Coming up with baby shower ideas can be stressful. You don’t want to do what everyone else does, you want it to be fun and you want everything to be perfect. Being nervous is natural when planning anything, especially for a best friend having a baby. So here are some tips on how to make the shower as successful as possible.
Stress-Free Baby Shower Planning
Perfection
The first thing you need to do is get the thought of perfect out of your mind. Things are almost never perfect and rarely the same as how we see them in our heads. Expect good enough and hope it goes well but nothing is perfect. If you expect a few things to go wrong , than you will be less stressed. Just keep in mind that you can handle this. Whether someone does not show up or you have trouble with anything, it is still ok! Relax, think of a way to fix it and then fix it to your best ability. Things go wrong in life. It does not mean you can’t still have a great baby shower.
Have a Checklist
Having a baby shower planning checklist will definitely help you with the whole planning. As long as you follow through the checklist, you’d know that everything is going according to plan.
Baby Shower Agenda
Knowing what actually happens on the day might keep your mind at ease. A typical 2-3 hours baby shower agenda goes like this:
> Welcome the guests
> Ask the guests to write on guestbook while all guests arrive
> Eat, drink and mingle
> Play some games and activities with small prizes
> Gift opening and cake
> Givt out favors as guests leave
Decorations
Discuss with mom-to-be and decide on a theme early on, especially the colors you’d be using. Keep it simple and stick to around 3 colors for the theme. This will allow you to start looking around for supplies especially if you need to purchase them online.
We have some tips on how to decide on a baby shower theme incase you and mom-to-be cannot think of one. Here are some questions you could go through that may help you decide:
- Is mom-to-be a fan of anything?
- Is there a particular animal she likes?
- Does she like a particular color?
- What is the theme of the baby nursery?
- Does she know the sex of the baby?
Mingling
Consider that not everyone at the shower will know each other. You might want to consider name tags so that everyone can talk using the other person’s name. Also take into account that people who don’t know one another don’t tent to mingle naturally so try to come up with something, such as a game like ‘find the Guest’, to break the ice. It is also a good idea to have a small prize for the winner so that there is something guests can look forward to and it would also give them incentive to play!
Money Matter
Remember to be creative. If you don’t have a lot of money to spend you can improvise with the decorations by placing some colored M&Ms in a glass vase to pop be a conversation piece, and a snack. Not everything has to be traditional. You can improvise when you need to.
Make sure that wherever you are having the baby shower will accommodate the food, people, gifts and games. Make sure you know how many people are going to be invited before you pick the venue. If your friend happens to have 19 cousins that are all coming than you need to consider the space you will need to make that work.
Remember that if you are hosting for a large number of people with a small budget, talk to the mom-to-be and ask her if she could suggest a friend that might be able to help out with the venue. Venue doesn’t need to be at a restaurant, hall or anywhere expensive. You can still setup a cozy baby shower at someone’s private backyard or living room and serve finger foods or host a potluck baby shower.
Don’t do it ALL alone
Get everyone in her close friends circle together and ask them to volunteer to help. Doing it all alone doesn’t prove anything. You can assign everyone a task to take care of, the cake, the food, the decorations, if it is a surprise, getting her out of the house to set up or to the venue you chose, and all the other chores that need to be done. Having help will lessen the weight on your shoulders and make everyone feel like they helped to plan the shower. Doing this for someone you love can feel really great, sharing that feeling is a nice thing to do and it is really helpful.
Surprise Gifts
Make sure that if you want the gifts she gets to be a surprise you can talk to the dad-to-be about what they already have and what they need most. He will be the one to know. Put it all on a list and have everyone call you before buying a baby shower gift so she does not get 2 of the same thing. When it comes to diapers, blankets, towels, bibs and clothes, in all sizes not just infant size because that baby will grow out of them faster than he or she can wear them all, so it’s better not to have too many. So if any gifts overlap, let them be the ones.
If you keep in mind these tips, the shower should run more smoothly and stres-free hopefully! Just try to remember not to put too much pressure on it or yourself. Remember to handle the stress well, and to always keep in mind that being overly organized is never a bad thing. Knowing everything is taken care of will help you relax so lists are your friends. Above all, remember to have fun at the shower.
