now we get it and feel good about returning all the good karma we received.

[Willis Jackson]

Sept 24, 2015 11:52:15 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

H might, I don't.

Yeah, this. If he wants to send a gift then "we" send a gift. I refuse to be in charge of this shit just because I'm a woman.

Most of our friends do coed showers, though. Maybe I live in bizarro world.

[nessness]

We usually bring a gift when we meet the baby.

[simpsongal]

Sept 24, 2015 12:11:40 GMT -5 Willis Jackson said:

Sept 24, 2015 11:52:15 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

H might, I don't.

Yeah, this. If he wants to send a gift then "we" send a gift. I refuse to be in charge of this shit just because I'm a woman.

Most of our friends do coed showers, though. Maybe I live in bizarro world.

This is where I'm at.  My etiquette senses get tingling over this but I manage just about everything around here - I'm not going out of my way for his friends, it's his job.  If we were meeting the baby in person I'd bring something.  On the walk to the front door DH would turn to me and say "oh man, we should probably have gotten a card."  At which point I would show him the meal, tiny outfit, and card I had in hand.