Toby’s Shower for Babies is a project designed by Toby’s mom, Elizabeth, to support new NICU families. For those of you who don’t know, the NICU is the neonatal intensive care unit, where premature and newborn babies who need constant medical care and surveillance spend days, weeks, or months before they can go home (if they are blessed enough to make it home). After going through the NICU experience with Toby, Elizabeth and Joshua realized that most families aren’t expecting to go to the NICU and don’t get time to prepare anything, which can be very rough on the family.
Team Toby Tolin started as simply a facebook page to keep family and friends updated with Toby’s progress. The support was incredible, and Toby’s family was looking for a way to share the love. That’s where Toby’s Shower for Babies comes in. This project creates a baby basket for an incoming NICU family. The basket contains a tie fleece blanket for baby’s isolette, a hand dyed swaddling blanket, a stuffed animal, a couple of books for parents to read to baby, and a picture frame with cardstock to save those precious tiny hand and footprints. In an emergency, these kinds of these are rarely thought about.
While parents don’t get to take their babies home right away, these baskets can help their hospital rooms feel a tad less sterile and a little more warm and inviting, while they get care for their precious little fighter. And while hospitals do have some blankets, everything in these baskets belongs to the family to keep for years to come.
Help Toby’s team spread some love to other NICU families and their babies!
What’s in the basket?
A hand tied fleece blanket big enough to cover the isolette and for mom and dad to use.
A hand dyed super soft swaddle blanket
A plush toy and matching book (ex: Corduroy plush and Corduroy book)
A small golden book
A picture frame with card stock inserted so mom and dad can still get those adorable hand prints and footprints.
Other NICU resource materials – donated NICU photography sessions, NICU terminology, etc.
Hospitals we serve
