Adoption Gifts : Ideas
For the New Family

When we adopted our little girl four years ago, we received so many wonderful adoption gifts!

People adopt children of all ages, so your adoption gift will mainly depend on the age of the child, and what the needs of the family are.

If you know someone who is adopting, the best advice I can give you is to ask the parent(s) exactly what they need for their child. Normally you may not think to do this when you want to "surprise" someone, but their input will be priceless.

If the child is an infant, maybe you could encourage them to register for the things they need for their new baby. If it is their first child, they will need a lot of baby items, so make sure that you're buying something that they really need.

Our daughter was two when we adopted her from Ukraine, and we already had two children at home, so we didn't need any of the "baby" stuff.

One of my favorite gifts that we received was a gift certificate to a photo studio. This can be pretty expensive (depending on where you go), so it would make a great "group" gift (the employees at my husband's job chipped in towards one big package). Adoption can be very expensive, so it was nice to be able to get her picture done for her announcements and our first family photo together right after we arrived home.

Some of my other favorite gifts that people got us were:

• An adoption "baby book" (they make special ones for adopted children)


• Handmade baby blanket to pass down to her.


• Gift certificate to a scrapbooking store.


• Handmade sweater.


• Clothing and shoes--especially a few sizes too big--people tend to buy you only the current size, and then you have nothing for later.


• Gift certificates to restaurants--gave us more time to bond with her in the beginning without having to ask the age old "what's for dinner?" question.
• A photo album with a gift card to develop all of the pictures we took while we were away.


• A bracelet with her initials on it.


• Savings Bonds/Investments for her future.
• Diapers--I know it sounds weird, but getting a whole bunch of diapers up front saved me costly trips to the grocery store when we first got back.
• A tree to plant in the yard in her honor to watch it grow along with her.
• A sweater with an American flag on it (good gift for international adoption). I had her first pictures taken in it.


• Handmade blankets, medical supplies, money, and clothing to donate to her orphanage. Gifts for the orphanage workers were also appreciated.
• Airline miles to travel with. My in-laws gave us round trip tickets from their free airline miles they had accumulated.
• Travel items for the trip--travel alarm clock, currency exchange calculator, voltage converter, a travel journal, etc.
• Gifts for her two older siblings--they felt a little left out with all of the adoption excitement, so things that people brought to them really meant a lot.

(Keep in mind that we did an international adoption, so some of the above ideas may not work for a domestic adoption.)

Still can't decide on the perfect adoption gift? Keep it simple...after an expensive adoption, adoptive parents are always grateful to receive a gift card to buy whatever the child still needs!

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