How to Plan a Baby Shower

Planning a baby shower can be lots of fun and a lot of hard work as well. It involves invitations, food, games, and gifts. It is helpful to have another friend help you with planning and hosting the baby shower. Here are some tips on how to plan a baby shower.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• - Location - Invitations - Guests - Expectant Mom - Food - Games

1. Decide on a date. Find out from the expectant mom when she would like to have the baby shower. Most baby showers are held a month or two before the due date. Try to avoid scheduling it around major holidays. Holding it on a Saturday morning will increase the likelihood of more people showing up to the event.
2. Choose a location. Get an idea of how many people the expectant mom is planning on inviting and choose a location based on the number. If it’s a lot of people, you might consider holding it at your church in a large room or in an auditorium. If it’s a small group of people, you might consider holding it in your home or someone’s home who you know would be willing to host it. If it’s during the summertime, you might consider holding it at the park or in somebody’s backyard.
3. Buy invitations. If the expectant mom knows the baby’s gender, you can make it a gender specific baby shower. For example, if it’s going to be a boy, you could have boy colors like blue, green, and yellow. If it’s a girl, you can have lots of pink. You can find invitations at discount paper supply stores, on ebay, or make them by hand. Get a list with names and addresses of the people the expectant mom would like to invite. Mail out the invitations two or three weeks before the baby shower is set to take place. Be sure to include the names of stores the expectant mom registered at.
4. Buy decorations. Don’t wait until the last minute to buy decorations. That can be very stressful. Look at the dollar store, the paper discount store, garage sales, and big box stores, such as Target and Wal-Mart. Order balloons ahead of time from your local florist or grocery store. Plan out on paper how you want the room to be decorated and what furniture you need (like folding tables and chairs). Cover the tables with white, blue, or pink tablecloths. Add baby shower confetti to the tops of the tables with balloon or flower arrangements in the centers of the tables. Baby toys or blocks also make for cute decorations. You can set up the plates, napkins, and utensils either on the tables or at the food table.
5. Buy food. Decide if you want to serve finger foods or a whole meal at the baby shower. Great finger foods include veggies and dip, cut up fruit, muffins, chips and dip, salad, and cheese and crackers. Serve water with lemons or punch. Plan on purchasing the food for twice as many people as rsvp’d to come to the party.
6. Take pictures. The expectant mom will be busy socializing with guests and opening gifts, so you will need to take the pictures or have one of the guests take pictures. You can put disposable cameras in the middle of the tables for guests to take pictures throughout the baby shower.
7. Play games. Play games for about twenty or thirty minutes. Provide prizes that are simple – nothing extravagant. Candles and lotions make for good gifts.
8. Serve up cake and ice cream and open gifts. While everyone is eating the cake and ice cream, and the expectant mom has had a chance to eat some cake, begin opening the gifts. Be sure that somebody writes down what gifts were given and who gave them. Have somebody take the opened gifts from the mom and start a pile, while another person hands her new gifts. Provide the expectant mom with thank you cards to send out to people who gave gifts.
9. Have fun. You worked hard to plan this baby shower, so be sure you take some time to enjoy the food and have some fun at the shower. Thank people for coming when they are leaving the baby shower.

Tips & Warnings

• Look for invitations or decorations at garage sales or on ebay to get the most for your money.
• Don’t count on everyone calling to say they’ll attend the baby shower. Most people won’t. To be safe, plan on ¾ of the people who were invited to show up to the event. You want to have food left over instead of not enough food.