Gifts for a Dad to Be, Before the Baby Arrives and After

Before the birth or after: two different gifts

Most gift lists for dads mix up two situations with almost nothing in common. Before the birth, he has time and little to do with it: the appointments are hers, and so are most of the questions at family dinners. After the birth, he has everything to do and no time at all. A gift that is perfect for one is usually wrong for the other.

The table is not a rule. A good carrier is useful before the birth, and a letter lands at any time. But if you only keep one line from this guide, keep this one: before the birth, give him a way in; after it, give him a break.

If the gift you have in mind is the news itself, you can see the two of you drawn as characters first, free, before you decide anything.

What nobody mentions: expectant fathers change too

Most of what is written about pregnancy is, reasonably, about the person who is pregnant. The evidence that something happens to the father too is better than gift lists suggest.

• His hormones move. University of Michigan researchers measured hormones in the saliva of 29 couples expecting their first baby, up to four times, at about weeks 12, 20, 28 and 36. The women's levels rose, as expected. The men's testosterone and estradiol fell over the same months, while two other hormones showed no detectable change. Twenty-nine couples is a small group, and a study like this cannot say what the change means for any one man.
• His mood can move too. A 2010 analysis that pooled 43 studies, with about 28,000 participants, found depression in about 10 percent of the men in the studies it reviewed, at some point between the first trimester and the baby's first year, and relatively more often three to six months after the birth.
• He often feels at the edge of it. When British researchers brought together 23 studies of fathers' own accounts of pregnancy, birth and maternity care in wealthy countries, the phrase they arrived at was "not-patient and not-visitor": men who saw themselves as partner and parent found that, to the services, they were neither, and many felt excluded and afraid.
• And he may not say so. In interviews with 19 fathers in Yorkshire, England, five to ten months after the birth, most of them first-time fathers, men described their stress as exhaustion, poor concentration and irritability. Even while feeling shut out by maternity services, they doubted they had any right to support, which in their view should go to mothers.

None of this is a reason to worry, and no gift treats anything. But a man who feels like a visitor in the biggest year of his life is not short of joke shirts. He is short of being spoken to as a parent, and of the things that make him good at it.

Useful gifts that earn their place

Useful does not mean gear for the baby. The registry takes care of the stroller. A useful gift for an expecting dad is one that makes him more capable, or saves him time he is about to stop having.

• A carrier that fits him. Have him try it on, not just you: the one that sits right on his shoulders is the one he will use on the early walks around the block.
• The car seat, installed and checked. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says certified technicians will inspect a car seat, in most cases free of charge, and show you how to install and use it; some locations now offer virtual inspections. Book it before the due date, so he drives home from the hospital knowing it is right.
• A class for the two of you. Childbirth or infant CPR, booked and in the calendar. Ask the hospital where you plan to deliver what it runs. It is the plainest way to tell him he is in this, not watching it.
• A book written for him. Many pregnancy books talk to the person who is pregnant. Two long-running ones talk to him: The Expectant Father by Armin A. Brott and Jennifer Ash Rudick, a month-by-month guide that ends with labor and the first months after the birth, and The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin and Melissa Cheyney, a guide to childbirth for dads, partners and other labor companions.
• A hospital bag of his own. A phone charger with a long cable, snacks, a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a sweater. It is a small thing, and it tells him someone pictured him there.

None of these is glamorous, which is partly the point. They are the gifts that get used in the first week, and remembered for it.

Sentimental gifts for a first time dad

A sentimental gift for a first time dad works when it does the thing the gift aisle skips: it addresses him as a father before there is anyone to call him one. These are the first time dad gifts worth the effort.

• A letter to him as a father. Not a love letter in general. Write down what you have already seen, how he is with a nephew, with the dog, with you the week you were ill, and why it makes you sure he will be good at this. It costs nothing, and nobody else can write it.
• The first ultrasound picture, framed. If you came home with a spare print, frame it for his desk or his side of the bed, not yours.
• A notebook for letters to the baby. He writes a few lines whenever something happens, the first kick he felt, the name you nearly chose, for the child to read years from now. You write the first page.
• Something engraved with the year, not the day. A watch, a pocketknife, a keychain he will carry for decades. A due date is an estimate, so engrave the year or the month.
• A storybook that tells him the news. The one we make, with its limits, in the next section.

The common thread is evidence that you can already see him as a dad. Our pregnancy announcement gifts are built on that idea, and if the news is still yours alone, you can try the drawing of the two of you tonight without committing to anything.

The gift that tells him: a storybook of the two of you

If you know before he does, the gift and the news can be the same object. That is what we made And Then There Were Three for: a hardcover storybook of the two of you, drawn in the look of a modern 3D animated film, with the news as the title, so he reads it the moment the paper comes off.

Inside is your life together so far: the bench you still walk past on purpose, the first apartment painted the wrong yellow, the Sunday pancake on the ceiling, the one star he knows by name and uses for all of them. Then the clues he missed: asleep at nine, pickles eaten out of the ice cream at midnight, a shop window full of very small things. On the twelfth spread he opens a box with two very small shoes in it and says nothing at all, for the first time in the whole book.

The story is ours and the same in every copy. What makes it yours is your two faces on all thirteen spreads, your names in the words, and the last page, where you write the dedication and we print it word for word. Leave it empty and we print a short one that tells him he is going to be the best dad in the world; the one you write yourself is better.

What it is not. It is not a baby book: no baby is drawn in it, only two very small shoes, and there are no pages for weights or first words. You are not drawn pregnant either, because it is meant for the first weeks. So after the birth it is a keepsake of how he found out, lovely on a shelf and the wrong present for a new dad. It is written for a first baby, as the title says, and from her to him.

The practical part. You need a photo of each of you; if the clearest one of him has you in it too, that works, so nobody has to pose. The preview is free, about half a minute for each face, with no card and no account. The book is printed after you order and checked by a real artist first, and the book page and the cart show the real delivery dates before you pay. If you cannot keep the secret that long, tell him tonight and give him the book afterward, as the keepsake of the day you did.

The pregnancy announcement book page has the rest, and for the moment itself, see our ways to tell your husband you're pregnant, sorted by the kind of man he is.

A gift for an expecting dad from his wife

From her, a gift carries more weight than from anyone else, because she is the one person who can tell him, with authority, that he is already a parent. Three things only she can give:

1. The news, told well. If he does not know yet, the reveal is the gift. Make it private, and make it something he can keep if he is the kind of man who keeps things.
2. A place in it. The first appointment you go to together, the list of names you start together, a decision you leave to him. Many of the men in the research above felt shut out; the fix starts at home.
3. Words. What you have seen him do that tells you he will be good at this. We think it is the sentence he is least likely to hear from anyone else before the baby comes.

None of this needs to be expensive. A gift for an expecting dad from his wife that costs nothing, a letter and an evening with nowhere to be afterward, beats almost any object. If you want an object too, choose one that carries the words: an engraving, a note in the box, or the last page of a storybook of the two of you, which you write yourself.

From friends, family, or the grandparents-to-be

Friends and family are in a different position. They cannot give him the news or the words, and they can give him things she cannot.

• Friends: food, help and one last night out. Dinners in the freezer for after the birth, an afternoon putting the crib together with him, and one evening out before the due date, planned by somebody else, ending early.
• His own parents: the story of his birth. Ask his father, or his mother, to write down the week he was born: who was there, what went wrong, what they thought the first time they held him. It costs an evening, and it hands him the first chapter of the thing he is about to do.
• His own parents: a photo. A print of his father holding him as a baby, in a frame. It will mean something completely different to him in a few months.

If the man you are shopping for is the future grandfather, your own dad, the best gift is the news in something he can hold: the ultrasound picture in a frame, or a card signed by the baby that calls him Grandpa. If you are telling the grandparents over the holidays, our guide to Christmas pregnancy announcement ideas covers it, and if you order our book for your husband, the cart offers a second copy for the grandparents-to-be.

By occasion: when to give a dad-to-be gift

There is no fixed day for a gift like this, which is part of why it gets skipped. Here are the moments a pregnancy brings, and what fits each.

The baby shower used to be a party for the mother-to-be. The Emily Post Institute now says plainly that a shower may be held for a couple who is expecting, so if he is a guest of honor, a small thing for him is a kind touch, not an obligation.

Father's Day is a question for the two of you, and we think it counts: if the baby is due later in the year, a card from the bump costs nothing and he will remember it. If you plan your vacations around the parks, Disney pregnancy announcement ideas has ways to tell him, and everyone after him.

For the day you tell him, start with the free drawing and check the dates on the book page before you pick the day.

Gifts for a new dad, once the baby is here

After the birth, the list flips. The useful gifts win, and the most useful ones cost nothing, because what a new father is short of is sleep, food and an hour that belongs to him.

• A morning to sleep in. Taken by someone else, with a date on it, written on a card.
• Meals, later than you think. Offer food for the second month, not only for the first week, when everyone else is offering too.
• An hour alone with the baby, without instructions. We think this is the gift that most often goes unoffered.
• A printed photo of him holding the baby. If he is the one behind the phone, there may be very few pictures of him with the baby at all. Print one, and frame it.
• Something that is only his. In the first months, every gift in the house points at the baby. One thing for him lands harder than it should.

Our book is not a new-dad gift: after the birth it is a keepsake of how he found out. For the first Father's Day with the baby actually there, see Father's Day gifts from kids, where the child does the giving, with a lot of help.

And when the third of you is old enough for stories of their own, our guide to custom children's books covers what to look for, and what to skip.

The second-time dad

A father expecting his second child is a different man to buy for. He knows what the first months cost, so the useful gifts get specific: a weekend morning with the older child taken out, a plan for who looks after the older one when labor starts, meals for a household about to double its laundry.

The sentimental gift shifts too: the letter can be about what you saw him do the first time, and a printed photo of him with the older child, taken this year, is the one that will matter when there are two. Even etiquette has a word for this: the Emily Post Institute notes that a shower for parents who already have children is often called a sprinkle, since they need less stuff.

One honest note about our book: it is called And Then There Were Three, so it is written for a first baby. For a second, the book that does more good in your house is the one for the new big brother or sister, and our guide to books for a new big brother or sister explains why.

What to skip

• The joke at his expense. The survival kit that assumes he will be useless, the shirt about losing his freedom. One is funny. As the main gift, it confirms what many expectant fathers already feel, that they are spectators.
• Baby gear with his name on the tag. A diaper bag that says Daddy, matching shirts for him and the baby. Sweet, and still about the baby. If he needs a bag, let him choose one he would carry anyway.
• Gadgets for a hobby he is about to lose time for. The grilling set, the golf gadget. Nothing wrong with them, except the timing.
• Anything that needs assembling the week before the due date, unless the gift is somebody else doing the assembling.

The pattern is the same as everywhere else in this guide. If a gift could have been given to any man about to become a dad, it is a theme. If it only makes sense for him, it is a gift.

So if you only give one thing, give the one that tells him he is already a father. Write the letter tonight, or, if you want the words to come with a book he can keep, look at the two of you on the page first, free, and decide in the morning.