Throwing a Baby Shower can be really fun. It’s a great way to celebrate the new mom or new parents as they go through a new journey and welcome a new baby into their lives.
Traditionally, the mother has no involvement in planning a baby shower, it is usually a best friend or close relative who plans it for her as a surprise. But these days, most moms-to-be want to be involved in the planning in some aspect. And these days a lot of baby showers are co-ed as well.
Rather than having someone throw me a shower, I was in charge of planning both of my showers myself with a lot of help from my family.
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Baby Shower Planning FAQ
On this article I’ll cover all the major details for planning a baby shower into 7 steps. I’ll answer all the popular topics such as:
- How to throw a Baby Shower
- Who plans a Baby Shower?
- Can I throw a Baby Shower for myself?
- Where should I host my Baby Shower?
- What you need to plan a Baby Shower
- Who should attend a Baby Shower
- Baby Shower Ideas, Games, and Food
- Prizes and Gift Bags
- Baby Shower Decor and Themes
- Guest Book
- Thanking your Guests
There’s also a freebie in this post, so make sure you don’t miss out on that!
Baby Shower Planning Printable
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Step 1: Decide what kind of Baby Shower you want to have
Do you want to have a quaint shower with some of your best gal friends? Maybe have a spa day, a tea party, a night on the town, or just a nice meal together.
Or do you want something big that involves the whole family? You could have something at home, at a restaurant, at a party venue, or a park.
Anything can be done and be a huge hit.
It’s up to you to determine who your guests are and approximately how many people to have for this fantastic party you’re about to throw!
Step 2: Narrow down your Guest List
Once you’ve decided the kind of shower you want to have, you can narrow down who exactly you want to be there.
If you’re planning something just between close friends you’ll probably have somewhere between 5-20 people.
But if you’re planning something for the whole family you might have anywhere around 20-100 people. You might even feel like you’re planning a wedding!
Step 3: Decide on Venue
For an at-home baby shower, you won’t have much to worry about. You can decorate your living areas or deck out your backyard and have a really nice setting.
If you’re planning on going somewhere, like having a spa day or going out to a restaurant, you mostly just need to make sure you have reservations in place for your party.
And if you’re planning on renting a venue, you need to do so in advance and will likely need to put down a deposit. You can rent out a clubhouse within your neighborhood or a ballroom or outdoor pavilion in your City for a pretty decent deal. You could also scope out local businesses that specialize in parties and events in their own venues. I know there are a few in my area that do tea parties for Baby Showers so that’s a pretty cool option.
Step 4: Decide on Theme for Decorations and Food
A lot of times your theme and your food go hand in hand. Depending on your venue, you may have to plan this yourself.
Some people like to make their food table match their theme, like color coding with the theme or the sex of the baby or having nuts at a woodlands themed party. Or just having decor around the food, like children’s books or story pages for a books theme party.
Some popular baby shower themes include:
- Woodlands
- Hot Air Balloons
- Books
- Clouds
- Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
- Tea Party
- etc.
Cake and Deserts
You can’t have a baby shower without a cake, can you? It could be a homemade cake or you could hire a local bakery. Either way, the cake will likely be the centerpiece of your food table and a lot of photos of your awesome party.
Decorations and Details
For decorations, I always prefer to save a little buy shopping online. Amazon usually has some pretty good stuff. I always love saving on the bulkier items like hanging decor, photo backdrop, quality tablecloth and table runner accents, centerpieces, tableware, game supplies, game prizes and gift bags (part of step 6.) The rest comes down to putting the pieces together and always having a little DIY or unique items.
Some people also like to set up a table for a Guest Book, a lot like at Weddings, where people can leave a little note or sign their name.
Personally, I have some experience with computer graphics so I made my own poster for each of my kids’ baby showers, where people could put their fingerprints and complete an image. For my son, I did a monkey holding balloons, and for my daughter, I did a tree of life. I framed these and have them each hanging in their bedrooms as a keepsake.
If you need help making a personalized guest book, email me.
Another way of decorating for your party is by creating a keepsake for your baby and using it as part of the decor. I made a cute picture frame keepsake that is still hung in my son’s room. We set it up at the gift table along with the matching shoes we wore on our wedding day and new baby shoes. It was a hit!
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Step 5: Entertainment and Games
Entertainment and food are probably your two most important party planning items for any party.
The most basic form of entertainment is having a good setting for mingling, if you provide a place for people to sit and be able to eat as they please they will do the rest. This also includes some background music, appropriate to the kind of party of course.
Depending on the type of party you are planning, you may want to prepare some Baby Shower Games. There are so many kinds of games out there that you should make a list of what you think you want to do and then narrow down.
Another thing you could do for entertainment is to provide different zones of activities. You can have a Photo Booth area, where you either hire a company or build it yourself with dress up stuff. A Gaming Area where you have either Baby Shower Games where people can do on their own or in groups, or something unrelated like Giant Jenga, where you could even convert into something baby related.
Baby Shower Game Ideas
Personally, I narrowed down my list of baby shower games to a couple where my guests could interact on their own and a few for me to direct with winners and prizes. It helped keep my guests entertained at all times.
Some of the games and entertainment we had between both our showers include:
- PAPER GAMES– Sheet of paper for each guest with crossword, word scramble, and maze.
- GUESS WHO’S THE BABY– Guests bring their own baby photos and place on a poster or wall before guessing who is who.
- GUESS THE BABY FOOD– Guests have to guess between different baby food flavors of plates with a dollop of each.
- POOPIE DIAPER– Guests have to guess the chocolate bar smeared on each diaper. Use the leftover candy for prizes and gift bags.
- WAS IT MOM OR DAD TRIVIA– Guests have to guess between mom and dad with quotes or short childhood stories from each.
- DIAPER TOSS RACE– One person holds a bucket while their teammates toss diapers at a distance, the team with the most diapers in their bucket wins. Diapers can be folded back up and used later.
- DIAPER DERBY– In teams, guests have to place as many diapers as possible on to one teammate within a short time frame.Diapers can be folded back up and used later.
- TIE YOUR SHOES MOMMY– With a very full balloon as a baby bump, guests try to bend over and tie their shoes.
- PHOTO BOOTH AREA with props and a backdrop or green screen with silly backgrounds.
- DANCE– We hosted a mini Zumba session.
- MAKE YOUR OWN PLAYDOUGH BABY
- GUESS THE WAIST SIZE
- BABY BING
- BABY BUMP OR BEER BELLY?
- DON’T SAY ‘BABY’
- BABY SKETCH ARTISTS
- PAINT BABY SHOWER ONESIES
- TINKLE IN THE POT
Step 6: Game prizes & Gift Bag
Games are always fun but they’re even more exciting when there’s a prize to be won.
Personally, I was very basic with my gifts. I set up little goodie bags and mini baby bottles full of candy bars and little treats for the prizes and for the gift bags. But I’ve seen people go all out on Pinterest with cute little gift boxes.
Some great options for Prizes and Gifts include:
- Gift Card
- Candy
- Nail Polish or Nail Care Kit
- Candles
- Personlized Items (hand sanitizer, water bottles, scrunchies, candles, candy wrappers…)
- Spa Kit
- Anything Bath & Shower Related
- Anything related to your Theme
- Alcohol, Coffee, or Tea
- Baking Kit
- Plants and Tiny Succulents
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Blank Thank You Cards
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Step 7: Gift Lists & Thank You Cards
Majority of baby showers have a time set up for the mom or the parents to open their new baby gifts. Some people really enjoy watching their gifts being opened, while others get bored of attending a party where the person is opening gifts for hours upon hours. So make sure to keep this moment brief or have your guests entertained with other activities if you choose to do this.
When you do open your gifts, have a method of organization to keep track of who gifted what so that you can thank them later. Also, make sure to store all gift receipts! You may get a duplicate gift sometime between the day of your shower to even after your baby is born. And on the extremely, and I really mean like 2% (I’m guessing), chance that the sex of your child was incorrect, you might want to make some exchanges!
After any party, one should always thank their guests for coming, whether it is during the gift opening or as the guests leave. But a personal hand-written thank you card is always ideal, even if you don’t get to it until after the baby is born.
That’s why I’ve created a few of my own that you can download for free. I made three different designs for you to choose from, that you can print from home, cut, fold, and write to your guests. I recommend using a cardstock paper like this one.
Baby Shower Planning Printable
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My name is Paula and I’m a mom of two scrumptious cuties. Thanks Mommy Blog became a project for me to help guide other new moms and current moms through any of my own personal experiences and struggles. My hobbies include singing, doing jigsaw puzzles, baking, designing and trying to stay creative.
Love the list of games to play! That’s the part that always stumps me! I want them to be fun without them feeling overdone. Great layout for a baby shower!
I’m planning a baby shower for one of my besties in a month – This is GREAT, thanks!!
These are such good tips! I was involved in the planning of my shower and I’m glad I was!
Excellent ideas. Would have been great to be aware of them a few years ago.
Awesome ideas! My theme for both was all white with pastel pinks and blues. I love the “dreaminess” of it all and the “clean” look. I love your ideas as well. I never thought to send thank you cards LOL I should probably do that next time! Love the pic… Read more »