Fun baby-shower me
February 4, 2015 7:02 AM   Subscribe

I am looking for ideas for a (fun!) baby shower game for my boss who is expecting. The shower is happening in a restaurant with a small group of co-workers so it can't be too involved or outlandish. There's also that whole I-work-with-you atmosphere that makes things that I would normally think of for friends seem strange. Would be thrilled to see if anyone has suggestions. Thanks in advance.
posted by mooselini to Grab Bag (14 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Baby Shower Bingo! Have prizes for the first few winners. It gives people something to do during the present opening other than cooing.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:08 AM on February 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was totally going for Baby Shower Bingo, so seconding that. You can also just skip games entirely and let it be more of a chance to eat cupcakes and socialize instead of a serious baby shower - that's usually what we do at work and everyone seems happy without the games.
posted by chocotaco at 7:38 AM on February 4, 2015


A fun game for colleagues might be Guess the Baby. Each guest brings a baby photo. You assign identifiers to each and tack em to poster board, or it could be easier at a restaurant to scan them beforehand and have printouts to pass around. Don't forget to include yourself and the momma to be. Prizes can be for most photos matched, age at photo, year taken.

It's a game AND team engagement - everybody wins!
posted by ovenmitt at 7:49 AM on February 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's not a game, but an activity that I provided at a baby shower I just hosted. I bought a few packs of cheapo white onsies from target, some fabric paint, and some stencils and everyone made custom onesies. It was a huge hit and it was an activity that allowed people to chat together while still doing something, and the mom-to-be got some fun little gifts out it.
posted by greta simone at 8:42 AM on February 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


The least-outlandish of the games at the recent baby shower I went to was "put this paper plate on your head, take this marker, and draw the baby." (The expecting parents then picked a favorite.)
posted by deludingmyself at 10:02 AM on February 4, 2015


^draw the baby on the plate, that is.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:03 AM on February 4, 2015


I was going to suggest the game ovenmitt suggested. It does take a bit of planning but I think it actually works best with co-workers. You see each other every day but you probably haven't seen family photos of each other. Scan the baby pictures, post them to a piece of foam-core board with numbers and have it propped up somewhere. Have a sheet of paper at each place and a pencil and have people guess who! Then at some point call them out (maybe have a list of available names as it's likely some people won't get their photo in time) and have people self-mark then give out prizes.
posted by amanda at 10:03 AM on February 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


For craft ideas, I've heard of busting open a pack of disposable diapers, and writing/drawing on them, so the new parents have encouraging words to look while they're changing diapers. Get fabric pens or something that won't bleed from the diapers to baby clothes.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:18 AM on February 4, 2015


lets see... work safe games from the last baby shower we went to.... 'guys compete to empty a small baby bottle full of soda' was amusing to the ladies.

get a roll of toilet paper and guess how many squares would wrap around the baby-bump, measuring tape style

they printed up a list of common items in wallets and purses, with points assigned to each- chapstick and a receipt both one point, hairbrush 15, etc, and the one with the highest total won

And the 'paint on t-shirts' from Greta went quite well at a baby shower. I saw it at a house, not at a restaurant though
posted by Jacen at 11:09 AM on February 4, 2015


At our work shower we played the "Don't Say 'Baby'" game. We all started with necklaces (I think cardboard pacifiers on string) and proceeded to talk as usual, except trying not to say the word "baby". If you catch someone, you get their necklace and they are out, and so on until the last person with all the necklaces wins! This is a good game to give everyone a chance to socialize if they want.
posted by Shadow Boxer at 11:29 AM on February 4, 2015


Buy baby food jars (preferably single ingredient), remove labels, write a number on each jar. Pass jars around and have ppl write down their guesses as to contents.
posted by Neekee at 3:47 PM on February 4, 2015


I'm also currently planning a baby shower for a coworker, and most of the attendees will be men in their late 70s and 80s. Awkward! I'm going to set up a Pool for them to make bets on when the baby is born.
posted by AliceBlue at 4:48 PM on February 4, 2015


Yes, "don't say baby" (we've used clothespins; diaper pins on a string might also work), onesie or diaper decorating, "guess the baby".

"Who's your daddy/mommy" with celebrity baby photos -- you can either do mix and match (a-2, b-4, c-1, etc.) or fill-in-the-blank.

Also "what's in the bag", where you put little things (pacifier, nosefrida, diaper cream, baby spoon, etc.) into paper lunchbags, number 'em, and everyone has to feel and guess what's in the bags. Then new mom gets to keep all of the things!

We've also done "my water broke" (or maybe "ice ice baby"?), where you put the tiny plastic babies (the kind that you get in a bag of ~100) into ice cube trays, freeze, and then give everyone a cup of water and an "ice baby". The first one whose baby is melted out of the ice cube says, "my water broke!" and wins a prize. (Putting the baby in your mouth is not allowed, so you do need to caveat that on introducing the game.) Restaurants have let us keep our ice cubes in their freezer before.

Maybe some sort of baby mad libs would be fun -- there's lots of options on Google. It can be hard if no one is volunteering words, so that could be something where you go around the table ("your turn! word ending in -ing!").

If you were doing the shower in a conference room with a whiteboard, I'd suggest Pictionary with baby terms. You could do it in a restaurant with notepads or sketchbooks.

We also do the "guess the name/birth date/weight/length" bidding pool.
posted by littlemisslaika at 6:32 PM on February 4, 2015


I did Baby Shower Bingo at a shower I planned last year and it really turned out well. The mom-to-be was tetchy on being the center of attention while everyone watched her open gifts and this took the focus off her personally. People spent so much time arguing whether the gift that was just opened was a 'receiving blanket' or just a regular 'blanket' and thus who got to tick it off on their sheet that the focus was well shifted from just starting at the mom. Everyone had a good time.

I filled in the bingo card fields using a spreadsheet and a list of items taken from the registry, as well as just common baby gifts. No one actually managed to make bingo during the actual gift opening, which I'd predicted, so I had a randomized list of all the items that I was scratching items off of as they were opened. When we were done with gifts, I just started reading items that hadn't been called yet off the list until someone won.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:45 PM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


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