Month five
These cringe-free games are good for grownups too
Have a fun baby shower
You want to celebrate the impending birth of your baby, and you’d love to score loads of thoughtful gifts from your besties. But you don’t need them to lose the will to live as they endure (another) boring do. Have mercy: make yours entertaining. Here’s how.
ICEBREAKER
If your friends and family don’t all know each other, try this game designed to get to find out more about one another: as each guest arrives, give her a card on which are printed a few “challenges” – to find a guest who has been married more than eight years, to find a person with a shoe size 4, to find one who owns more than three cats, to find a horror movie addict, and so on. It’s a fun way to get your friends’ quirks and charming foibles laughed about.
DECORATIONS
#1 Cut out large speech bubbles and use a magic marker to write down anecdotes from the parents-to-be’s own childhoods. Guests will see them as they come in and discuss whose childhood the stories are from. #2 Baby showers are often decorated with bunting made from a clothesline and nappies or baby clothes pinned to it. In this variant, string up two clothes lines, but leave buckets filled with clothing and pins next to them. Split the group into two teams and make a representative from each side (males vs females, for instance, or dad’s side vs mom’s side) pin as many clothes on the line as possible in the shortest time. The trick is, they have to hold their phone to their ear and a baby doll in their arms as they’re doing it!
BABY SHOWER GIFT BINGO
No longer must you endure the minutes and decades trickling by as your pregnant friend opens one million gifts. If mom-inlaw insists gifts will be opened publicly (honestly? Yawn), turn the spectacle into a (drinking?) game with Baby Shower Bingo! Download the free printables from Hallmark. First one to fill her card
gets a present! (http://ideas.hallmark.com/ articles/ baby- ideas/ free-printable- babyshower-games/)
SPIN THE BOTTLE
In the baby shower version of the game, you spin a baby bottle and the person it points to must do the instruction on the list (which you have prepared previously): recount a labour story, give mom-to-be a piece of advice, tell an embarrassing tale from her own file of #parentingfails, or taste the mystery baby food.
MOM-AND-DAD-MATCH
If you’ve got men and women at the shower, split them up for this one. Now give both mom- and dad-to-be the same set of questions, such as “Do you think it’s a boy or girl and why?”, “Where were you when you heard the news?”, “What will your child be when he/she grows up?”, “What aspect of newborn care do you think you’ll be best at?” and “What will your partner excel at?” Compare answers afterwards, or for added fun, make the couple guess each other’s answers.
RAFFLES
Get that church fair tombola vibe going with guessing games. Fill up a baby bottle with sweets (or clothes pegs) and make guests guess the number. Or give guests spools of cotton and make them cut off the length they estimate to be the circumference of mom-to-be’s belly. Closest call “wins” … a pre-bought novelty gift or, if you don’t want to spend money on nonsense, a plate of home-baked cookies. The (free) “prize” could also be the opportunity to give a piece of baby advice, or veto a particular baby name you really hope the couple won’t give their child.
NAME THAT BABY!
Get guests to “help” out the poor parents by making helpful suggestions regarding baby names. Divide guests so that each guest, or pair, gets one or two letters of the alphabet. Now challenge them to offer your mutual preggie friend a list of ten good name options and ten names you think they should avoid. Watch the hen fight start!