Baby shower checklist
The first group is the whole thing. Ask before you plan: some people want thirty guests and games, and some want six friends and a cake.
34 items
Makes your own editable copy. No account needed.
The items
- Ask first
- Do they want a shower at all?
- Who do they want there — and who do they not?
- Games, or absolutely no games?
- A surprise, or something they help plan?
- Any topics to keep off the table
- Somewhere they can sit down and put their feet up
- Planning
- Date between weeks 30 and 36
- Two to three hours, not a whole day
- Venue with a toilet close by
- Invitations with a clear start and end time
- Collect dietary requirements
- Agree who is paying for what
- Food and drink
- Food that does not need cutlery
- Cake
- Nothing on the pregnancy avoid list, as the default
- Good non-alcoholic drinksThe guest of honour is not drinking. Make that the normal option, not the compromise.
- Tea and coffee
- Plates, cups and napkins
- The room
- A comfortable chair for the parent-to-be
- Somewhere to put the gifts
- A bag or box to get the gifts home
- Decorations, if they want them
- Music, quiet enough to talk over
- Somewhere for coats
- Nice touches
- A card everybody signs
- Advice or wishes written down, rather than said out loud
- A photo of everyone together
- A meal for their freezer instead of another outfit
- Somebody assigned to write down who gave what
Makes your own editable copy. No account needed.
Questions people ask
- When should a baby shower be held?
- Usually between weeks 30 and 36 — late enough to feel real, early enough that sitting through an afternoon is still comfortable and the baby is unlikely to arrive.
- What should I ask the parent-to-be first?
- Whether they want one at all, who they want there, and whether they hate games. It is a party for one specific person, and guessing is how it goes wrong.