Lack of Baby Gift Etiquette: Should I ask if they received the gift?

[Anonymous]

Please do e-mail them. Someone bought a gift off our registry, but we never received it and have no idea who purchased it. This poor soul probably thinks we're the rudest people in the world.

[Anonymous]

People today are lazy. I mean, c'mon. Are you sending emails or surfing the web after the baby is born? Uploading digital photos? If so, then there is time to send the thank you notes to someone who took the time to perhaps go out of their way to a shop and buy you something. If you write 1 per day that is 30 per month.

[Anonymous]

WOW. You guys all think so differently from me, its good to read this because it has opened my eyes to how other people think.

OP, two weeks is seriously not the blink of an eye for a new mom. If you sent the present right after the birth, especially if she had a c-section, she is on meds or totally out of it for 2 weeks. She may also have the baby blues. I don't think 2 weeks is a fair time table under these circumstances. Four or five months seems fair.

Yes, people have different priorities these days. But I'm surprised at the level of ire directed at folks who don't send gifts. Are you saying this changed your opinion of them? That you like them less? I think that's going too far.

Honestly, I could care less if someone writes me a thank you note. Do I think "they didn't like my gift"? No, never. I could see wondering if they got it at all, but never am I mad at them.

And evidently, there are broad ranges of what people are taught for etiquette. I was always told you have a year for gifts after a wedding and the birth of a baby. That seems like an awful length of time, but boy does it go by fast, really! I was also taught that just because you send and invitation you should never "expect" a gift.

Honestly, I think its a bit gauche to "expect" a gift and "expect" a thank you, and get upset if you don't get one or the other. A gift should be just that, no strings attached. You should want to give it and be happy that you did it. Otherwise, please just don't give a gift to begin with.

[Anonymous]

WOW. You guys all think so differently from me, its good to read this because it has opened my eyes to how other people think.

OP, two weeks is seriously not the blink of an eye for a new mom. If you sent the present right after the birth, especially if she had a c-section, she is on meds or totally out of it for 2 weeks. She may also have the baby blues. I don't think 2 weeks is a fair time table under these circumstances. Four or five months seems fair.

Yes, people have different priorities these days. But I'm surprised at the level of ire directed at folks who don't send gifts. Are you saying this changed your opinion of them? That you like them less? I think that's going too far.

Honestly, I could care less if someone writes me a thank you note. Do I think "they didn't like my gift"? No, never. I could see wondering if they got it at all, but never am I mad at them.

And evidently, there are broad ranges of what people are taught for etiquette. I was always told you have a year for gifts after a wedding and the birth of a baby. That seems like an awful length of time, but boy does it go by fast, really! I was also taught that just because you send and invitation you should never "expect" a gift.

Honestly, I think its a bit gauche to "expect" a gift and "expect" a thank you, and get upset if you don't get one or the other. A gift should be just that, no strings attached. You should want to give it and be happy that you did it. Otherwise, please just don't give a gift to begin with.

Well it is good that you've read through this thread and see how others' think of gift-giving and thank yous. I definitely belong to the camp that you give a gift if you receive a wedding invitation, regardless if you're attending. I could possibly understand not giving a gift if you haven't talked to the people in ages and you're not going. Whether you agree with it or not, there are standard rules of etiquette and sending a gift when you're invited to a wedding would fall into that category. And even more so than that, sending a thank you of some kind after you receive a gift is absolutely the polite, well-mannered thing to do. If you don't, I think there is a good chance the people who gave you the gift will see that as rude.

Of course there are no strings attached when giving a gift, meaning you are under no obligation to give that person a gift in the future. But why does sending a thank you have to be a string? It should just be a gracious acknowledgement of this person's generosity. Who doesn't want to be thanked? It makes people happy to give gifts and they want to hear from you how they've made you happy. In thank you notes I write, I try to always tell them how I'm going to use the gift.... "Jack's winter coat will be perfect for our trip to Vermont this year." That kind of thing. It makes a difference to people.

I just really think you should reconsider how you're lack of gift-giving and thank you sending might be perceived to other people. To answer your question about did I think differently of people who didn't give us gifts. Yeah, a bit, to be honest. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I think it reflects on how well-mannered someone is. DH's best man didn't give us a gift for our wedding and I was pretty surprised. He's also incredibly cheap (but has a ton of money) so I thought it was pretty darn rude. Here your bestfriend is getting married and you can't give him a gift? It's not like this is a recurrent gift you have to keep giving every year. I mean c'mon! People can find excuses for anything though I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the whole "I have a new baby and therefore don't have time to send a thank you note" thing is an excuse. Maybe not the first week or two, but certainly within the first month once you've started getting your feet on the ground (as I also agree that newborns do sleep a lot...). It's all about priorities. Just like anything else, if it's important enough to you to get thank you notes out in a timely manner, you'll find time to do so. If it's not, you won't. That why I have a pet peeve about how we way overuse the "I don't have time" argument in general in our society as an excuse when I wish we would say more of what we really mean which is "it just wasn't one of my top priorities". In fact, my husband is a pro at it! (And I'm not perfect either.) But I digress.

FYI not all newborns sleep a lot ... my DD had her nights and days mixed up and for the first 6 weeks, I would be up with her literally all night, from midnight to 7am, then she'd sleep for 2 hours at a time, then I'd wake us both to nurse her, and back to sleep. I usually did not shower until my husband came home from work. It was a nightmare and I was exhausted.

[Anonymous]

If the gift giver can take time to go out, get you a gift, wrap it, package it up, find your address and send it (or even go online and order it) then you should have enough time to jot a quick TY note. Seriously! If everyone is just too busy to thank people for their generosity what does that say about us, that we are too wrapped up in ourselves to even acknowledge someone's generosity? And if you are too tired (which I can totally relate as I have a dd) ask your husband to send it. Ugh, this is one of my biggest pet peeves!

[Anonymous]

PP, obviously you feel very strongly about this topic. But you pegged me wrong.

If you read my "wow" post again, you'll see that I never said that I *don't* send thank yous or wedding gifts. I do, although probably not as rapidly as some would like. I'm not arguing against showing gratitude, I'm saying that I don't hold it against people if they don't. I separate out the feelings of gratitude from the sending of a note. A note is an expression of a feeling, and not a feeling in itself. Its a small difference but an important one.

I just never think it is healthy, or honestly polite, to expect that someone must give me a gift or thank you! As in, get upset if they don't. That's just another form of bad manners, imo. I think appreciation and kindness are great, but I don't think sticking so closely to rules that you get upset or annoyed and end friendships is what they are about.

In other words, those rules should show us how to care for one another. But if we don't follow them, that doesn't mean the person doesn't care for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Completely agree with PP. It takes no time to write a thank you note. And it makes a huge difference to the gift giver. I don't think people can justify not sending one (unless they thanked the gift giver in person). It's tacky and just plain rude.

It takes lots of time when there are 50 of them to write.

[Anonymous]

Ok, it takes a lot of time to write 50 all at once but you can space them out over a couple weeks. Do a few each night.

[Anonymous]

So is the issue here the act of acknowledgment or the mode of acknowledgment? What if the new parent called the gift-giver on the phone and said, thank you, or sent a very personal, effusive email? Would that suffice?

I agree wholeheartedly that a nice gesture should be acknowledged. I just think thank you notes can be (but not always) old fashioned. I write an email with much more sincere emotion than I pen a note because, frankly, I type better, neater and faster than I write. I also think that calling someone and saying thanks is totally acceptable. I mean both email and a phone call serve the same purpose as a note - acknowledgment of time/effort/money and appreciation for the gift. Why can't our idea of how we do it evolve?

[Anonymous]

PP, completely agree about the "evolution" of thank yous. Is it the gratitude that really counts, or the thank you note? They aren't synonymous.

Of course, if it weren't for thank you cards, invitations, and holiday cards, I think I would only ever get junk mail and bills from the post office!

[Anonymous]

I think that this issue is a reflection on the overall deterioration of manners and civility in our society. You see it everywhere - driving, shopping, schools, travel, etc. We get used to it. When I travel to some other countries, like Ireland, it is amazing how friendly and courteous people still are. Does anyone else feel like this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the gift giver can take time to go out, get you a gift, wrap it, package it up, find your address and send it (or even go online and order it) then you should have enough time to jot a quick TY note. Seriously! If everyone is just too busy to thank people for their generosity what does that say about us, that we are too wrapped up in ourselves to even acknowledge someone's generosity? And if you are too tired (which I can totally relate as I have a dd) ask your husband to send it. Ugh, this is one of my biggest pet peeves!

Umm, they probably pointed and clicked to buy their gift online and someone else wrapped and shipped their gift.

The new mom on the other hand has to decide between washing her body, brushing her teeth, eating OR finding stationary and writing the note and finding a stamp and mailing the note. Dad had to decide between cooking wife food, helping her recover from child birth, taking baby for mom's respite, oh say actually spending quality time with baby since dad has been at the office all day OR finding stationary and writing the note and finding a stamp and mailing the note.

Why isn't a verbal thank you okay???

For you hard core written TY note folks out there who have had a baby - tell me, HONESTLY, when you received a gift in the first week of your baby's life, did you whip out a written thank you note within 48 hours? If you did, I need to know what you were taking cause I clearly did not get the good drugs!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here -- Just wanted to clarify that I completely understand about a new mom not having a lot of time to write thank you notes ASAP...heck, I can relate. But we're talking about 4-5 months going by and not knowing if a friend received it. I do think that's pretty bad - even an email thank you or a quick phone call or text message is fine by my book...just SOMETHING to know that the gift was received / acknowledged.

Can't you just call and "chat" with your friend(s)? Surely, you would do that regardless of a new baby, right?

So, when you do call for a light hearted conversation just sorta weave it into conversation like "It looks like you guys got some snow already, I hope the sleeper I sent you is keeping baby X snug. I know the sleeper always helped my son sleep well..." - some thing to that degree.

Or if you are genuinely concerned about your pack arriving just weave that into conversation too. Something like "Just checking in on you guys and hoping you're doing well. I hope baby X is doing well and that he got his little present I sent him awhile back. I can't remember if I put the zip code on the package so I do hop it arrived in a timely manner...." - again something like that.

Sometimes you really need to drop hints especially since it's been 5 months without any acknowledgment.

So why haven't you called/contacted your friend in 4 to 5 months? IMO, you sound as if getting kudos for your generosity means more than checking in on your friend to see how new motherhood is treating her.

I may sound a little edgy on this because I am a new mom - four months ago - and have been suffering from severe PPD. I received many post birth gifts which meant the world to me but I was also struggling tremendously. My spouse, working full time, basically raised our child for the first few months and dealt with me in my non-responsive state. So clearly thank you notes were not high on our list of priorities. But my friends, many of whom were not aware of my PPD as it is not something to trumpet aboout, called to see how I was doing -- and here is the lesson kids -- my FRIENDS checked on me and comforted me and cut me some much needed slack and never judged me because I didn't send them a thank you note.

[Anonymous]

For you hard core written TY note folks out there who have had a baby - tell me, HONESTLY, when you received a gift in the first week of your baby's life, did you whip out a written thank you note within 48 hours? If you did, I need to know what you were taking cause I clearly did not get the good drugs!

Honestly, I did. But I didn't write a treatise, it was something super generic, like a PP said: "Thank you for the blanket, you are so nice to think of us. Love, Susie Q." (4 seconds). put in envelope (2 seconds) and wrote address on the envelope -- very important, this -- using the return address I was staring at at the moment bc the package was sitting in front of me (7 seconds). viola. Spouse mailed em at work the next day.

and I had PPD, bleeding nipples, a crappy nurser, recovering from C-section, the whole shebang. I don't want a medal, flamers, I just threw that in because it's just.not.that.hard. Hard was an oozing c-section scar, or my sick baby who needed surgery at 3 weeks. Hard is not spending <25 seconds to acknowledge a gift.