Aquarius baby gifts and keepsakes

An Aquarius baby is born around 20 January to 18 February, under the water bearer. This is the fixed air sign, ruled by Saturn in the old tradition and by Uranus in modern charts. It makes the baby who stares at the extractor fan instead of your face, who is happy in anyone’s arms, and who will one day do the thing nobody in the family has done before.

Gifts for this child work best when they are a bit different. Not strange for the sake of it, but chosen with thought: something that shows how a thing works, something nobody else will bring, something that lets the child find their own route. Leave the obvious gift to the other guests. Here are eight ideas to start, then the sign explained for the person choosing.

Eight good gifts for an Aquarius baby, in short

1. A toy that shows its own workings. Clear tubes, turning gears, a ball you can watch travel. Aquarius wants to see how it happens.
2. A time capsule of the world on the day of birth. Aquarius is the sign that looks ahead, and this gift is addressed to the future.
3. A print of the whole night sky, not only one sign. A sign that is friendly to everyone deserves all the constellations.
4. A garnet or amethyst for the keepsake box. These two stones belong to Aquarius twice over, as you will see below.
5. Clothes in electric blue or turquoise with the glyph. The Aquarius colours are bright and clear, like a winter sky.
6. Books with no words at all. The child tells the story, and an Aquarius story will not be the one you expected.
7. A star wheel for the parents. A simple turning sky map, so they can find the water bearer on a clear night and show the child later.
8. A proper reading of the baby’s birth chart. In modern astrology Uranus, Aquarius’s ruler, is the planet of astrology itself.

The water bearer, explained for a gift giver

A figure that pours

Aquarius is drawn as a person pouring water from a jar. The water flows out in a long stream for anyone who needs it. In the sky, the constellation is large and faint, and near its centre sits a little Y shaped group of stars known as the Water Jar. The two brightest stars have Arabic names meaning “luckiest of the lucky” and “luck of the king”, a lovely detail to write inside a card.

It surprises people that the water bearer is an air sign, not a water sign. The answer is in the pouring. Aquarius is not the water. It is the one who gives it away. What the water bearer pours out is ideas, fairness and friendship, shared with everybody rather than kept for a favourite few. That is why the Aquarius child is friendly with the whole class and close in the usual way to almost nobody. Their love goes out wide.

For a gift giver, the figure says: give something that can be shared, something that teaches how things work, and something that treats the child as their own person from day one.

The glyph: two waves, one above the other

The Aquarius glyph is two zigzag lines, one stacked above the other, like ripples on water. They draw the water pouring from the jar. Many astrologers also read the lines as waves of air or currents of electricity, which suits the quick, sudden energy of Uranus.

The glyph is easy to stitch or draw, and it has a modern look that fits the sign. Two short lines of waves on a cuff or a pocket is enough.

Air, fixed, Saturn and Uranus, in plain words

Element: air. Astrology puts the twelve signs into four elements: fire, earth, air and water. The air signs, Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, meet the world through ideas, words and people. Aquarius is the air sign most interested in the group and in how things work. You can read about all four in the four elements before the twelve signs.

Modality: fixed. Each sign also has a way of moving, its modality. Fixed signs sit in the middle of a season and hold steady. Aquarius sits in the depth of winter in the northern hemisphere, and in the height of summer in the southern. Being fixed is why the Aquarius child, so open and friendly, can also be completely immovable once they have made up their mind. The guide to cardinal, fixed and mutable children explains the three.

Rulers: Saturn and Uranus. A sign’s ruler is the planet whose nature colours it. Aquarius has two. Saturn, the classical ruler, gives structure, principle and patience: the child who wants a reason and will follow a good one. Uranus, the modern ruler, gives the swerve: sudden ideas, invention, the odd solution that works. Aquarius shares Saturn with Capricorn, but where Capricorn uses Saturn to climb, Aquarius uses it to think.

The Aquarius reference table

For the giver	Aquarius
Dates	around 20 January to 18 February
Figure	the water bearer
Glyph	two zigzag waves, one above the other
Element	air
Modality	fixed
Rulers	Saturn, and Uranus in modern charts
Colours	electric blue and turquoise, with silver
Zodiac stone	garnet; an old Spanish list gives amethyst
Calendar birthstone	garnet for January births; amethyst for February births
Metal	lead for Saturn, which is never a gift; no agreed metal for Uranus
Flower	the orchid
Keyword	sideways

Garnet and amethyst: a happy overlap

Most signs have one stone list for the sign and another for the month, and the two rarely match. Aquarius is lucky.

The zodiac stone, which belongs to the sign whatever the date, is garnet in the 1913 table of zodiac gems by George Frederick Kunz, the list most English writers still follow. The older Spanish list he printed gives amethyst.

The calendar birthstone, which belongs to the month, works out like this:

• Born from 20 to 31 January: garnet.
• Born from 1 to 18 February: amethyst.

So the same two stones turn up on both lists. A late January Aquarius has garnet twice. An early February Aquarius has amethyst as the month stone and garnet as the sign stone, which makes a fine pair for a keepsake box: deep red and violet together. Check the birth date before you choose, but you cannot go far wrong.

Metals, colours and the orchid

Saturn’s metal is lead, which belongs nowhere near a baby. Uranus is too recent a discovery to have a metal in the old tradition, although the element uranium was named after it, and that is not a gift either. So for Aquarius, givers usually skip the metal and choose a cool, modern finish instead: brushed steel, plain silver tone, or clear glass for something kept high on a shelf.

The colours are the bright, clear blues of a cold sky: electric blue and turquoise, often with silver. The orchid is the flower most often given to Aquarius. It is unusual, a little unexpected, and it grows in its own peculiar way, which is the sign exactly.

Aquarius gifts, from the bump to age four

At the baby shower

The baby shower comes before the sign is certain. Aquarius sits between Capricorn, an earth sign that shares Saturn, and Pisces, a water sign ruled by Jupiter and, in modern charts, Neptune. A baby due on 22 January could arrive early as a Capricorn. A baby due on 15 February could arrive late as a Pisces.

The sky itself solves this. A star wheel, the turning paper map of the night sky also called a planisphere, works for all three signs, because all three constellations are on it. Give it with a note: “Once you know the sign, find it on a clear night.” Capricorn will appreciate the useful object, Pisces the dreaming and Aquarius the knowledge.

A warm winter gift works too, whatever the sign: a soft wool hat or a good blanket for the pram, because this is a deep winter birth in the north.

If the birth falls close to 19 or 20 January, or 18 or 19 February, read born on the cusp before buying anything with a sign on it. The neighbouring pages are Capricorn baby gifts and Pisces baby gifts.

The first weeks and the naming day

Once the baby has arrived, the sign is sure, and the best Aquarius newborn gift points forward. Make a time capsule of the world on the birth day.

Fill a sturdy box with things that will look strange in twenty years: the front page of that day’s newspaper, a list of what a loaf of bread and a pint of milk cost, a note of the songs everyone was playing, a photograph of the street outside, a description of the phones and gadgets the family uses. Add a short letter about the weather, the news and who came to visit. Seal it and write a date on the lid, far in the future. Aquarius is the sign of what comes next, and this gift is sent ahead.

For the naming day, the Aquarius baby names page lists names with their origins and the reason each fits the sign. An Aquarius twist on the usual name print: write the name with its meaning, and underneath, the exact map coordinates of the birthplace and the birth time in twenty four hour clock. It reads like a record from a ship’s log, and the child will love decoding it later.

The first birthday

The guide to first birthday gifts by sign places Aquarius with the presents that are slightly too old for the child, the ones that take a small person seriously. That fits well. Go a little older, never wildly older.

The ideal Aquarius first birthday present shows its own workings. A ball run with clear tubes, where the ball can be watched all the way down. A board of large gears that turn each other. A push along toy where the moving parts are visible through the side. This child would rather see how the thing works than be shown a trick.

For the party itself, a birthday party for Aries, Gemini or Aquarius suggests building the day around one strange idea that is entirely the child’s. The gift can be that idea: if the toddler loves the washing machine, a toy washing machine with a door that really opens is a better Aquarius present than any teddy.

Two, three and four

This is when the sideways thinking shows itself, and the right gifts feed it.

• Construction with many ways to connect. Large pieces that join at different angles, so there is no single right way to build.
• A project box. Cardboard tubes, boxes, wide tape, safe child scissors and paper, for inventing whatever the day brings.
• A globe or a big picture atlas. Aquarius likes the whole world laid out, and every country is a fresh question.
• A toy with a real mechanism, like a wind up toy or a simple pulley, so the child can see how the movement happens.
• A large magnifying glass for three and four year olds. Bugs, leaves, fabric, fingerprints: the world looks entirely different up close.

Choosing by kind of gift

Three kinds of nursery print

Constellation print. The stars of Aquarius drawn as a pattern, often with the water bearer’s figure. It needs only the sign. For this child, consider a print of the whole night sky with every constellation on it, with Aquarius quietly marked. The sign is friendly to everyone, and its art can be too.

Glyph print. The two waves alone, large and clean. It also needs only the sign, and it suits a modern, uncluttered room.

Birth sky print. This one shows where the Sun, the Moon and the rising sign were at the exact moment of birth, and it needs three pieces of information: the date, the precise time and the place. With no time, there is no rising sign, and on a day when the Moon crosses from one sign to the next, the Moon is uncertain as well. For an Aquarius child, choose a version that looks like a real star chart, with the degrees marked, rather than a soft decorative one. This sign likes the actual data. Sun, Moon and rising explains the three parts, and the birth chart guide goes further. If the Moon is in Aquarius too, the child is a double Aquarius.

Personalised keepsakes with a twist

Aquarius keepsakes can be personal without being the same as everyone else’s.

• The birth date written another way: in Roman numerals, as map coordinates, or as the position of the Sun in the sky that day.
• The glyph on something unexpected: a wooden ruler, a small tin for treasures, the inside of a lid where only the child will find it.
• A pair of stones for the box: a garnet and an amethyst in one small pouch, with a card explaining why Aquarius gets both.

A memory box that is really a capsule

If you did not give the time capsule at the birth, give it on the first birthday instead, filled with the year that has just passed. Or set up a box that is added to each year and opened at an age the family chooses. The point, for this sign, is the long view: a message from the past to the person this child is becoming, in their own unusual way.

Clothing with the glyph

Electric blue, turquoise or a deep winter navy, with the wave glyph stitched small. Here is the sideways idea: put the glyph on the back of the collar or on one sleeve rather than in the middle of the chest. A pair of socks in two different colours, sold as a set, is another Aquarius joke the family will enjoy. Choose soft, warm layers, as most Aquarius babies arrive in the coldest part of a northern year, and size up.

Books and toys for an Aquarius temperament

Good Aquarius books:

• Wordless picture books, where the child makes up the story.
• Books about how things work: diggers, trains, the inside of a house, the water in a tap.
• Books about the sky, the stars, the Moon and the planets, in simple pictures.
• Books with unusual art, collage, cut paper, bold shapes, anything a little different.
• Simple true books about animals, especially the odd ones: the octopus, the sloth, the creature that lives upside down.

For play, think mechanisms, open-ended building and freedom. Aquarius children are happiest with things they can use in their own way, including the wrong way, so choose toys with more than one possible use. How each sign plays shows the pattern through the early years.

Experiences

• A planetarium visit, for the parents now and the child later, to see the water bearer on the dome.
• A science centre or museum family membership, where a child can push buttons and watch what happens.
• A trip to watch something work: trains at a station, boats at a lock, cranes on a building site, seen from a safe spot.
• A donation in the baby’s name to a local astronomical society, with a card explaining it. A gift to everyone, which is the most Aquarius gift of all.

A gift for the parents of an Aquarius baby

Many parents are surprised by an Aquarius baby. They expected clinging and got a friendly little scientist who goes happily to anyone. The Aquarius parent page is a fond read if they share the sign, and when you and your child are nothing alike helps if they do not.

The best gift for them is understanding. A proper reading of the baby’s full birth chart by an astrologer, with the Moon and the rising sign, gives them the whole child, not only the Sun. The Aquarius Moon page shows how much the Moon can add. Put it in a card with a star wheel, and they will have both the sky and the reading of it.

Card messages to copy

Original lines for an Aquarius baby’s card:

• “Born in the deep of winter, under the luckiest of the lucky stars. Welcome, little water bearer.”
• “To the most original person at the party. We cannot wait to see what you notice first.”
• “Here is something that does not play a tune or flash a light. You will think of something better to do with it.”
• “A friend to everybody from the first day. We are very glad to be on your list.”
• “For a Saturn and Uranus baby: one gift with a reason, and one just because.”
• “Happy first birthday to the one who looked at the ceiling fan and saw a whole world.”
• “From all of us to the newest thinker in the family. Pour out whatever you like.”

Gifts that miss with Aquarius

Some presents work against this temperament.

• Toys with only one right way to use them. A kit with a fixed answer and no room to swerve frustrates a child who finds a new route on purpose.
• The gift everyone else is bringing. The trendiest item of the season, in the same colour as every other baby’s, is the least Aquarius present there is.
• Gifts that demand cuddles. Aquarius affection comes in its own time. A toy that insists on hugs misses this child.
• A “named star” certificate. It looks perfect for a sky sign, but the International Astronomical Union, the body that names stars, does not recognise bought names. A planetarium trip or a donation to an astronomy society gives the same feeling with real meaning behind it.

On safety, one calm sentence: any crystal, gemstone, piece of jewellery, small ornament, cushion or decorative blanket is a keepsake for a high shelf or a closed box, never something for the cot or for little mouths.

Something to look ahead with

The right gift for an Aquarius baby does not need to be expensive. It needs a bit of thought and a bit of daring. Something that shows how things work, something nobody else brought, something that says “we see you, and your way is welcome here”. Give this child room to be different, and you have given them their sign.

For every other child in the family, zodiac baby gifts gathers all twelve signs.

Sources and references

• American Gem Society: birthstones by month, for garnet (January) and amethyst (February).
• GIA: birthstones, a second reference for the calendar birthstone list.
• George Frederick Kunz, The Curious Lore of Precious Stones (1913), Project Gutenberg, for garnet as the zodiac stone of Aquarius and the old Spanish list.
• Unicode chart: Miscellaneous Symbols, where the Aquarius glyph is character U+2652.
• StarDate: Lucky Stars, for the meanings of the names of the two brightest stars of Aquarius.
• International Astronomical Union: frequently asked questions, on why bought star names are not recognised.
• NHS: reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, for keeping the cot clear.
• NHS: baby and toddler safety, for keeping small objects out of reach.