In the recent years after I had severe postpartum depression (PPD) and recovered, several of my best friends and my sister also became first-time moms. In addition to all the baby registry gifts or hand-me-downs I could pass on, I wanted to come up with a heartfelt gift that might help them ease into new motherhood and maybe even prevent PPD from happening to them. That last goal was a big one for me, personally, because I never wanted anyone to experience the depth of darkness that I did.
And while it’s probably a stretch to say a book like this might have helped with my PPD, I do think what can help during PPD is to know you’re not alone in it. Understanding that you’re not failing and that motherhood is just hard in general can be huge for first time moms who put a lot of pressure on themselves to get everything right.
So I wanted to remind my dearest loved ones entering into new motherhood that they always had people who loved them and maybe even some honest advice from other moms who had walked the path before them. And this post is going to talk about the book that I found and have personalized and gifted to at least 5 mamas now! The first mama who received it was an early 2020 pandemic mama, and it served a second purpose to make sure she did feel like she had people around to support her in a time that the world was so closed off to contact.
It does take a little bit of time to put together on the gifter’s part, but it’s totally worth it in my opinion. I admit I wish I could have done it for more friends, but I did unfortunately run out of time for some of them. However, it’s incredibly meaningful. I’m pretty sure each mama who’s received one has shed some tears (not that it was my goal! Just that it is very sentimental).
If you’re looking for a new mom Mother’s Day gift this year (or it doesn’t even have to be during Mother’s Day at all!) try piecing together this book for a first-time mama that you love. I’m writing this post about a month before Mother’s Day so you can try to get on it soon! (If you want more instant quick gifts, this was a Mother’s Day Gift guide I wrote a few years ago that might help too! Likely in need of updating, but if you’re in a pinch…)
I’ve been meaning to write up how to replicate this personalized gift and pass along how to make this book to my readers now. At the same time, I almost wanted to keep this a secret. I hate to ruin the surprise for any other new mama friends I might have in the future, so I waited awhile before posting this. But I think it’s too good of an idea to keep to myself, so I want other moms to feel the love.
Read on below to see my detailed step-by-step guide, and please help me Pin the graphic below on Pinterest if you want to save for a future project! 🙂
Jump ahead with links below:
Step 1: Purchase a Book
Step 2: Come Up With a List of Friends and Family to Contribute to the Book
Step 3: Pre-Assign a Prompt to Each Person
Step 4: Contact Friends and Family and Give them their Task
Step 5: Receive Letters from Friends and Family and Paste into Book
Step 6: Present Your Book to New Mama!
(At the end of each section, you can click on the link that says “Back to the Top” to get back to this list.)
Step 1: Purchase a Book
Alright, you’re intrigued and you’ve got an amazing mama in your life you want to shower with love. Let’s get started!
Of course, the first step is to get your hands on a book. I recommend getting it from Amazon, but I’ve also seen this book at Barnes and Nobles or other gift shops. It’s only $14.99 for a LOT of love! Once in awhile, you might see the book go on sale, but honestly, I don’t think it’s terribly overpriced! I love a good deal, but the personalization makes this priceless!
The book is Letters To A New Mom: Write Now. Read Later. Treasure Forever. and it’s basically a Novelty/Gift book that binds what looks like old-fashioned envelopes together in a series of a dozen letters to the new mom.
And as the person getting this gift together, the end goal is to assemble a time capsule book with a collection of letters from the new mama’s closest friends and family that you think she would appreciate a letter with advice, encouragement, and love from. Each letter has a spot to write the date it was written and then the date you want mama to open the letter.
There’s prompts assigned to each envelope in the book–topics to write about, such as:
- “Your baby is so lucky to have you as a mom…”
- “Remember, you can always count on me for…”
- “Remember to make time for you, for small things like…”
- “When the going gets tough… “
There’s even two pages that are just left as blank letters with no topic prompting! So you can be creative how to fill up this book, but read on to see some of my tips on how to divide up the task of filling up these 12 letters in the time capsule!
(Note: I do have an affiliate link to Amazon but if you love my work/writing and advice after this article, I’d deeply appreciate if you bought through my link, with NO extra cost to you! It really might only earn me a couple cents, but every penny goes towards breaking even for the hundreds it costs me to pay for hosting and keeping this blog alive! Believe it or not, it’s not cheap or free–and I may not even break even some years!)
Step 2: Come Up With a List of Friends and Family to Contribute to the Book
Since there are 12 letters to fill up, you can think about the new mama you’re gifting this to and who is important in her life to assign these letters to. I would think if you’re committing the time to organizing and collecting letters for this project that you’re probably pretty close with her. So you probably personally know some of her closest friends and family already OR at least you know of who those people might be and how to get their contact information.
Some easy and obvious ideas on who to recruit for your project:
- Yourself, duh 🙂
- The partner of new mama
- New mama’s own mother!
- Any siblings of new mama
- New mama’s best friends
- New mama’s cousins
If you can’t come up with a dozen people who you think would write a letter for the new mama, consider writing an extra letter yourself. OR, one idea that I sometimes do is I’ll assign a page to the new mama herself to write a letter to her future self after she had given birth. I think this could be quite a good exercise for herself and fun to reflect back on and see what she thought about before giving birth!
Sometimes I like to contact these friends/family beforehand to quickly see if they would be willing to contribute a letter to new mama in a surprise I’m working on for her. This can save some time if someone cannot complete this job and just becomes hard for you to chase down, but truthfully, no one has ever told me they do NOT want to or do NOT have time to write a letter. I do think if you choose the people who are really meaningful in mama’s life, they will find time. One letter writer was a fresh new mom herself, but she still pulled through for me!
Step 3: Pre-Assign a Prompt to Each Person
Now this is where you have to start staying organized. The book comes with 10 letter prompts and 2 blank ones, so once you have your list of people, assign a prompt that you think would be most fitting to each person. If you’re going to have mama write herself a letter, I usually assign a blank page for her.
One of the prompts is “Remember, you can always count on me for…” and I usually like to assign this one to her partner, if she has one! It forces the partner to think about how they will support her during the postpartum period 😉
Keep this list somewhere safe so as not to mix up who is writing which prompt and avoid accidentally have two of the same people write the same prompt!
Step 4: Contact Friends and Family and Give them their Task
If you choose not to introduce the idea of these letters to friends/family via text or other means first, you can also start off with an email asking for their participation with all the details listed. Sometimes I would do this because I couldn’t track down a phone number for someone I wanted to include. But even if you discuss via phone or text beforehand, I still think having an email sent to people is nice because the instructions and prompt will be saved somewhere for people to refer back to.
In an email to friends and family, I would first head the Subject line with something like “Shhh!…a surprise for (new mama) and I’d love your help!” to make sure this stays hush between you guys. Then, in the body of the email, I would introduce the project and link it to the book so they can see what it looks like (or send a photo with your message).
Be sure to include in the instructions:
- Explain that each letter has a “sealed on” date, and an “open on” date to write down. I ask people to tell me what dates they would like written down. Here you can actually be creative for the “open on” date and leave it kind of nonspecific. For example, I sometimes get things like “when baby is 1 month old” or personally I like to write letters for mama to open “when you’re doubting yourself as a mom.” If I write a second letter, sometimes I will write it for mama to open on baby’s first birthday!
- I tell people the page size is 6″ x 9″ and that the page will be folded into thirds*. Writers have the option of giving me a handwritten letter I’ll paste into the book, OR they can format a letter in a Word document for 6″ x 9″ to email me that I will print and paste for them. I will include my address here if they want to mail me something, as friends and family may not be local.
“The reason I mention that the page will be folded into thirds in the book is because I have had some VERY creative letter writers for some mamas, and one time a gal sent me a very bulky letter that exploded confetti upon opening. So…..this is just to remind mamas that the letter does need to fold and seal up 🙂 - Include a date you would like the letter to be returned by. Ideally, give them a few weeks to complete it but have the deadline before when you actually need letters by in case people forget. It will take a little bit of time to paste the letters in and write in names and seal up the letters.
- Lastly, but most importantly, assign the prompt to each specific person! It’s of course optional if they choose to stick to it, and people can always end up writing whatever advice they feel like.
Also, if this is your first time contacting people about the letter project, you can also give them the option to opt out after seeing if this is too much time commitment. Ask them to please let you know as soon as possible so you can find another person to write the letter!
Step 5: Receive Letters from Friends and Family and Paste into Book
After you’ve organized and sent out all the instructions to everyone (which is half the battle), I’d argue this might be the hardest part of the whole project–receiving letters on time.
Some people I have found to be very on top of it and will mail you something instantly or email you a letter to paste into the book quite quickly. Others will need a reminder when it comes close to the due date, so I often will schedule a reminder email to everyone who has not sent you a letter yet the week before it is “due.” Surprisingly, I’ve found the spouses sometimes tend to be the most lagging on sending a letter, but it always gets done!
Once you receive the letters, I trim down the letters and use a glue stick to paste the letters into the book. (I like the ones that look purple, but dry clear, so I can see where I’ve applied glue.) It can be a little awkward to fold it into the thirds, so I like that the glue stick lets you be a little bit flexible because the page is not bound extremely tight. However, glue stick also means it could be too loose and fall off. Another option is double-sided tape. So play around with it!
Personally, for myself, I like to hand write into the book directly to avoid needing to paste anything. I’ll write up the letter I want to write on a computer and hand copy it into the book so it’s more neat. If you are close to other friends of new mama and feel comfortable letting people also hand write in the book, that’s another option. I think the handwritten notes are most personal, but I also get it that some people are just far away or they say they have illegible handwriting.
Don’t forget to address who each letter is from on each envelope as well as write the “sealed on” dates and “open on” dates!
At the back of the time capsule, there’s a page of stickers that you can use to seal each letter shut too. From experience, I notice they’re not the stickiest and sometimes it will still flap open, but the letters will stay together when you close the book.
Step 6: Present Your Book to New Mama! (Maybe it can be a baby shower gift too!)
And you’re all done! Last thing to do is present your book to mama! It will look pretty thick and bulky if you’ve pasted in letters. If everything is handwritten, the book will flatten and stay closed better, but it’s normal for the book to look bulky. (See the featured photo at beginning of article.)
I like to give these at a baby shower especially if some of the letter writers will be attending! The first book I made, we had a very small intimate pandemic outdoor baby shower where we sat 6 feet apart from each other (it looked kind of funny), and all the people who attended had contributed a letter! However, if you don’t have time to complete it before a baby shower or you’re too far to attend one, simply mail it off to mama. I have a feeling the new mama receiving it will absolutely love your heartfelt gift!
The feedback I’ve gotten from these mama friends that received a book is that it was one of their favorite gifts to cherish. Two of them did unfortunately end up going on to develop some PPD, but they all recovered. One mama with PPD told me she wished she had opened the book sooner to read and know she was not alone and incredibly loved. The book still touched her deeply and I’m glad she still has it to remind her of all the support she has around her.
Happy gifting!
Please help me share this if you liked this idea (Pinning to Pinterest is great!), and again, I would so appreciate if you bought the book from my link, at no cost extra to you! 🙂 Thanks so much for reading!
