HAS THE BABY SHO

When Flora Gill hit her 30s, she was ready for the influx of hen parties and wedding

think it’s carrot and squash,’ I guess, swirling the orange paste around my mouth as

I sit, blindfolded. ‘Anything else?’ my friend asks. ‘Maybe apples?’

‘Yes, that’s right – but you missed out chicken!’

I’m very much hoping this will be the last round of ‘Guess the Baby Food’ that I’ll be forced to play this year but, given the number of baby-shower parties springing up in my diary, I fear it won’t.

I’m 31, an age where every other weekend seems to feature a wedding or a hen do. This is fine – it’s a life stage I was prepared for. But what I hadn’t predicted was the sudden dawn of the baby-shower invitation.

It wasn’t long ago that Brits viewed baby showers as a ghastly American invention. A pregnant mother in the UK might have had a small dinner with friends after finding out she was expecting, but the pageantry of a dedicated party would have been considered completely over the top.

The perfect example of the clash between American traditions and English attitudes can be summed up by the reaction to the Duchess of Sussex’s lavish 2019 shower. Organised by Serena Williams, and reportedly costing up to £300,000, it was said to have been met with eye-rolls and private condemnation at the palace. But big showers are common in the US, where throwing one can be compared in terms of stress and spend with organising a wedding.

There are dozens of articles online dedicated to picking themes, snacks, decorations, games and even goody bags. A US-based friend informs me that, in the past year, she’s been to two pink-themed showers for baby girls, a space-themed shower for a future astronaut and a Harry Potter-themed party where guests sat at tables for each wizarding house and ate chocolate that looked like frogs. They almost always involve copious balloons, carefully constructed finger food and bespoke games – such as the guess-the-baby-food one I was subjected to. I could horrify you further by detailing another game, which I’m told is gaining popularity, whereby different types of chocolate bars are melted into nappies… but we probably don’t need to go there.

Baby showers are thought to have originated in the postwar baby-boom era –

I