Tips! Baby shower ideas for the food and drink lover

A few notes to consider before you start the planning process:

• Who should throw the shower? Traditionally, it was anyone who isn’t family but to be honest, if you’re really close with your sister, and they want to throw you a baby shower, why not! Otherwise, a close friend would be perfect.
• The date. Discuss the date with the parents-to-be as they will be able to tell you of any potential date issues.
• The guest list. You will probably have a fair idea yourself, but make sure you know who the parents would (or wouldn’t) like on the guest list in case you miss off someone important.
• The gift list. Ask the parents to provide you with a gift list but don’t automatically include it in the invite (simply mention that you have a list for anyone who would like to see it); some guests will already have an idea of what they would like to give.

A whole page of tips: Gift ideas for a baby

It’s all about the theme! Sometimes it’s easier to plan a shower if you have a theme in mind. The theme can be anything from colour, animals and stripes or even a mad hatters afternoon tea. Once you have your theme, you can get planning the essentials – think cake, cupcakes, banners, balloons, table confetti, food and drinks.

The most usable baby shower gift! Making a nappy cake – step by step

Play a few baby shower games

During the baby shower, to keep everyone entertained, why not play a few baby shower games? Here’s a list of a few to choose from depending on the type of shower you’re planning.

1. Deliver the baby

For this game, you will need to know how many guests are coming and order the right number of miniature baby figures. Once you have them, place the babies individually in ice cube trays and fill with water. Freeze ready for the big day. Now there are two ways you can play this game, you can either pop an ice cube in your guests’ drinks as they arrive and play the waiting game; whoever’s ice cube melts first is the winner. Or you can be more interactive and you can give each guest an ice cube and tell them they have to melt the ice any way they can think of and the fastest person wins.

2. What might baby look like?

– This is a great game to play and can have the whole party crying with laughter. Although the set up might be a little time consuming, the results are well worth it. You will need a few photographs (head and shoulders) of the parents and access to a colour photocopier as well as a generic baby image (you can draw one to ensure the head will be the correct size).

Have the whole party crying with laughter.

Photocopy the photos several times ensuring the faces are around the same size. Cut up the main features of the parents’ faces and pop them in clear bags. Provide small groups with these bags and ask them to arrange the facial features onto the generic baby cut out to see what baby might look like.

The baby shower decorations you need: 5 ideas that pop

3. Baby’s first portrait

This is a simple yet effective game. All you will need for this game is small pieces of card (like little revision cards) and a pen. Get each guest to put the card onto their forehead and then ask them to draw what they think baby is going to look like. The person who manages to draw the best baby wins.

You can do ‘the big reveal’ towards the end of the shower.

4. Who’s the baby

This is another really sweet idea which can provide a lot of laughter; ask each of your guests to email or send a photo of themselves when they were babies to you prior to the event. You can stick the photos up around the room before any guests arrive and number each photo. All your guests can be given a sheet of paper to write down their guesses on and then you can do ‘the big reveal’ towards the end of the shower; you could even get each guest to tell a little anecdote about the picture.

5. My water broke

This is a more active game so might not be one for all of your guests. You might prefer to put teams together. Give your teams (or individuals) a balloon and explain that they have to pop their balloon first without using their hands. The balloon should be placed up the guests top and they can use each other, walls, chairs, and the floor, whatever they can think of to try and pop the balloon.

When the waters broke for real: My unplanned home birth

6. Giant Nappy

We all know changing nappies can be nerve-wracking so this game will make your parents’-to-be feel a little less worried about it. You will need a couple of rolls of toilet roll for this.

It will make them feel less worried about changing nappies.

Split into teams and get the teams to race against the clock to ‘put a nappy on’ a willing adult participant. They will have to ensure it’s tight enough that no leaks will happen but not too tight the baby might cry.

7. Guess the food

You can open several pots of baby food (with labels removed) and see if your guests can guess the flavour.

8. Dirty Nappy

This is one you might not wish to do depending on the guest list as some people may find it offensive. It is a classic but certainly not for everyone. You will need five or so CLEAN nappies. Just before the guests are due to arrive, melt five different chocolate bars and smear them into different nappies.

It is a classic but certainly not for everyone.

To make it easier for you, you can number the nappies and ask your guests to write down on a small slip of paper which chocolate is in which numbered nappy. If you want to make it easier, you can leave the chocolate wrappers out for the guests to see too.

Entertain the new parents in the early hours of the morning.

9. Nappy Messages

This is more something to entertain the new parents in the early hours of the morning when they are up for the hundredth time changing baby. You can ask your guests to write funny or inspirational messages on the back of some nappies and present them to the parent’s at the end of the shower or during the gift opening.

10. How big is the bump

Depending on how mum-to-be feels about her bump, you may or may not wish to play this baby shower game? If you do, I would strongly suggest you don’t use an actual tape measure! You should either use string or you can buy a non-numbered tape measure especially for this game. Get each guest to guess how big the mum-to-be’s bump is by taking a certain length of string and once everyone has a piece, get mum-to-be to stand up and try each piece of sting around her belly. The person who guesses the closest size wins.