Best Gifts for Expecting Parents

Two adults are about to receive nothing at all

It is worth looking honestly at what actually arrives when a couple announces a pregnancy, because the pattern is remarkably consistent and it explains the entire opportunity. Over about four months, a first-time couple will receive somewhere between fifteen and thirty gifts. Clothes in newborn size, then clothes in three-to-six because somebody read that newborn size is outgrown quickly. A soft toy, usually more than one. Muslin cloths, which are genuinely useful and arrive in quantities nobody needs. Blankets. A rattle. Bibs. A keepsake box. Perhaps a pram or a cot from a parent or a sibling, which is a serious and welcome gift. Every one of those is for the baby. Now count the gifts addressed to the mother, and then to the father. For most couples the honest answer for her is one or two - possibly a maternity item, possibly something from her closest friend - and for him it is very often zero. Not one person, across four months and thirty gifts, thought of the second adult as somebody who might receive something. This is not because anybody is unkind. It is because a pregnancy makes the baby the obvious subject, and gift-giving follows the obvious subject. But it produces a strange result: the two people who are actually going through the enormous thing are the two people nobody bought anything for. Which means a gift addressed to them lands with far more force than its price suggests, for the simple reason that it has no competition. So what does a gift to the adults look like in practice? Four properties matter, and they are all about demands rather than value. The first is that it must not need a surface. This is more important than it sounds. A house preparing for a baby is filling up fast - a cot, a changing arrangement, a steriliser, a pram that lives in the hall, bags, boxes, and things people have given that have not yet been put anywhere. Horizontal space is disappearing, and a gift that needs a permanent place is a request for a resource that is actively shrinking. The second is that it must need no assembly, no setup and no decision. New and expecting parents have a long list of decisions already, and a gift that adds one - where does this go, which setting do I use, what do I put in it - will be put down and dealt with later, which means never. The third is that it should be consumable. A house about to gain a great deal of equipment does not want another permanent object; something that gets used up over weeks or months leaves nothing to manage and no guilt if it is not finished. And the fourth is that it should be usable one-handed, which is a real constraint after the baby arrives and a good habit to plan for before. On the products, four work well and each suits a different situation. An alcohol-free attar at three hundred and seventy-nine to three hundred and ninety-nine rupees is the strongest general answer for an adult recipient. It is a 12ml glass roll-on of undiluted perfume oil with no alcohol carrier, which means it opens quietly and sits within an arm's length rather than filling a room - and many people find that low-projection fragrance is what they want around a small baby, which is a preference rather than a health matter. It takes the space of a lipstick, so the surface problem disappears entirely. Adaa at three hundred and seventy-nine rupees is bergamot, green cardamom, jasmine sambac and white musk; Ameeri at three hundred and eighty-five is Taif rose and Indian sandalwood; Mastani at three hundred and eighty-nine is night jasmine and Damask rose; Nawaab at three hundred and ninety-nine is a white oud composition with Mysore sandalwood and Kashmir saffron rather than a dehn al oud distillate. A solid perfume at four hundred and fifty-nine to five hundred and forty-nine rupees is the one that suits the practical reality best. Fifteen grams, alcohol-free, applied with a finger rather than sprayed, flat and genuinely spill-proof - which means it lives in a bag that is already being carried everywhere, and it can be used with one hand while the other is holding something. Velour is vanilla bean, butter biscuit, toasted almond and whipped cream at four hundred and seventy-nine; Sterling is coconut milk, almond nougat, white amber and powdered musk at four hundred and sixty-nine; Titan is Arabica coffee, roasted wood, black pepper, frankincense and leather at five hundred. A hanging car perfume at four hundred and forty-nine rupees is the best gift for whichever parent is doing the driving, and in the months before a birth that is a great deal of driving - appointments, scans, hospital visits, and then the run itself. It is also the only format here addressed to a space rather than a person, so it assumes nothing about anybody's taste. And a coconut-soy candle at three hundred and seventy-nine rupees is the gift to the couple rather than to either of them, with one honest caveat worth passing on: a household expecting a baby may prefer not to have a flame around at all once the child is mobile, and wax melts at four hundred and seventy-four rupees are the flame-free version. Now the caution that belongs on every page in this section. If the person you are buying for is pregnant, be careful about giving personal fragrance blind. Many people report that what they want to be near changes during those months, sometimes quite sharply, and a bottle somebody cannot comfortably use is a worse gift than nothing at all. That is an observation about comfort and preference rather than a medical statement, and the practical response is simple: choose something for the car or the home instead, or give something she can choose herself later, or simply ask. Nobody minds being asked. One thing to say plainly, since it is the premise of this whole section. SOSA does not make anything for babies, and none of this is meant for a nursery, a baby's room or a baby's things. The point is the opposite - that the adults are the ones nobody has bought for.

What a gift to them looks like

Four options, each suiting a different situation rather than a different budget. The attar is the strongest general answer for an adult recipient. The solid perfume fits the practical reality best. The car perfume goes to whoever is doing every drive. And the candle belongs to the couple rather than to either of them.

Related: unique gifts for parents-to-be, gifts that are not baby clothes and gifts that focus on the parents. By recipient: mom-to-be and dad-to-be. Before buying fragrance for somebody pregnant, read what to consider first. Shop the attars from ₹379, the solid perfumes from ₹459 and the car perfumes from ₹449.

The SOSA return gift ladder

Everything here is handmade in small batches in India, and a portion of every order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali. The ladder below runs from the cheapest thing SOSA makes to the tier worth giving close friends. Bulk quantities are quoted on WhatsApp at ₹+91 96192 18531 rather than published, because the right rate depends on quantity, mix and date.

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