How to Pay For Postpartum Support With a Gift Registry

You’ve made your BeHerVillage registry and filled it with the support services you want, so now what? How do you actually get your family and friends to contribute to those gifts you’re asking for? Here’s a list of ideas to help you get as much of your support team funded as possible.

Does your family know how important your birth and postpartum support is to you? Do they know what a doula is, or why you might want to take a childbirth education class? Talk about it! (And here’s a blog to help) Most people are willing to give money to something they support and understand, so help your loved ones know that this registry of support is important to you.

Your loved ones are excited to support you and celebrate the new baby you’re bringing into the world. Parents like you care less about the material things and more about meaningful experiences. The tricky part is that the older generation (sorry, mom) doesn’t necessarily know what these support services are or why they’re important. We’ve set up the BeHerVillage registry in a way that allows you to tell your story! Let your family and friends know how much it’ll mean to you to have a doula supporting your birth, or how important it is to you to have all the necessary help to successfully breastfeed your baby, or why having a pelvic floor therapist is about more than just helping you not pee your pants while sneezing. Add your voice, add your pictures, add your story. Your loved ones are easily able to envision what you look like pushing a stroller, so now you need to help them envision what it’ll be like when you have birth support, rest, and hot meals delivered to your home.

Like with most things in life, people need to be reminded more than once before they take action. Sharing your registry more than once (and in a few different ways) will help more of your loved ones have a chance to see your registry and contribute to it, instead of them saying “Oh yeah I’ll get to that tomorrow” (and then never actually getting to it). Share your registry after you load it up with the support services of your choosing. Share your registry close to your Baby Shower or Mother Blessing. If there’s a holiday or your birthday coming up, there’s no shame in reminding the people in your life that your BeHerVillage registry exists. Send out another reminder about your registry as your guess-date gets closer, and don’t forget to send it again when you text your family to let them know your little one has arrived! With your personal BeHerVillage registry link, you can easily send it via text, email, or messenger so everyone can stay in the loop.

I bet most of your family and friends are on social media. Your aunt is on Instagram sharing pics of sunsets and your grandma is on Facebook liking baby cat videos and pasta recipes.  Instagram has made it really easy to share links in your stories. Anytime you post a baby bump pic and post it to your stories, add a link to your registry! Sharing your link on your facebook page is a quick way to get peoples’ eyes on your registry, especially for those family members who only know how to navigate the sites they’re comfortable with and aren’t savvy enough to utilize a QR code. Put your registry right at their fingertips!

Every family has at least one of them, right? The family member who tends to spread news faster than anybody else. Use it to your advantage. Let that person know that you’re registered with BeHerVillage and why this registry is more important to you than the standard registry full of baby stuff, and let them work their big mouth magic. 

When you create a BeHerVillage registry you get a personalized registry link and a downloadable card for you to send with your baby shower invites or pregnancy announcement.

One hurdle some parents-to-be face is the whole asking for money thing. And yeah, I get it, it can be weird. It might bring you right back to knocking door-to-door for girl scouts or cheerleading to sell wreaths or cookies. This doesn’t have to be weird. People are excited to contribute, excited to help, and excited to make an impact. And they want to gift you the gifts that will be most meaningful for you.

The average baby registry, full of plastic gadgets and outfits that a baby will wear for literally two hours, adds up to thousands of dollars of gifts. The United States spends $12,000,000,000 (YES THAT’S BILLIONS OF DOLLARS) each year on baby gifts. So, the bottom line is that people are spending money on baby gifts, whether or not they’re from baby registries. And that’s the thing, people want to be generous, but they also want the gift they give to be thoughtful. Sharing your registry full of support services to your loved ones will give them a place to celebrate you and your new baby, as well as contribute to a truly meaningful gift.

The best advice to getting your registry funded is this: Share your registry as much as you can. Share why it’s important to you and your growing family. And then you’ll be able to share with your loved ones how impactful their gifts were.

Did we miss something on this list? Let us know! We want to hear from you!

BeHerVillage is a gift registry for parents-to-be to register for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum support. Like any other baby registry, family and friends contribute to part of or all of a gift. (Unlike the other registries) The funds that are contributed go directly into the expectant parent’s account to be used when they’re ready and in need of support. Create your free registry at BeHerVillage.com

If you support new mamas you can create a profile at BeHerVillage.com/partners so new parents can put YOU onto their registry.