Non-Goofy Baby Shower Acitivites

I just hosted one last weekend. We had 3 prizes from Bath and Body Works. I filled a clear bottle with pink and blue M&Ms and whoever guessed closest to the number in the bottle won a prize. Whoever's Birthday was closest to the due date won a prize. I also made a matching celebrity baby name quiz for a prize. The real hit was that I put on the invite, "BRING A PACKAGE OF DIAPERS TO ENTER TO WIN A $25 GIFTCARD! (LAST NAME A-C sz. 1, D-K sz. 2, L-Z sz. 3)" We had 27 people at the party and she received 20 packages of diapers!

Clever ideas from a recent baby shower I attended -
- on the invitation it asked that we bring a children's book in lieu of a card. Everyone wrote their to/from somewhere on the book.
-As people were mingling/arriving the hostess passed around the Dr. Suess book "Oh the Places I'll Go" and asked that everyone underline a meaningful phrase from the book and write a short note of advice to the baby...some were serious, some funny, others quite thought-provoking. This activity got everyone talking & comparing ideas on what to write!
-The only game played was actually kinda fun..it was similiar to gameshow "The Price is Right" she had about 8 small items, pacifier, baby shampoo, baby wipes, etc. and everyone had to write down the price of each one, without going over. At the end of the game the 8 items were given to the new mom.
This was a really fun shower & it was given after the baby was born. We all got to ooh & ahh over her since she was at the shower :)

one baby shower i went to is that they had the mother-to-be all dressed up, had her mingle with the guest like normal with a basket of baby items to show them, of course everyone knew they had to guess the most how many items in the basket to win, and then she left and hid, and every one was given paper and a pencil to write down what she is wearing instead of what was in the basket of baby goodies. lol. the most described what she was wearing from jewelry to the color of make up, wins!

I threw a baby shower for my daughter and definitely did not want any disgusting games or activities.

We decorated with clothes lines with adorable baby clothes hung out to dry on them. One of the activities was called multi tasking mom. Two guests held a clothes line and the participant had to hang up as many items on the line as possible in 30 seconds, while holding a baby doll and talking on a cell phone. Don't drop the baby or the phone or your turn ends.

We also did the safety pins in a bowl of rice game.

I also had lots of index cards and pens available. I had everyone write a question on a card of something a new mom should know. Then we passed the card to another person and wrote the answer to our own question on the back of the card we received. When the questions and answers were read out loud by the mom the weird combinations were hilarious.

We also used the index cards for the guests to write a special note of encouragement to the new mom & baby.

Many of our guests had known my daughter most of her life so everyone enjoyed the photo slide show I put together of her babyhood and growing up years.

I think it's wonderful that we have this tradition of women coming together to support moms and babies. This is one of the main times in a woman's life that she really needs to feel the support of community. You are doing a good thing for your friend. I hope your shower is a great success.

I asked a question about shower games a couple of months ago. Hands down almost everybody said they hated playing games.

Don't plan any games. Let people mingle and talk instead. People actually really enjoy that.

You know this sounds goofy, but the girls loved this game. I packed a diaper bag really full. Then we unpacked it and put the items and the empty bag on the table, my sister set a timer for 30 seconds and let the people who wanted to pack it. The ones with the most items in the time frame won.

My best friend also played a match the celebrity baby names with the celebrity, but she also added in some of her family names too.

Yes, just this afternoon tea/fingerfoods/cake (champaign and non-alcoholic drinks for those who choose)....No games at all, I hate those shower games.

I think it would be good to have baby albums of the mom and dad to be and/their families when they were babies. If you could put together a slide show...and add music...all the better. You can do this while guests are enjoying their food, cake, drinks etc. So much better then those games!

If you feel it's necessary, you could provide a nice favor for each guest.

I really hate shower games of any kind....especially the cloths pin, baby poop and potato in a jar ones. YUK!

Blessings...

I'm not sure if this would be too expensive with that many people or not but....

My SIL had everyone design a scrapbook page for a babyshower book. She had an old polarid camera and took a picture of them and gave it to them to put onto the page. She put out different scrapbooking materials. Another babyshower I went to did this as well but instead of a polarid camera they just used a digital camera and outlined on the scrapbook paper ahead of time a box to reserve for the picture (once they got them printed).

I've also heard of designing onesies.

I've also heard of having each guest write down some baby advice and then making a book out of them.

Not sure if that helps or not but that's all I can think of.

This isn't exactly a cheap activity but one I really cherished. At my baby shower the hostesses got plain white onesies of multiple sizes, plain burp clothes (she just used a pack of cloth diapers) and some plain bibs. Guest were asked to decorate one of the items with fabric markers. Some of my friends turned out to be great artists, other's not so much :) Some items were sweet and some had funny inside jokes on them. Regardless, I always got a kick out of these items every time I used them. Pulling out a burp cloth in the middle of the night with a sweet note on it from a friend was always something that put a smile on my face. I really really loved this gift. The nice thing about it too was that the guests could decorate the item at their leisure. I would recommend not using puffy paints as they don't wash that well. Stick with the fabric markers.

Just went to a shower where we each got a small wooden block, chose a letter and then decorated each side of the letter with something that started with that letter. EX: B, baby, bottle, ball, etc. For those of us that were less creative...the hostess had stencils so we could trace letters and pictures. Then mom got to go home with alphabet blocks for her nursery. It was really cute and got people talking and working together.

I hosted a similar shower and we played a game that was a big hit. We had about 25 attendees--using each of their first names, I created a matching game. Before the shower I researched (googled) the definition of each of their names and cut and pasted those into a Word document to make the game. At the shower, whoever made the most matches won. My girlfriend had already picked out the name of her baby so I had researched that as well and added that to the bottom of the game. Everyone loved this game and many of the attendees didn't even know what their own names meant. Good luck at your shower.

This is slightly goofy - but when I organized my friends baby shower I gave each guest a piece of clay, and whoever made the best and most realistic clay baby won a prize.
you wouldn't believe some of those clay babies...

I am not a fan of baby showers or baby shower games, generally. However, it's nice to have games on hand in case conversation is slow or you feel like you need to fill some time. I recently hosted a shower and here were our activities:
1. Match the celebrity baby's name to its parent(s) - this one was fun because there are some pretty crazy names out there
2. I bought some cute advice cards at Party City and had everyone fill one out for the mom to be. I put them all into a small photo album
3. Baby Gift Bingo - have everyone fill in a bingo board with presents they think the mom will receive, then cross them off as she opens her gift (makes it more fun to sit there and watch all the present opening)
4. Guess the birth date & time, weight, and the baby's name (since the mom is not giving away any info about the name).

We had fun and none of the games were too cheesy.

I do not like having to play games. Honestly I feel so much more relaxed when I'm at a shower without games. I feel like sometimes it makes for an awkward transition from people having a nice time chatting to be involved in some game. Anyway I'd add champagne to the menu, and non-alcoholic champagne for the mom-to-be and anyone who wants a festive drink but no alcohol. Also buy a nice journal and have everyone write their best piece of mommy advice for the new mom and then present it to her as a gift at the end of the shower...it's ok if she knows during the shower what's happening with that, she'll love it.

You'd actually be surprised at how many academic 'types' would love the change to let go and get goofy, but alas if that is what your friend wishes...so how about a spelling bee?

Updated

I think I added this, but wanted to say that even academic people like to get goofy once in awhile.

We played a game where you had to guess the missing words in popular lullabys and kids poems. That was fun.

For my daughter's baby shower I bought cute items from the Dollar Store along with some inexpensive ones from other places. Each guest received an item. Then we went around to introduce ourselves and included showing the item that we received. We could then trade our item for a different one.

Birthday cards for future birthdays. You can do ages 1-18. You'll have multiple on certain years based on how many people come or you can even go up to age 30. So you get a bunch of birthday cards and just put the age on each one. Each guest fills one card out for the year they received.
Another one is to ask everyone to bring a bead and write a prayer or words of wisdom/advise for mom on an index card. The beads can be placed on a string and made into a necklace that mom brings to hospital with her.