3 Answers
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Here are some others I played -and like your friend I don't consider myself particularly "girly" but I still had a blast with them:
- For the baby names one @Steve was wondering about, there was one we played in which the guests had to come up with a name for the baby using the only the letters in the names (not necessarily all, but restricted to the ones in the names) of the expectant couple. Then the expectant couple awarded a prize to the one they liked the best. There were some funny choices.
- Give all the guests notecards with a letter of the alphabet on it, and each guest has to write a piece of advice-humorous or serious- to the expectant parents starting with that letter. There were good responses even from those guests without children.
- Scavenger hunt-type icebreaker - A list of questions about the guests themselves as babies such as "Find someone who was not born in a hospital" or "Find someone who weighed more than 8 pounds"
- "Don't say baby"- the ongoing game throughout the party in which the guests (and parents) are not supposed to say the word "baby". The guests are given bags of diapers, and each time someone says "baby", they would have to give a diaper to the person who caught them. The person with the most diapers at the end wins, and afterwards all the diapers are given to the baby's parents (who will be really happy about this once the baby comes-you can never have too few diapers!)
- And the "cliche" one with candy bar in the poopy diapers really is fun!
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Easy finger foods like fruit and bagels and cream cheese.
As for games, Diddams and Party City both carry these shower game packs that contain few games - enough for 8 people. I just bought one recently and the games were a word scramble, a trivia game, match the dad/mom/baby animal name to the right animal and one other that I can't remember right now. You can also find a bunch on the internet. (I went for easy, premade games.) There are also baby bingo games sold at Babies R Us.
At a friend's shower, one game played required playdoh or clay. Have your guest sculpt things like bottles, a baby, a rattle, etc. Best one wins.
Suggestion for the gifts - as the gifts are being opened, write what the gift is inside the accompanying card. That way, when the person is writing her thank you notes, she doesn't have to search for a separate piece of paper listing all of the gifts. She just needs to open a card, see what the gift was and who sent it.
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I've been to a couple of showers, and as insane as the cliche games sound, they're actually kind of fun. The ones that I've played are:
- Guess the type of melted mini candy bar that has been placed in a newborn sized diaper.
- Guess the girth, in increments of "squares of toilet paper"
- Guess the due date & weight (this takes post-planning, which likely has zero followthrough due to a newborn in house)
- Who can drink from a bottle (nipple style, not sippy cup style) the fastest.
- Guess the flavor of baby food, which has been warmed and placed in a newborn diaper.
And, the one we made up pretty much on the spot, was the "Pregnant woman's gauntlet." The general gist of this one was that each contestant would put on a simulated baby (a backpack worn on the front or baby Bjorn), with a shirt on top, and have to "run the gauntlet" which included taking on & off shoes, getting up from a deep cushy seat, rolling over on the floor, etc. It was pretty fun. :)
Maybe you could do something with baby names? I'm trying to think of a good game around names, but can't quite place one.
For that last one - the "pregnant gauntlet" as Steve called it - it is particularly rewarding when 8 or 9 mos pregnant, to see one's husband trying to be nimble with a 15-20 lb weight on his belly. I think that was my favorite baby shower moment ever :)
- andrea, Feb 26, 2010