Baby shower ideas, please!

[poohfriend77]

It's a long story, but I'm co-hosting a baby shower this weekend for someone who doesn't really like baby showers, lol. She's not a fan of anything too cutesy, and has requested no stupid games. She specifically mentioned measuring mom's belly, melted candy in the diaper game, tasting baby food game, don't say "baby" game, etc.

So what should we do? Anyone have ideas?

She requested a diaper shower (it's her 2nd baby, but didn't have a shower with the first), so there won't really be gifts to open, either. Help me keep this from being the most boring baby shower in history!

 

[Ericandjenng]

Maybe do a "cocktail" party with non-alcoholic sparkling drinks and the like...

 

[allaboutaprincess]

Ask all the guests to bring one of their baby photos. Collect them as they arrive and arrange them on a poster board with a number beside each photograph. Ask guests to guess who the photo belongs to. Really fun game withs lots of laughs. Plus everyone loves a trip down memory lane!

 

[Mrs. Charming]

Maybe do a "cocktail" party with non-alcoholic sparkling drinks and the like...

I agree with this, that would be more my style too. Like, an adult party where the guest of honor just happened to receive numerous packs of diapers.

 

[Bren's Mom]

Op said the baby shower is THIS WEEKEND. It's too late, imo, to ask the guests to do/bring anything.

A baby shower is like any other party, you can just chat and eat and watch the gift opening. Forced games are not required.

I think the drink idea could be fun, if it's at a person's home or a hall where you are able to do this. Maybe bring some ingredients for a pink and a blue frozen drink (that can be made non-alcoholic for the mama) and pick up some cute cocktail umbrellas (shower...get it? LOL).

 

[EKW]

How about having a ladies' tea...lovely china, futzy sandwiches and desserts..and have a sewing bee.

Have a machine or two set up ready to go. Have fabric squares (you can buy them precut or cut your own) and fabric pens. Ask each guest to design one square for a baby quilt. You could provide coloring pages to trace. If your friend has a nursery theme, keep them all on that theme. If not, have a variety available.

You should end up with a finished, or nearly finished, quilt if you do the craft first and eat and do gifts second. You can buy really cute prequilted backing material, and even plain prequilted material to draw on (but, then your guests can't trace) and preruffled edging.

Another thought, buy a plain wooden table and chair set and have all the ladies work to decoupage the chairs. Buy used childrens books that can be cut apart for this purpose. You can prepaint the table and the legs/rungs on the chairs or have someone do this at the shower.

Either way, the guest of honor ends up with a usable keepsake from the party.

 

[EKW]

Another idea, but one that is going to be more expensive than the other two...buy fuzzy sleepers in a variety of sizes, one per guest (light colors only). Buy a variety of iron-on designs and puffy/glittery fabric paint. Ask each guest to choose a design, iron it on, and use the puffy, glittery paint to add details.

I used to make sleepers like this...an adult-sized t-shirt iron-on would cover the whole front.

Ask everyone to share their work of art and tell why they picked the design they chose.

When the paint dries the guest-of-honor will have a huge supply of blanket sleepers for the new baby!

 

[summerrluvv]

You could get some plain white onesies at Michaels ($6.00 for a five pack with a 40% off coupon) and some fabric markers and have everyone decorate a onesie. Beyond that I'm not sure since I just had my sister's shower last weekend and we did all that cheesey shower stuff LOL

 

[ferrytale]

My cousin's shower was like that - no games, just food and talking, and a little on the fancier side, and it was kinda boring...but she knew about the shower and I guess that's how she wanted it - which was fine b/c it was for her, not for the guests. My thoughts on showers, especially for baby showers, is to have fun with them and enjoy them not have them be all stuffy. Life's too short not to be a little silly sometimes. BUT that is JMO.

The ideas the PPs said about decorating the onesies is a cute idea, the only other one I could come up with is a scrapbook. You get a stack of paper, a blank scrapbook, stickers, pens, etc, and let each guest design a page - Welcome home, first bath, first trip, first tooth, etc. Then put them all in the book so all the new mom has to do is add the pics to the pages as they happen.

Have fun, and best wishes to the new mom!

 

[Brancaneve]

A great idea as well is to have each guest write a few words of advice about being a mother. Collect the papers and then read one before a gift is opened. It's a nice way to pause, and listen to the comments rather than bouncing from gift to gift. I know this was really well liked at a shower I organized because the advice was wonderful!

 

[crysplefty]

Well, I was going to suggest buying a couple prizes (picture frames, lotions, candles) and set a timer when she opened her gifts. When the timer went off, whoever's gift she is opening gets a prize, but that won't work since she has requested no gifts. You could create a baby questionare about the mom-to-be. Have questions like the date and time of her birth, her length and weight, when her actual due date was, how long her mother was in labor, her middle name, hospital she was born at, etc. The guest/s with the most correct answers win a prize.

 

[Familyof4lovesDW]

If you know what she is naming the baby have people see how many word they can make out of the first and middle name. Or a word search of baby items. Put baby item in an ice cubes and freeze them the one that melts first gets a prize.Thats the best I got, guess me & my friends like to have fun lol.Good luck and hope you are not bored to death. BTW I like the scrapbooking idea!

 

[luvmyredheadboys]

Buy some ingrediants to a few recipes and everyone put together a few dishes that mom can take home to freeze. We did that before and made a food line putting the dishes together and had a few drinks and snacks and everyone chatted and had a great time. Another one we did but yu would need more time but everyone brought a fav dish already made for the mom to freeze she ended up with over 20 dishes!!!

 

[R and C's momma]

I just threw my sister-in-law her baby shower about 3 weeks ago. She too didn't want anything cutesy, and asked to stay away from pinks and purple for the theme.

We did do the chocolates in the diaper game, which actually was pretty funny. We also played: guess the baby celebrity (paper game I can email you), feel the rice in the pins (turns out quite funny, harder than you think!) and my personal favorite: my broke. You freeze small plastic babies (found at Walmart or craft stores) in ice cubes, then give them to guests in water. As soon as the first baby breaks free and floats to the top (or in my case, sank to the bottom!) the guest yells out "my water broke!" We made rules these had to be "natural" births -- i.e. no blowing on the water/ice to warm it and no use of 'induction' or 'intervention' of any kind.

I haven't read any of the other posts, so I hope I am not repeating any of this. One thing my SIL LOVED was to have guests pre-address the thank you envelope which saved having to look up the addresses. I had them fill them out on arrival, then when the party started I had my SIL pick one out of a basket for the door prize.

I am sure the party will go well -- have a GREAT time!!

Amy

 

[R and C's momma]

I also remembered one more -- baby name game. If the baby's name hasn't been selected (or even if it has) -- buy a bucket of foam letters (walmart, hobby lobby, etc) and give a "handful" to guests with a half sheet of paper. Have the guest create a name for the baby - peeling off the sticker and sticking it to the sheet. Some responses are actual names, but most people get quite creative which makes it not only funny, but a great keepsake if the mom is into scrapbooking or momento saving (even a picture is fun if not keeping the papers themselves).

Also, if it's a diaper shower -- it's really easy to make a diaper cake as a great centerpiece! You can PM me if you want directions and/or pics of the one I did for my SIL.

 

[RooRach0906]

I just threw my sister-in-law her baby shower about 3 weeks ago. She too didn't want anything cutesy, and asked to stay away from pinks and purple for the theme.

We did do the chocolates in the diaper game, which actually was pretty funny. We also played: guess the baby celebrity (paper game I can email you), feel the rice in the pins (turns out quite funny, harder than you think!) and my personal favorite: my broke. You freeze small plastic babies (found at Walmart or craft stores) in ice cubes, then give them to guests in water. As soon as the first baby breaks free and floats to the top (or in my case, sank to the bottom!) the guest yells out "my water broke!" We made rules these had to be "natural" births -- i.e. no blowing on the water/ice to warm it and no use of 'induction' or 'intervention' of any kind.

I haven't read any of the other posts, so I hope I am not repeating any of this. One thing my SIL LOVED was to have guests pre-address the thank you envelope which saved having to look up the addresses. I had them fill them out on arrival, then when the party started I had my SIL pick one out of a basket for the door prize.

I am sure the party will go well -- have a GREAT time!!

Amy

My sisters did the Bolded for me a little over a week for my baby shower, and it was awesome when I did the thank you's made it so much easier and quicker. They also got a 9 oz Avent (kind i wanted) bottle and filled it with pink (im having a girl) M&Ms and had people guess how many were in it... closest got a prize. Then gave me the bottle to use and the M&Ms to eat. I have done this game with a clear bottle bank and bigger pieces of wrapped candy before to. They also did a different varation of baby food game...they had 5 containers of unopened baby food took off the label and you had to guess what kind it was just by looking at it through the jar. Much harder than you would think and they got Carrots, Pears, Peaches, Sweet Potatoes and Squash so nothing was a combination. I got to keep these too and they made sure they would still be in date when baby would eat them. This shower was for my DH's side of the family. I requested my sister do the shower not crazy for them b/c his family is the type where if they hated the shower I would have heard about it a LONG time and didnt want that, so I had it divided into two showers. They dont like the funny crazy type games either.

Me personally love them, the Dirty Diaper Game is my favorite. My Best Friend is throwing me my friends shower and we are gonna do the fun crazy stuff.
Hope this helps some!!!

 

[EKW]

A great idea as well is to have each guest write a few words of advice about being a mother. Collect the papers and then read one before a gift is opened. It's a nice way to pause, and listen to the comments rather than bouncing from gift to gift. I know this was really well liked at a shower I organized because the advice was wonderful!

LOL...they did this at my first shower. I found out that I have evil friends. I got advice like, "Fair skinned women tend to have gallbladder trouble after their first pregnancy. Be prepared to have your gallbladder out."

My son was 2 1/2 when I had to have it out and it resulted in being hospitalized 9 days.

UGH. I felt as if I was trapped in Sleeping Beauty, but all my friends were the evil fairy. LOL!

 

[vettechick99]

I don't really care for the games either. Here, we just have a party! Actually, we usually have a nightime couples shower so the boys can come. They will go anywhere you have food and booze! We just make sure to have lots of nice food, pretty decor, and halfway through open the presents.

The last theme we did was for a baby named Sydney. So we had an Outback theme. Went very stereotypical with kabobs and a bloomin' onion, and some really cute koala decorations.