Our Sibling Bags

A Sibling Gift Bag brings joy to young children.  Siblings often feel overshadowed when a new baby arrives.  This gift is just for them!  Each one includes the following gifts:

Our youngest volunteer selects the items and assembles each sibling bag.
  • Colorful tote bag 
  • Cuddly toy
  • Storybook
  • Coloring Book and crayons
  • Small toys as available
  • My Baby and Me – a delightful baby book with places for milestones, drawings and fun facts about the new baby and the older sibling.  Both are important.  Both are celebrated.

Sibling Bags make these little ones feel valued and contribute to loving, healthy family relationships.

Three sibling stories

A mother who received a Babies In Need Layette gave Clifford, the book inside it, to her pre-school age daughter. When a social worker entered the room, the little girl ran up to her, clutching the book to her chest, and said, “This is my book. See my book? This is my very own book.” She danced around in high spirits and wouldn’t let it go. When the social worker returned later in the day, the little girl was still holding the book and was still excited. “Do you want to see my book again? This is MY book.”   This event led to the creation of Sibling Bags.

We gave a sibling bag to a little Hispanic boy whose mom spoke almost no English.  With interpreters, doctors, nurses, social workers and family all crowded into the room, nobody paid much attention to the little guy as he bounced off the walls.  Chaos was imminent.  He was overjoyed (and happily distracted) by the contents of his Sibling Bag.  Soon, he was showing everyone his “baby” — a little plush bear.  Later, he was happily filling in his coloring book with his ‘baby’ bear nearby.

Another young mother was driven to near distraction by her twin daughters.  Though she had brought toys for them, the tired girls squabbled over who would play with what.  Their mother was in no shape to mediate or correct them.  The identical contents and novelty of the Sibling Bags calmed them considerably.  As we left the room, the two were sitting back-to-back, coloring books in their laps, getting a little much-needed sleep.