Ultimate Gift Guide for Daycare Kids

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Every year we face the age-old question in childcare, should I get Christmas gifts for daycare kids? Some providers give their families gifts as well. I love to give unique gifts to everyone on my list! And my daycare kids are pretty special.

It’s all relative to your budget, beliefs, and feelings about what is best for the kids. In today’s society, kids are very overindulged in most cases. Most kids don’t NEED anything else. Hopefully, this post can help you solve the dilemma and you can refer back to it year after year.

Christmas gifts for kids

I love to give my kids something unique that won’t get lost or broken along with all the other toys they get. Personally, I usually never give them any kind of toys. I also love my gifts to be educational. That’s another way to make gifts more valuable for your children.

Do you have to give gifts to your daycare kids for Christmas? No, you absolutely don’t. It’s okay if you don’t think that’s the right thing to do. When polling other providers, many of them don’t. It’s a personal decision based on what you believe.

First, you need to decide how much you want to spend on each child. I usually set my budget at about $20 per person. If you have 7 or 12 daycare kids, when you multiply that by 20, that’s quite a bit of money. Daycare is not a lucrative career, so we need to be careful with our spending. Twenty dollars is not a lot of money, and it can be tough to find really special gifts for that price. If your budget is smaller, it’s even harder.

I like my gifts to be personalized. When I do that, I feel like it makes it that much more special. I love things that are monogrammed or personalized in some way. Check out Etsy for some great personalized gifts. I also love that Etsy products are homemade by someone and my purchase is helping them do life for their family.

Daycare Christmas gifts

Don’t just get the latest toy. Their parents, friends, grandparents and so many other people are buying them fun toys to play with. Most kids have so many toys, they can’t even play with all of them. Try to think of something out of the box.

Christmas gift ideas for daycare kids

Some of the things I’ve bought for my daycare kids gifts over the years include:

• Children’s Bible-This is a great one if you run a faith-based program.
• Monogrammed blankets
• Personalized pillows
• Monogrammed duffel bags
• Personalized backpacks
• Piggy banks and rolls of pennies to feed them
• Monogrammed aprons
• Personalized puzzles (Melissa and Doug will add names on puzzles)
• Garden tools and seeds (we garden at daycare, so it’s cool to think they could take that home with them too)
• Board Games (educational and encourages screen-free family time)
• Books

Christmas gifts for daycare toddlers

I asked a bunch of my friends what they give their daycare kids and I got a lot of really cool and unique ideas for Christmas gifts for daycare toddlers, preschoolers, and school age kids. Oh, and even Christmas gifts for daycare babies. I love polling providers; they are a great group of folks. Here is a list of what they said:

• Books were the most popular answer and I absolutely LOVE that. It makes me happy to think of all those kids getting books! Click here to see why reading to kids is one of the most important things you can do.
• Homemade PJ Pants (I wish I could sew)
• Homemade Hats and Gloves (I wish I could knit)
• Knitted Dolls (so cool)
• Stockings Full of Toys
• Mugs with Hot Chocolate
• Christmas Outfit
• Homemade Ornaments
• Homemade Aprons
• Monogrammed Stuffed Animals
• PJ’s
• Homemade Cookies
• Fisher-Price Toys
• Coloring Book with Crayons, you can even make your own personalized coloring books. Click here to see how. (You can even make your own shape crayons from broken crayon bits you have around)
• Gift Cards
• Hair Barrettes and Keychains
• Match Box Cars
• Personalized Books
• Hats, Scarves, and Gloves
• Homemade Playdough
• PJ’s and a book
• Pencils, crayons, or markers

Seems like there is something to fit pretty much any budget, and so many of these are super ideas.

I like to give to my families as well and usually do some sort of homemade cookies, pies, or bread. I always make the families a personalized cookbook of the children cooking as gifts to go with whatever food I make. Click here to see how we make our cookbooks.

What great ideas do you have for great gifts for your daycare kids or families?

Christmas party daycare

It’s cool to have your daycare kid gifts ready for your Christmas party if you have one. There are a ton of different kinds of parties you can throw. We do a gingerbread party every year. You can have a few simple games, just do snacks and exchange gifts, listen to music and eat snacks, whatever works for you.

And these adorable Christmas themed breakfast ideas for daycare are lots of fun for your holiday celebration!

Please don’t make it too hard on yourself. The simpler the better. Love doesn’t require elaborate things. If we do party snacks, I like to ask the families to bring them. It makes it simpler for me that way.

Gift ideas for daycare provider

Check out more gift ideas here.

• Gift ideas for daycare provider
• Gifts for babies
• Gifts for toddlers
• Gifts for preschoolers
• Gifts kids can make for parents
• Homemade gifts