Pat L. of NC
At the baby shower for my second granddaughter, her name was written vertically on a note card. Each guest was asked to write a bit of life advice using the letters of her name. The words of wisdom ranged from the serious to down right silly...a lasting gift, carefully tucked away in her baby book, ready to be shared with love from friends and family.

Cindy L. of WV
Previous to the baby shower, send out invitations and a block of material to each person to decorate or embellish for a baby quilt. have everyone bring the blocks to the shower and present them to the mother to be.

Fill a big laundry basket with new items for baby and mom to be, let the whole party of guests view it for 1 or 2 minutes then put it away in another room. Hand out paper and pens to all guests. Have them write down what all was in the basket. The one with the most correct answers wins a prize. The same game can be played by having the mother to be wear lots of extra jewelry, hairbows, clothes, shoes, socks, and jackets and have her viewed then have her leave the room. Everyone should write down what all she had on.

For a fun game, fold lots of individual paper towels into tiny diapers only putting mustard inside one. pass them all out to the guests and whoever gets the dirty diaper wins a prize. This is called the dirty diaper game.

Pamela P. of OR
Something I gave my sister that she actually used was a coupon book I printed up. It goes like this; 3 coupons for 2 hr. baby sitting. 2 coupons for 3 hr. Friday night baby sitting. 2 coupons for home cooked meal. 2 coupons for laundry detail. All coupons require 12 hr. advance notice. My sister used them all up in the first 3 months!

Jennifer W. of KY
I always bring two gifts to a baby shower; one is a case of diapers and the other is usually a gift basket for mom after the baby. It includes items like tucks pads, breast shields, lotion, lip balm, a good movie, lanolin for breast feeding moms. This always makes mom smile and feel extra special.

Janice B. of TX
Fill a bowl with rice and safety pins. Have each person blindfolded and have them each take a turn putting their hand in the bowl to see how many they can take out, they are timed for a minute, whoever gets the most safety pins removed from the bowl wins a prize, it sounds easy but it is not and lots of fun!!

Donna S. of CA
Get a clothes line and dye it pink or blue. Then get spring clothes pins and paint them blue with white pokadots or pink with white pokadots. Then hang onesies, socks, booties, receivers, hats or whatever the hostess desires and hang these things throughout the room of the shower. At the end of the shower, the mama-to-be takes the things home for the baby.

Jean B. of KS
Give each partygoer a sheet of paper and pencil and have them name as many song titles as possible with the word "baby" in the title. Limit the time to 5 minutes. You'd be surprised how many you can think of!

Dawn G. of IL
My idea is to have each guest bring a baby picture of herself to the party. Collect the pictures as soon as each guest arrives. Then post all the pictures on a chalkboard using double tape so as not to damage the pictures. Next, have everyone look at the pictures and make a list of who is what picture. The person guessing the most correctly wins, and next first place, second place etc., depending on how many guessed correctly.

Nyla T. of SD
One thing that is nice is to wrap each gift in receiving blankets. Or smaller gifts in bibs.

Kathy D. of TX
For office baby showers, they have to be kept a little on the down low. So you can make pens wrapped with baby shower ribbon with a flower attached to the top or little charms, like babies, pacifiers, rattles.

Make name tags in the shape of a diaper, folded in half. On the outside put the guest name on the inside one or two guests have a brown "poopie" spot. When the guests are asked to look in their name tag, if they have a brown poopie spot they get to pick a prize, which could be anything.

Make a scrapbook/baby book for the expectant mom. Give all the guests a scrapbook sheet ahead time. Tell the guest to write a bit of advice on child rearing or how to just relax, there are no instructions to bring up a child. Tell the guest to bring it with them to the shower, and put all of them in the baby book.

Connie M. of OR
For a game--see who can drink the fastest through a baby bottle. Give potted plants as prizes. The plants will be a reminder to your day of fun and winning at the baby shower.

Justin C. of OR
As a game, have guests wear pink or blue baby-size bonnets or tied hoods on their scalps and put adhesive stickers or nametag labels with the names of famous children or recent celeb babies on them. Have everyone play 20 questions on each other and the winner gets something great.

*Nancy J. of MI
One game we played at my daughter's baby shower was called "lets go shopping". We purchased a few baby items and saved the receipt. We had baby shampoo, diaper rash cream, baby tylenol, a pacifier, a rattle and baby lotion. Guests were given time to write down their guesses of the cost of each item and the total cost, The person who came closest to the actual price of all items won a prize. Believe me some people were in for sticker shock and the guests found it to be a lot of fun as they discussed prices of baby items.

As part of my daughters baby shower we decided to hold a raffle. The prize: a large wicker basket filled with boxed chocolate, earrings, small jewelry box, candles, a bottle of wine, a gift certificate etc. We took a picture of the filled basket and included it with the invites with the message: RAFFLE "If you are so kind as to bring a package of any size disposable diapers you will be entitled to one raffle ticket for this large basket of goodies". Guests at the shower were excited about the raffle and their chance to win. My daughter got over 40 packages of disposable diapers! Fun for both guests and mom-to-be.

Kelly M. of MO
I am a Creative Memories Consultant and do baby showers where each guest decorates a page for a baby scrapbook for the mother to be. That way all she has to do is add a picture to the page. We all know how busy a new mom is but doesn't want to miss anything. We did first smile, first haircut, first steps. We even had a page made for the sonogram.

Charlene B. of OK
Melt different candy bars. (Snickers, Milky Way, Reeses, etc.) Pour each melted chococate in to a separate diaper. Have the shower guests guess the candy bar by "smelling the poo." No tasting allowed!

Kitty B. of FL
Have a baby shower with your office or women's club, with no baby! Choose someone to be the "Mommy" and everyone brings gifts and plays games and has a fun baby shower....then the gifts are given to a local charity or church that helps young Moms with little or no means.

Christine W. of OK
We recently played a game at a baby shower where we were given a list of items and had to check it off if we had any of those items in our purse. I even had the tab to a can of soda pop in my purse. It is amazing as to what we will find in our purses at times.

Esperanza D. of NM
Take a bunch of envelopes and blank notecards to fit inside. On the outside of each envelope write either a birthday number such as first birthday or second birthday. Or you can write something like First Christmas or First Easter on it. Pass them around and each person has to write a note to the baby to open up on that special day. If you want to make it into a "game" you can randomly pull out an envelope and read the special date outloud (not the note) and whoever wrote it gets a prize.

Danielle G. of NY
A favorite game we have always played is to remove the label from several jars of baby food and have the guests try to guess which each one is.

Karen G. of NY
Fill a diaper bag full of anything mom or baby (or dad) might need. Have guests write down what they think is in the diaper bag. Whoever gets the most correct, wins. We had 40 things in ours. Examples are: rubber gloves, hand sanitizer, clothes pin (for dad's nose lol) diaper, wipes, bottle, etc.

I got some tiny plastic pacifiers and put them on ribbon for necklaces. Each guest got one at the beginning. If you heard someone say "Baby" you got their necklace. The person with the most necklaces at the end won a prize.

Ask dad some questions before the shower like; How many times will a baby eat during the day? How many times will the baby need a diaper change? How many times will you change the baby each day? How much will baby weigh when it's born, etc. Have guests guess how many mom will answer the same as dad did. At the shower, ask mom the same questions. Whomever gets the closest correct wins a prize. (Be sure mom and dad don't tell each other about this or their answers).

We got a cake from a grocery store, but I had them leave it kind of plain and added rubber duckies to the top for decoration (they were charging over $5 extra for putting the ducks on it at the store, but I bought my own for less than $2 so I saved a few bucks by doing it that way.)