Baby Shower Tips

[TinkiTime1989]

My mom and I are throwing a Baby Shower for one of my friends on Saturday. Neither one of us have ever hosted a baby shower before. Does anyone have any tips or game ideas? :baby:

[Disneyatic]

A fun game that we have played at baby and wedding showers is the "word game". Everyone gets a clothes pin when the arrive and clips it somewhere visible on themselves. You pick a key word, like BABY, and anytime someone says that word, the person that notices get to take their clothes pin. The person with the most pins at the end of the party, wins a prize. It is a good laugh getter!

Another tip that I got from a shower I was recently at, when everyone arrived they were given an envelope and asked to put their mailing address on it.
The envelopes were the thank you card envelopes and this "pre-printed" them.
I thought this was a brilliant idea but when I mentioned it to my mom she said it was rude :confused:
But I still think it's brilliant :blush:

[kdbianchini]

We did the addresses on envelopes at my bridal shower and it helped me out greatly! I recommend this for every shower.

[Ian]

Hmmm ... I mean we normally give our baby a bath, but if you really want to ...

Turn the water on low and make sure the temperature is not too warm. Babies skin is very sensitive and can burn easily.

Huh? What's that? Oh ... she's not asking about that kind of shower?

Sorry! :blush:

[AZ Disney]

I too loved having the pre-written envelopes for thank you cards. I reccomend you do those without a doubt.

Three other fun games:

Pins in rice
Hide very small safety pins in a bowl of rice. Without looking, have guests try to pull as many pins out of the rice as possible.

Guess her girth
Instruct guests to unroll yarn or ribbon to fit exactly around the waist of mom-to-be. Prizes awarded to the person who fits their yarn exactly, or the closest to actual size of the mother-to-be.

Memory tray game
Set out a tray of around 40 baby items (more or less if desired) in front of your guests for about a minute or two. Take the tray and items away, then have guests try to name (on paper) as many of the items as they can remember. Prize awarded to the person who remembered all, or the most, of the items. Tray of baby items goes to Mom to be.

[Tick-Tock]

Another tip that I got from a shower I was recently at, when everyone arrived they were given an envelope and asked to put their mailing address on it.
The envelopes were the thank you card envelopes and this "pre-printed" them.
I thought this was a brilliant idea but when I mentioned it to my mom she said it was rude :confused:
But I still think it's brilliant :blush:

I'm sorry, but I agree with your mom. Many people take a lot of time and effort in selecting and wrapping shower presents, not to mention taking the time to attend the shower. It doesn't seem too much to ask for the honoree to write out an address on an envelope.

I recently got married and was positively embarrassed at the generosity of our friends and family, for both our shower and wedding. I felt that writing out thank-yous was the least I could do.

[IloveJack]

A great game that I've both played and hosted is the "dirty diaper" game.
1. Buy a pack of preemie diapers (or as small as you can find).
2. Then buy 8 (or so) different candy bars, and Write a number on the outside of the same number of diapers.
3. Just before the game starts, place half of the candy bar in the diaper and microwave it (I think 45 seconds worked for me, but you should test try it beforehand, to keep from burning a hole in the diaper).
4. Pass the diapers around, allowing the guests to look at, smell, or touch the specimen (but not taste, cause that's just disgusting looking!). Have them write their guess on a piece of paper.
5. The winner is whomever has the most correct.

This makes for some absolutely hillarious pictures! I will alert you that Reeses cups don't melt well, but Butterfinger bars can be crumbled and melt fine. The best-looking specimen has to be Hershey's Cookies and Cream. It got the best digusted looks, and was the hardest to guess!

We also played more traditional games, like "how many pastel colored M&Ms are in the baby bottle?" and "how much does each guest's purse weigh?" (as the new mom will most likely be carrying a much larger purse from now on).

Have fun! :babyroll:

[pink]

I saw these two games on a TV show... the first one is called the dirty diaper game. What you do is get different kinds of chocolate candy like Baby Ruth,Snickers,Hershey,Reeses, etc and melt one into a baby diaper and then the guests have to guess what kind of candy it is by tasting and smelling it. It sounds gross but it also looked like they had a lot of fun. The second game is you get a bunch of different flavors of baby food and the guests have to guess what type of flavor it is.

On other note, my mother and I recently attended a baby shower and we had fun playing our own game. It was counting how many times people said "awww" while the girl opened the gifts. I think it ended up being 72 or something crazy like that. :secret:


Have fun! :mickey:

[FlaTinkRAMESAM]

Something that was done for my shower:

as everyone comes in and signs a guest book (if you have one) there is a pile of small card stock papers in various colors (or pick a color theme, or do all white, get crazy with it) and there were numerous colored pens available and each guest was to write a note to the baby, to the mom, and/or words of wisdom and then they all sign or initial the bottom. The cards varied in size from about 2in x 2in to about 5in x 5in. If they want to write a lot or a little the size was available. Then you can take the cards and do a few things with them:
*put them in a scrapbook with photos from the shower...
*make a collage and frame it w/ or w/o pictures
*in addition to the above, type out the sayings and the person they are from and make a nice 8x10 print out to frame and hang-up somewhere.

I was going through a terrible time (FOB left me for a woman he was cheating on me with 2 days before my shower. I was now going to be a single mom, no where to live, out of school, scared to death, etc.) so the words of wisdom and encouragements were such a blessing to read. and some of them were absolutely hilarious and I still laugh to this day... It makes it very personal and you always remember it!

I love the envelope idea. A lot of people were invited by word of mouth and I did not have their addresses. I hand wrote my thank-you notes though, which I think is only appropriate. I just had them write out their addresses for me so proper thanks for the wonderful gifts could be given. We had these set out where the guest book and words of wisdom cards were.

[DisneyTwinsMommy]

Guess her girth
Instruct guests to unroll yarn or ribbon to fit exactly around the waist of mom-to-be. Prizes awarded to the person who fits their yarn exactly, or the closest to actual size of the mother-to-be.

Oh please don't do that one!! I just recently gave birth to twins and I was HUGE and uncomfortable by the time my baby shower rolled around... the last thing a pregnant woman wants is to have her "girth guessed!"

[d_m_n_n]

What is the tone of your shower? Elegant or crazy-fun?

If fun, we play a funny game called "My Water Broke." Go to a craft store and buy the tiny plastic babies and freeze them in ice cube trays. Give each guest a cup with their baby at the beginning of the shower. When the baby has melted, that person has to yell, "My water broke." My old dept. at work would play this and there was nothing funnier than a male engineer (no offense, guys/engineers) realizing his water broke!! :D

[ncscgirl2005]

Another fun game is Guess The Baby Food.
Get a few jars of baby food, remove the labels and number the jars, give each guest their own spoon, and pass around the jars. Have them try to guess what the foods are. Be sure to get some disgusting stuff to make it more interesting. We love this game.

Also, you'd be surprised at how many people don't remember nursery games. I don't remember the exact game but there is a game you can play where you have to try to fill in the blanks (or something to that effect) of nursery rhymes. Oh man, you'd be surprised with some of the stuff those women will come up with.

Party City has a baby shower game book that has lots of fun games in it.

[ncscgirl2005]

A fun game that we have played at baby and wedding showers is the "word game". Everyone gets a clothes pin when the arrive and clips it somewhere visible on themselves. You pick a key word, like BABY, and anytime someone says that word, the person that notices get to take their clothes pin. The person with the most pins at the end of the party, wins a prize. It is a good laugh getter!




Love this game. I would suggest using the word baby as the key game to make it a lot more interesting!!!!! Try going to a baby shower and not using the word....not every easy to do which in turns makes it a lot more easier. I always think the hostess should be excluded because they are the ones that have to keep people on track.

[ncscgirl2005]

My mom and I are throwing a Baby Shower for one of my friends on Saturday. Neither one of us have ever hosted a baby shower before. Does anyone have any tips or game ideas? :baby:

I'm not that far from GA. Can I come? I love Baby Showers!!!!!!!

[princessjojo]

Something that was done for my shower:

as everyone comes in and signs a guest book (if you have one) there is a pile of small card stock papers in various colors (or pick a color theme, or do all white, get crazy with it) and there were numerous colored pens available and each guest was to write a note to the baby, to the mom, and/or words of wisdom and then they all sign or initial the bottom. The cards varied in size from about 2in x 2in to about 5in x 5in. If they want to write a lot or a little the size was available. Then you can take the cards and do a few things with them:
*put them in a scrapbook with photos from the shower...
*make a collage and frame it w/ or w/o pictures
*in addition to the above, type out the sayings and the person they are from and make a nice 8x10 print out to frame and hang-up somewhere.
I had someone do this for me when my second DS was born. My step-mom then had many of them printed with the writers names in different fonts on different types of paper, finally having them framed. I hung them all over 1 wall of his room. It made a beautiful wall. I still have them all and am thinking of having them reprinted onto a single print to hang in my bedroom or computer room. It is probably one of my most valued things today.

[PirateLover]

Oh please don't do that one!! I just recently gave birth to twins and I was HUGE and uncomfortable by the time my baby shower rolled around... the last thing a pregnant woman wants is to have her "girth guessed!"
I was just going to say the same thing. I know I wouldn't like this game, and I've heard a few mommies-to-be complain about it, and my cousin actually just gave birth to twins and I know she was getting embarrassed by her size. This day should make a mommy feel special, not potentially uncomfortable.

I liked the bingo game. You just hand out a blank paper lined off 5x5 just like for bingo and you fill in all the gifts you think she'll get. Then when you get bingo you get a cheap prize (most people just hit up the dollar store).

[Terra]

What is the tone of your shower? Elegant or crazy-fun?

If fun, we play a funny game called "My Water Broke." Go to a craft store and buy the tiny plastic babies and freeze them in ice cube trays. Give each guest a cup with their baby at the beginning of the shower. When the baby has melted, that person has to yell, "My water broke." My old dept. at work would play this and there was nothing funnier than a male engineer (no offense, guys/engineers) realizing his water broke!! :D

Oh my gosh, this is GREAT!! I'm throwing a shower for a friend soon and I'm going to do this!!! I've never heard of it before!!

I personally do not think the addresses on the envelopes are rude...I don't generally have everyone's address so I end up emailing them for it anyway....I don't see what the big deal is and if someone asked me I wouldn't care...
Another way to do it would be to have a "guest book" where they also fill out there name and address then you have them all in one place too :) I think people get to nitpicky about little stuff like that....
I think a previous post mentioned that alot of people take time to wrap and do their gifts which is true...but I'm finding more and more that most people just put the stuff in gift bags...at my shower I only had 1 wrapped gift!! LOL....the rest were gift bags...

[tinkerbell04]

I don't like the envelope thing either, in my opinion someone had the address to mail the invitation so it shouldn't be difficult to get it to send the thank you note. :)That said....we played a nice little game that works for any kind of shower. We set a random timer and when the timer went off, the giver of the gift that the bride or mommy to be was opening up, won a nice little gift. We had about 10 gifts already made up in gift bags and the winner got to choose one from the table. All of the guests were happy with this game.:mickey:

[diz_girl]

I've heard that 'Guess the Baby Food' is a lot of fun. Like DisneyTwinsMommy and PirateLover mentioned, avoid anything that could embarrass or potentially humiliate the mother-to-be.

I've never been to a baby shower that had games, so my only advice is to know your crowd. Are they the type that likes games or are they the type to eat, chat, look at the presents and leave. Some families, like mine, just don't do games. But the baby food game looks like fun, just don't make the mother-to-be eat it.

[katzctkpt]

This isn't really a game but, something we did to help the mother & father to be. They had chosen a first name for the baby but, couldn't decide on a middle name. So, we had each guest write down a full name they'd name the baby with or without using the name the parents chose. And actually the parents changed the name to one that was a guests idea. If they don't know the baby's sex have the guest write down a boy & girl full name.

You could number the plates and after cake etc...pull a number out for the door prize.

[pink]

I love the baby melting ice idea. I'm going to have to make a mental note about that one! :mickey: