Baby Shower Gifts and Advice - An overview of what to give as baby shower favors, featuring a look at some of the most recent trends in party favors and an eye to where the next wave of gifts is coming from.

Giving Baby Shower Favors

Baby showers are an indelible part of the pregnancy experience. Held shortly before the birth, when the mother's needs for baby supplies and a little harmless diversion and emotional bolstering are perhaps at their apex, the shower offers a last chance at celebration and time with friends before the real hard work of baby's early months commences after the delivery. The baby shower is an important time for family and friends of the expectant mother, too, as they can look forward to one last hurrah with the mother. Understand, the baby shower is not a sad occasion, but a joyous one, as the new mother is surrounded by her closest and dearest, and is able to take a deep breath before making the plunge into motherhood.

Guests to the traditional baby shower are almost always equipped with lavish gifts for the new mother and baby, and in recent years, a growing trend of providing gifts for them in return has grown in popularity. Mothers, and shower-givers, are becoming increasingly enamored of the gift-giving notion, adding a slight and graceful note of reciprocity to the shower proceedings. The trend in general reflects a growing consciousness of polity and good social skills, and marks a shift away from more informal gatherings of the past. The shower favors are by no means elaborate, and in fact are often something quite simple, sometimes even as simple as candies or dainty chocolates given lovely wrappings to give a touch of class to the shower festivities.

The personalized mint tin is one such favor making a mark in shower popularity. Once more or less the exclusive province of wedding reception and rehearsal dinner gift ideas, the small and simple min tin currently enjoys a wave of popularity for shower guests. This is partly because wedding favor manufacturers have adapted their personalization techniques to baby and maternity motifs, extending their market base to the baby shower realm without distracting their mainline product production. But no matter the cause, there's something to be said for a straightforward and endearing mint tin with a stork design and the baby's name and birth date presented for all to see. Filled with kosher and parve after dinner mints that are safe for guests of all religious denominations, they're both compact and in a sense reusable as baby shower gifts. Not only are the palm-sized tins reusable for storing such things as ear buds, small make up articles or even loose change, the mints themselves are a delicious refresher that can be enjoyed long after the shower has concluded.

Similar to the mint tin, the souvenir gourmet chocolate has also become very popular. These are chocolate, lollipop styled treats carefully prepared and shipped by fine cocolatiers directly to the baby shower or baby event.