Baby Shower Games and Ideas

Baby showers, long popular in the USA, are becoming increasingly common in the UK and other European countries - for those new to this tradition, we offer some fun ideas for games and activities.  Before that, a word on protocol!

What is a baby shower?!  Contrary to common belief, a baby shower does not take its name from showering the expectant mother with gifts.  The name arises from Franz Schauer, a German immigrant and silversmith in New York who encouraged gift-giving amongst mothers-to-be.  You should bring a gift along for the lucky expecting mother, but much of the rest of the evening harks back to 'hen night', with frivolous games and much fun!  You may also be lucky enough to leave with a bag of 'favours', a goody bag to remind you of the event.

Here are some fun ideas for games that you could play at the next baby shower you're invited to:-

• Blind Tasting: Guests are blindfolded and made to sample a teaspoon of various baby foods - can they guess the flavours?
• Whos Who? Invite guests to bring along a photo of themselves as a baby - everyone must then work out who is who in the pictures.
• Dirty Nappies: Smear smelly sauces and foods into different nappies.  You could put one 'smell' in each, or mix three different ones for a greater challenge!  Blindfold the guests and have them guess the flavours.  Try ketchup, HP sauce, coffee, peanut butter, mashed banana, mint sauce, chocolate sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and anything else that comes to hand!  Catch out the mum to be with some really nasty odours - stilton cheese, garlic, chillies, tuna, Marmite and anything festering in your cupboards!
• Mummy Tummy: Pass a toilet roll around the guests, each one tears off a length as to how wide the expectant mother's girth is.  The winner is the one tearing off the best fit!
• Nappy Brain: Bring out a tray of up to 20 items relating to babies (dummy, nappy, cream, socks, toy, rattle, bottle and so on).  Everyone looks at the tray for one minute, then it's taken away, three items removed, and the guests must say what items have gone.
• Cotton Balls: Get two mixing bowls, a wooden spoon, cotton wool balls and a blindfold. Blindfolded guests have one minute to transfer the cotton wool balls from one bowl to the other with the wooden spoon.  Sounds easy?  Go try it out!
• Pillow Talk: As the mother-to-be opens gifts, one of the guests must secretly note down all the remarks made as she opens each gift.  At the end, the observer reads out the list of remarks, telling all the other guests that these notes were made from outside the expectant mother's bedroom on the night the baby was conceived!
• Famous Babes: Prepare two sets of cards, one with celebrity's names and the other with the names of their babies.  Guests have to match the celebrity with their baby!
• Down in One: Well, down in lots is more likely!  Fill a series of baby bottles with equal quantities of drink - milk or water for purists and expecting mum, wine or beer for the more adventurous!  Have guests quaff the drink as quickly as they can...leaving the teats intact!

Have fun, this could be the last fun evening the expectant mother has for a while!