Baby showers are celebratory events to announce a new life is coming. It is a good excuse to get family and friends together and celebrate the soon-to-be-mommy. However, a baby shower doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes a lot of prepping and planning.
Often, this is done by the mother herself, or a close friend. It can be a lot of stress to plan a baby shower. One of the things you have to think about is a way to entertain people. This article is here to help with 12 unique baby shower activities for every age and group.
12 Baby Shower Activities to Try Out
1. Write Notes on Diapers
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This is a simple and fun way to keep people entertained while also giving the mom some joy for quite a while down the line.
All you need is some diapers and markers. You can have guests bring their own, or supply them. We recommend just starting with the newborn or size one diapers since those are the first ones the baby will need for a little while. Any kind of marker works well as long as they have a thick tip, but getting a variety of colors can be fun.
Have guests write notes on the diapers. These will usually be simple things like funny jokes, or words of support. Some examples include:
• Caution: stinky under pressure
• Weapon of destruction
• Hang in there
• You’re doing great
Most of the time, three notes per guest is a good amount, but you are free to do more or less as you want. Additionally, if you are feeling creative, you and your guests can even design a basket or box to put all of the diapers in.
2. Decorate Bibs
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Another thing that is fun and easy to decorate is bibs. All you need are some plain cotton bibs, fabric paint or markers, little decorations like flowers and bows, and a couple of hot glue guns.
If you come up with other decorations, you can do that as well. Some examples of this activity involve people using iron-on patches or fabric squares to further decorate. You can work on the bibs all as a group, or just leave a station running so people can decorate them whenever they want.
3. Decorate Baby Blocks
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If you want something a little more fun to decorate, look at baby blocks. This gives the baby lots of toys to play with that are filled with love and creativity. All you need are some wooden blocks and whatever else your heart desires.
Common items include alphabet sticks, baby-safe paint, sponges, and paintbrushes. Since babies like to chew on a variety of items, using items that are safe for babies to ingest is a good idea. It isn’t recommended that you use things that have to be glued on, as they can be dangerous for a baby to inhale or ingest.
4. Pacifier Hunt
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This one is more for children, but some adults may find they have fun with the game as well. Like an Easter egg hunt, you simply take some pacifiers and hide them before the guests arrive. This is a good option if you have a lot of outdoor space or a place where children can run around.
It is a good way to keep them entertained and distracted so that the adults can hang out.
5. Blindfold Diaper Change
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This is a fun challenge when there are a lot of men and women attending the baby shower. It’s always a fun challenge to see if men or women can change a baby’s diaper.
All you need is a fairly life-like baby doll, some diapers, and a blindfold. Then you let everyone take turns changing the diaper and see who does it best. If you get a couple of dolls, you can even have people compete against one another.
6. Floral Crowns
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Floral crowns are also a great option. Everybody can make one for themselves to take pictures in and have fun with. They can also be made for the baby to wear. The group can come together to make one very decorated crown or a bunch of little ones that will match every outfit.
It may sound complicated, but there are a lot of kits out there, and guidelines to show how easy it is. You just need to buy a bunch of fake flowers, and fake greenery, and have tape, glue, scissors, and wire around. If you want to make it more fun, you can add other decorations like buttons, animals, and more unique flowers. You can check out a flower delivery website to get these flowers at home and make the crowns out of fresh blooms.
7. Diaper Raffle
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A diaper raffle is fun for everyone, plus it gives the mom enough diapers to last them for months! On the invitations, all you have to do is note that everyone has to bring a box of diapers to the event.
If they do, they automatically get entered into the raffle. You can tell them the sizes as well, to make sure you get the ones you want.
Then all you have to do is pick out the prizes. Again, these can be pretty cheesy, but they can also be fun gifts as a way to say thank you to your friends. If you have a lot of friends that have kids too, they can buy an extra box for the kids, and they can be entered into a kiddy raffle with candy or jewelry.
The best part is that you only have to pull once or twice if you want, so you don’t have to buy a lot of gifts, but can just focus on one pretty decent gift like a self-care kit, some lotions, or a bottle of wine.
8. Make Cute Headbands
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Yet another thing to decorate. A baby can never have too many headbands. You can get simple white headbands and fabric markers to write whatever you want on them. You can also add things like bows or flowers.
9. Alphabet Books
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Alphabet books are a fun way to provide the mother with a way to educate their child that is unique and personalized. Again, if you aren’t creative, you can easily find printable pages online. However, you can also take the time to make your own.
All you need is paper, pencils, and something to color with like crayons, colored pencils, or markers. You can also take the time to create a binder for the pages so that they will hold together better.
This is one easy-to-fit with a theme. “A” may commonly stand for apple, but it also works for anchor, allosaurus, alligator, alpaca, and much more.
10. Fingerprint Canvas
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A fingerprint canvas is a painting that the mom and the baby can have for decades to come. There are dozens of ways to do this, but the main idea is that people press their fingers into paint or ink and press it onto a piece of paper.
If you or someone else is creative, they can create the base. Usually, fingerprints are used as flowers, leaves, or balloons. But you can have a cute animal or something that fits your theme as the main image. Elephants, lions, bunnies, deer, and giraffes are all pretty popular.
However, if you aren’t creative, don’t worry. You can also buy blank designs online. Though they are considered blank, all that means is that they don’t have fingerprints already on them.
This is a great idea, especially if most people attend life rather far away. This allows them to always be there in spirit and lets the mom look back fondly on who attended her baby shower.
11. Bingo
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Bingo is a great way to get everyone involved, not just the adults. All you need are bingo sheets and something to mark the pages with. If you want to be able to reuse them in the future, you can use plastic beads, but otherwise, you can just use pens.
No matter the age group, having prizes for the winner can be a lot of fun. This can be money, candy, soda, or even little trinkets to fit any budget. You can play multiple rounds as well. So you can keep people entertained for a while.
The bingo sheets can be anything. Some people make a list of common baby gifts. If you want to make the game last the night, you can do common sayings at a baby shower that people mark off throughout the event.
12. Pin the Pacifier on the Baby
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Pretty much everyone knows the rules for pinning the tail on the donkey. This works the same way, but it is to pin the pacifier in the baby’s mouth. All you need is a big picture or poster of a baby (drawing or picture doesn’t matter) and some pictures of pacifiers with velcro or tape.
Then, you just blindfold the guests and let everyone take their turn. Kids and adults can play. Whoever is closest to the baby’s mouth wins! You can buy a couple of prizes, or just have bragging rights as the prize.
What to Think about When Planning Baby Shower Activities
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1. Know Who Is Attending
Make sure you understand the crowd that is coming to the party. Will there be a lot of kids? If so, you might want to come up with activities that hold their interest. You may also want to avoid any activities that can easily be ruined or broken.
If you have a lot of adults, then you want to use more adult-oriented activities to make sure they are enjoying themselves.
The personality of the people attending is also important. Are they a more fun and imaginative crowd, or a little more serious and realistic? That can help you determine which kinds of activities they may enjoy the most.
2. Follow Your Theme If You Used One
Sometimes people pick themes for baby showers, like baby animals, fall, balloons, dinosaurs, and more. When you are looking at activities, you can pick ones that fit your theme best, or make them more unique by adapting them to fit your theme better.
For example, for the alphabet book activity, you could use a bunch of different kinds of dinosaurs or different ocean animals.
3. Try and Match Your Color Palettes
Similar to following your theme, if you picked a color palette, you can focus on keeping your activities within the color palette. Maybe for the fingerprint painting, you could use paints and inks that match your colors.
While this won’t change what activities you use, it can make them more unique and personalized to the particular shower, making them more memorable.
4. Keep Your Budget in Mind
It is easy to let a baby shower get out of control, especially for a rainbow baby, or a first baby. But it is important to always keep your budget in mind so you don’t go crazy, or waste money unnecessarily on decorations or an expensive game when a more personal, and cheaper activity would work just as well, if not better.
5. Realize the Space You Will Have
Don’t pick an activity that will require a lot of space, like a decoration station, or pin the pacifier on the baby, if you will be in a small room in the house. If you can do it outdoors or have quite a few people, something that needs a lot of space can be difficult to navigate and make the party feel cramped indoors.
If you don’t have a lot of space, stick to activities like decorating bibs and diapers, or even the diaper raffle.
6. Know What Will Leave Memories
Some items will, unfortunately, be made and not used again. Things like decorated bibs and diapers leave lasting memories for the mom, and they also remind her of everyone’s love and care every time she changes out diapers.
On the other hand, things like bingo or floral crowns may be fun to make at the moment, but may also be tossed out afterward if no one enjoys using them repeatedly.
7. Add Personal Touches
Adding personal touches that make the event more memorable is also important. Don’t just print off bingo sheets online when you can make your own with fun and personalized bingo squares and designs that will warm the heart of the mommy-to-be.
How to Make Your Baby Shower Unique
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Baby showers are about more than just picking the perfect activities. They are about having a fun mix of things and allowing people to show their excitement over the potential baby.
It’s also a good idea to think about the party as a whole. By making sure everything runs smoothly and is happy, people will look back fondly on the baby shower.
While a baby shower is celebrating a new life, it is also a way to provide assistance and give gifts to the mother. Diapers and bibs can help reduce how much the mom has to buy in the next few months, but it can also be a good opportunity to give the mom some self-care gifts and things that the mom might not have thought about needing.
It’s also just a time to catch up. People are busy and sometimes you miss out on opportunities to hang out together. A baby shower is a perfect time to just hang out and talk. You don’t have to go all-out to make a party amazing and unique. Some fun foods and a lot of talking can do the same thing.