Alexandra Ramirez
Awesome Baby Shower You Must Have
One of the major events that a mother-to-be looks forward to while she is waiting to have her baby is the baby shower. A baby shower is a party that is given for the expectant parents by friends and family.
It is a wonderful time to celebrate the new baby and also help the parents get ready for their baby’s arrival by giving thoughtful supplies and gifts that the baby will need.
There are five must haves that you should include when planning a baby shower will ensure an awesome experience for the mother (and/or father) to-be.
These five elements are:
- A Great Theme
- Beautiful Decorations
- Fun Games
- Excellent Food
- Helpful Gifts
Below we will give you excellent tips and suggestions for each of the five must-haves so you can create a baby shower that the mother-to-be will never forget. Take these tips and suggestions and use them to inspire your own creativity or you can copy them exactly, the choice is yours. If you do choose to go with your own ideas, just remember to include these five elements and you’ll have all the bases covered.
A Great Theme
Baby showers can have all kinds of themes from cars or super heroes to butterflies and princesses.
Popular baby shower themes include:
- zoo or farm animals
- letters and numbers
- Famous cartoon characters
- sea life
- Winnie the Pooh
- Mickey or Minnie Mouse
- Hello Kitty
- Ponies
If the new parents have chosen a theme for their baby’s room, find out what that is and try to match the shower to that theme. Even if you can’t find the exact characters, you can find color coordinating items that will match well and add a few chosen theme-specific pieces.
If the gender of the baby is known ahead of time, include this in the invitation so the guests know. It may make a difference in the gifts they choose. Some baby showers are gender specific when the sex is known, so this is another option that you can choose to follow.
One suggestion to consider is to include coordinating colors rather than having ALL pink or blue. This provides visual variety that mom and the guests will appreciate. Pink, yellow and lavender are all excellent little girl colors while bright green, red and blue are perfect for little boys.
Beautiful Decorations
Decorations always enhance an event and baby showers are no different. It’s fun to decorate for a baby shower and there are many decorations to choose from.
Common decorations for a baby shower include balloons, streamers, center pieces, paper plates, napkins, and cups.
Decorations for a baby shower can be very simple or very fancy. The choice is up to the hostess as to how much or little she puts up. There are so many great ideas out there, that it’s very easy to get carried away.
Place a couple of trash cans around where they can be easily found to throw away dirty cups and plates. You don’t want to have these in plain sight, but make sure that the guests can easily find them. It will make clean up at the end of the night much easier.
The main food table is a great place to have a fancy center piece. This can be a diaper cake, candles, and balloons filled with helium and floating over the table or any number of other great ideas.
Set up a table off to the side for the guests to place their gifts on. This can be decorated with shower themed items as well and can include a guest book so the guest of honor will have a list of who came to her shower. This is helpful when it’s time to write thank you cards and also for filling out the baby book.
Fun Games
Baby shower games are a great way for the guests to interact and get into a party mood. If there are guests who don’t know each other well, this is also a great way to break the ice. Avoid games that put people in uncomfortable positions if you know they are shy.
Have fun little prizes for the game winners such as small picture frames, candles, or a little beauty basket with bath beads, oils or soaps. You don’t need to spend a lot of the game prizes, but make them something useful for the winner. There are several cute games that can be played at a baby shower that are fun and get the party going.
Match the Baby Picture – One fun one is having each guest bring a baby picture of themselves to the shower. You may want to remind the guests through email or phone call before the shower to remember to bring their baby pictures so they can participate in the game.
The objective of this game is to match the baby picture to the correct guest. Give each guest a piece of paper and a pencil. When you get the pictures from the guests as they arrive, very lightly pencil a number on the back of the picture carefully so you don’t damage it and write it on your list next to the corresponding guest’s name. You can also use post- its for this step.
When the game starts, show each picture to all the guests and have them write down which guest they think the picture is of. Don’t give them too much time to study the picture. A minute or two is all they should have to look at the picture.
They will need to write down the name of the guest as well as the number. The guest that writes down the most correct answers wins the prize.
Tray Memory Game. Test how good everyone’s attention to detail and their memory are. Load a tray with about 20 small baby items such as pacifiers, nail clippers, baby brushes, a newborn diaper and other baby related items. Bring the tray out and put it in the middle of the guests where everyone can see it clearly.
No one should touch the tray or the items on the tray. Leave it in the middle of the group for one minute and then remove it from sight. The guests have five minutes to write down as many items from the tray as they can remember. The one with the most correct items wins the prize.
If there is a tie, you can have a competition round where the tray is brought out again and this time after one minute, take the tray from the room and remove 2 items and see which guest can identify which two items were removed.
Rice and Baby Pins- Fill a bowl half way with dry rice and then mix in a pack of gold small safety pins in with the rice. Put a blindfold on each participant, one at a time, and see how many safety pins they can find and get out of the bowl of rice.
The pins feel a lot like the rice, so it’s not as easy as it sounds, especially when you’re blindfolded. Write down each guest’s pin count and then put all the pins back for the next participant. Whoever gets the highest number of pins out of the bowl wins the prize.
Baby shower games are a lot of fun, so plan to include 2 or 3 during the course of the baby shower. Some showers have ongoing games like “Don’t Say Baby”. This game involves giving every guest a small clothespin that they clip to their clothing. If they say the word “baby” someone can take their clothespin that hears them. This is a game that gets a lot of people laughing and really paying attention to how hard it is to NOT say baby.
Excellent Food
Just like with all parties and events, the food that is served at the baby shower is one of the most memorable parts of the night.
There are many different types of food and drink that work well for this type of gathering.
You can have a potluck meal shower where every guest brings a dish of their or you can choose finger foods and items that are easily eaten while standing or sitting on the sofas or chairs.
Most baby showers have a more casual, finger food type of set up but you can choose to have whatever food you feel the mom will like.
The hostess of the shower pays for the food, so that will need to be taken into consideration, especially if there is a large guest list. If more than one person is hostessing, the cost of the food can be split between them so the entire cost doesn’t fall on one person.
Some great ideas for baby shower food include finger sandwiches wrapped in pink or blue plastic and set out on serving trays, deviled eggs, veggie trays with dip, chips and salsa, cheese and crackers, meatballs, a fruit bowl, mixed nuts, chips and dip, different flavors of wings, and other items of this nature. This is probably the easiest type of shower to throw and most people love this type of food.
If people are given plenty of notice, potluck showers can be a lot of fun. The hostess or hostesses should decide to take care of certain items, such as the main meat courses and let the guests take care of all the side dishes. Keep a list to ensure you don’t end up with duplicates of the same item.
Serve sodas, water, a special punch or a combination of all of those to drink. There are many types of punch recipes that are really good, but it’s always a good idea to offer some variety for those who may not like punch. Don’t forget the ice and remember to have hot coffee and tea for when the cake is served.
The cake can be made homemade or bought at a bakery and decorated for the event with little baby themed decorations, either in the nursery theme or gender specific if the sex is known. The flavor of the cake should be what mom prefers so find out ahead of time what her favorite cake is.
Food for the baby shower shouldn’t be purchased earlier than a day or two before the day of the event. This gives the hostess plenty of time to prepare the food but it’s not so early that things will spoil or become stale.
Helpful Gifts
There are a lot of items that new parents will need when their baby arrives. The baby shower is an excellent way for them to get some of these necessities taken care of so they don’t have so much to purchase.
If the parents-to-be have registered somewhere, it is important to let the shower guests know where this is. Some common baby shower gifts are diapers, crib sheets, receiving blankets, bottle warmers, bouncy seats and clothing.
A registry can be really helpful in determining what the most pressing needs are and it gives the guests some direction as to what would be a helpful gift.
It might be a good idea to stick a small reminder into the invitation for the guest to mark any items that they purchase from the registry so it stays updated for the other guests. This prevents a large amount of duplicates from being purchased.
There are so many things that would make excellent baby shower gifts. Diapers, blankets, washcloths, bottles, clothing, and baby nail kits are only a small handful of items that a guest could choose from. If the parents-to-be are new parents, chances are they won’t have anything you need so that leaves a large selection of potentially great gifts. If you find yourself struggling for ideas on what to buy check out these great baby shower gifts.
