Surviving the pink tulle avalanche: Practical presents for girls

I was staring at a mountain of aggressively pink tulle that had somehow swallowed our entire living room. It was day four with twin girls, the house smelled vaguely of sour milk and sheer desperation, and the delivery driver had just dropped off yet another cardboard box. I sliced it open with my keys to find a pair of newborn-sized, glittery stilettos. Soft-soled, sure, but stilettos nonetheless. I looked over at Twin A (who was currently trying to digest her own fist) and Twin B (who was producing a smell that violated the Geneva Conventions) and realised something fundamental about the infant gifting industrial complex. People lose their absolute minds when they find out you're having daughters.

with baby gifts, especially for girls, well-meaning friends and relatives tend to abandon all logic. They envision a stationary doll they can dress up for Instagram. They don't envision the bodily fluids. If you're currently browsing the internet trying to figure out what to buy your mate who just had a daughter, let me save you from contributing to the tulle avalanche.

The great snap fastener conspiracy

If you want to buy a truly magnificent baby gift for new parents, buy them time. You don't buy time with newborn sizes. Babies grow at a terrifying rate—our health visitor muttered something about them gaining roughly five ounces a week, though it felt like they were doubling in mass overnight like a science experiment gone wrong. Those tiny "newborn" sized outfits? Outgrown before the umbilical stump even fell off. We had thirty-four pristine dresses that were worn exactly zero times.

If you're shopping, skip the tiny stuff and buy sizes for when they're six months old, because that's when the panic truly sets in and the initial wardrobe has shrunk to the size of doll clothes. We had a brief stint calling Twin B "Baby G" because of a hand-me-down monogrammed jumper she basically lived in from month five to month eight, purely because it was the only thing that actually fit her.

And let's talk about fasteners. I firmly believe the person who invented the popper button (or snap, if you're feeling American) for sleepwear was a sadist who never actually met a child. Picture the scenario: it's 3am. You've got forty-five minutes of sleep left before the next feed. You're trying to align seventeen microscopic metal circles in the dark while a small human thrashes like a freshly caught salmon. It's a cruel joke. Buy two-way zips. Just zips. I'd rather wrestle a badger than deal with poppers again.

Oh, and shoes for someone who can't even support their own head are completely pointless.

A barren wasteland of safe sleep

Around week two, the adrenaline wore off and the desperate pursuit of sleep began. The problem with newborns is they fall asleep on you, all warm and cosy, but the moment you try to transfer them to their cot, it's like dropping them onto an iceberg. I remember holding Twin A at 2am, staring at the cold, empty mattress. I briefly, desperately considered covering her with one of the forty-two beautiful knitted shawls we'd been gifted to keep her warm.

But our NHS midwife had properly scared the life out of us regarding safe sleep guidelines. The thought of loose bedding in a cot gave me instant heart palpitations. I think the official medical advice says something about suffocation risks and SIDS, so we firmly decided the cot would remain a barren, sad wasteland. We shoved the girls into wearable sleep sacks instead, which made them look like slightly annoyed caterpillars, but at least we could close our eyes without panicking.

So what happened to all those lovely blankets we were given? We repurposed them entirely. They became strictly supervised gear for the pram or for tummy time on the living room rug. Out of the literal mountain we received, my absolute favourite was the Mono Rainbow Bamboo Baby Blanket from Kianao.

It didn't scream "GIRL" in neon pink, which was a massive relief for my exhausted retinas. It has these subtle, earthy terracotta arches that actually matched our furniture. We'd drape it over their legs in the pram on breezy London afternoons. It's made of a bamboo blend, which apparently controls temperature—I don't entirely understand the thermodynamics of bamboo, but I know it stayed magically cool when the sun came out and warm when the drizzle started. Plus, it didn't look terrible in the background of a photo when I was trying to send a quick baby gif to my mum to prove they were still alive.

If you're hunting for things parents will honestly use rather than just politely thank you for, browse the organic baby care collection at Kianao. It's full of practical tools that really make sense.

Toys that don't require earplugs

The next hurdle in the gifting gauntlet was the toy situation. I don't know who decided infant girls need toys that flash violently and play an electronic version of "Für Elise" at 120 decibels, but I'd like a stern word with them. Child development folks (who probably have calmer households than mine) seem to think babies learn best through cause and effect, not by passively staring at a miniature Vegas light show.

We ended up hiding the loud plastic monstrosities in a cupboard and kept things painfully simple. When we did use actual toys, we leaned heavily into things they couldn't destroy. Someone gifted us the Gentle Baby Building Block Set. Honestly? They're just okay. The packaging claims they teach "logical thinking," which feels a bit ambitious for a creature that currently eats carpet fluff. They're soft and rubbery, which is great because the twins mostly just launch them at the dog's head. The dog appreciates the soft impact, so I suppose that's a win for household harmony.

The teething gauntlet

But if you want to be crowned the ultimate gift-giver, buy something for teething. Teething is Mother Nature's way of punishing you for surviving the newborn phase. The girls started gnawing on our coffee table like a pair of deranged beavers around month five. The sheer volume of drool was astounding; I felt like I was living in a permanent splash zone, dispensing Calpol with a sticky syringe at all hours of the night.

A mate of mine handed us the Panda Teether and it instantly became our most prized possession. It's this flat, food-grade silicone ring shaped like a panda with a little bamboo detail. It's brilliantly easy for uncoordinated tiny fists to grip. You can chuck it in the fridge, and the cold rubber seemed to temporarily exorcise the teething demons. We used to keep three in rotation. When one got launched under the sofa, I'd sprint to the fridge for a backup. No batteries required, no annoying songs, just blessed, silent chewing.

When they finally started crawling, the clothing needs shifted again. Someone sent us the Retro Organic Cotton Baby Shorts. Twin A wore them constantly because they had enough stretch to accommodate her massive cloth nappy bum as she commando-crawled across the kitchen floor. Twin B refused to wear shorts entirely for three months, so there's that. You can't win them all.

If you're shopping for a tiny new human, try to look past the glitter and restrictive dresses that ride up to their armpits. Just hand the exhausted parents practical tools—like two-way zips or silent silicone teethers—that won't actively make their lives harder.

Ready to buy something that won't end up in a charity shop bag by week two? Head over and shop Kianao's full range of sustainable baby items to find gifts that really survive contact with reality.

Questions you're probably too tired to ask

Should I buy 0-3 month clothing for a newborn?
I wouldn't bother, unless you know for a fact the baby was born prematurely. Our two were in 3-6 month clothes by week six. Buy the bigger sizes. Parents will stash them in a drawer, and one Tuesday morning when suddenly nothing fits and covered in spit-up, they'll mentally write you into their will.

Are massive soft toys a good idea?
Only if they're small enough to be washed. We were given life-sized teddy bears that took up half the nursery. You can't put them in the cot (massive suffocation risk, according to our very stern health visitor), so they just sat in the corner gathering dust and looking vaguely threatening in the dark.

What's the deal with bamboo fabric?
Look, I'm no textile scientist, but bamboo feels like silk and somehow survives the washing machine when I inevitably put it on the wrong setting. It's meant to be highly breathable, which just means the baby doesn't wake up sweaty and furious.

Can I just buy nappies as a present?
If you turned up at my door in those early days with a giant box of size 3 nappies and a strong coffee, I'd have kissed you on the mouth. It's the least glamorous thing you can buy, but it's the one that proves you genuinely understand what parenting is.

Do babies genuinely care about black and white contrasting toys?
Our paediatrician claimed they can only see high-contrast shapes at first. We showed them black and white flashcards and they stared at them with the intensity of someone trying to decode the Matrix. So yes, it works, and it buys you exactly four minutes to drink a cup of tea.