My mother always said her favorite shower gifts were the "baby sitting" cards. A good friend of hers, a retired woman, came over every Friday of my mother's maternity leave so she could shower, put on a bracelet and maybe even drink a cup of coffee before it got cold. While that might be hard for working folks, a Saturday afternoon of Mother Helping might be just the gift your friend needs! And you get to play an appropriate Rolling Stones song, which is never bad!

i recently hosted a baby party for preg friends that have a low-impact lifestyle. instead we had little 4x4 canvases that all the guests painted for the baby's room, and also a casserole sign-up calendar. each week after the baby's delivery, a couple was responsible for delivering a big freezable casserole to the new sleepy parents. they loved both ideas!

great post, timely, and agree with commenters that TIME is what parents-to-be need -- time babysitting, holding the baby, cooking, cleaning, and LOTS of handmedowns, nothing new necessary. We still haven't had to buy more than a handful of things for my 15 month old and I could not be MORE grateful to our beloved friends and family who passed on their used stuff.

Holy cow! A "thank you card amnesty"? I can’t believe you would suggest that this simple, kind custom is more stressful than it’s worth.

Verbal thanks are nice, but written thanks are, by an order of magnitude, nicer. This special effort on the part of your friends deserves special thanks.

And if your ankles are swollen, I should think you’d be glad to sit down for an hour and express pleasant, grateful thoughts to people who love you and showed that they are prepared to love your baby, too.

@Sairey -- The thank you card amnesty is a gift given by the friends of the new parents, it isn't requested by the new parent.

Erin -- I understand. It seems to me as unbecoming to offer to dispense with thanks yous as it would be to ask to do so.

@Sairey -- I've done it at a couple showers and both the guests and the new parents have said that they loved it. These have also been small showers with close friends where everyone was of similar age ... it might not go over so well at a large shower with family members or co-workers.

For me, the joy has been knowing that I gave the new parents something less to stress out about in the final weeks of preparation before becoming parents.

As a solution to the thank you card issue, I tried this tip at a baby shower once, and it worked just fine. I gave arriving guests a blank envelope and asked them to write their name and address on the front. At the end of the party, I presented the self-addressed envelopes to the new mom. Now all she had to do was write a brief note for each envelope and drop it in the mail.

Another good consumable that parents love...food. I like getting a big (sturdy) basket and filling it with foods I know the parents like. Everything from Bear Creek soup mixes to little "to go" foods, and a loaf of fresh bread. This works great for first babies, or for people with kids because it is so easy to customize and can be fit into a variety of gift budgets.

"Dear Prudence" just had a letter about the baby shower/thank you card issue:

www.slate.com/id/2186861

Dear Prudence,
I'm going to a bridal shower, and the host wants all the guests to bring their own self addressed, stamped envelopes for the bride to make it easier for her to write thank you notes. I feel that even the busiest bride should be able to take the time to write thank you notes. I don't want to say anything, but I just want to know is this is tacky. Signed, Thanks but No Thanks

Dear Thanks,
It's only fair to recognize that manners and mores do change. Today's brides are so busy planning a military campaign's worth of parties and celebrations for themselves that expectations by their guests should be adjusted to acknowledge the stress orchestrating all this adulation can cause. How thoughtless it would be to arrive with a self-addressed, stamped envelope into which you have stuck a blank card. The bride doesn't have time to fill that out! Instead, be a considerate guest and take a few extra minutes to write on the card, "Dear Self, Thank me for the lovely chafing dish. The bride will think of me fondly whenever she chafes."

@jocelyn -- I don't think anyone was suggesting that guests bring their own thank you cards that are stamped. My suggestion was that the guests decide to give a thank you card amnesty. The other reader said that she had guests fill out their addresses on envelopes that were provided by the host at the party. I have to agree that asking guests to bring their own cards with stamps on them is a bit tacky ... but honestly, I've heard of much worse things. If I were a guest at a party where a host asked everyone to bring their own stamped envelopes, I'd just do it. In all likelihood, the parents-to-be would be oblivious that the host made such a request on the invitation. And, since I would be attending the baby shower because of my love and joy for the new parents and not for the host, why even get worked up over such a small thing? A nasty note in the card would be found by the new parents who didn't even make the request, which seems more rude than the tacky request by the host.