Virtual baby showers may be necessary if your family and friends live far away. More recently, this could be for other reasons such as the Coronavirus. Baby showers are becoming a more popular way to celebrate. So, how can you overcome the challenge of hosting a virtual baby shower?
Of course, this is still probably not an ideal situation. However, make the best of things and continue to make memories!
Who should host?
In these circumstances, it is fine if you are the one to host your own baby shower. Whereas normally a close friend might take responsibility for organising, in these circumstances you can do the organising yourself.
How to host
There are a variety of platforms on which you can host your party. You will obviously need a device that connects to the Internet. If you don’t know where to start, you could use a service like Web Baby Shower. It is not free but it pretty much helps you organise everything from photo albums, emails, invites, gift registry and so much more. You can even use it to give family and friends updates about your pregnancy such as sharing your latest scan.
FaceTime allows a number of devices to be logged in at the same time. However, it only works with Apple devices so that depends on which devices your guests have.
Zoom is a free video-conferencing application. The host can set up a ‘room’ and the guests are given the link to be able to join. It can support a large number of guests and is easy to use.
WhatsApp is again a simple app to use. You first need to set up a group which you can find out how to do here. The major disadvantage is that only 4 members can join a video call. It may be better to use this as a communication method when you are planning the virtual baby shower with your guests.
Google Meet is another fairly simple video conferencing app. It can host multiple devices. It relies on the participants having a Google account. You can also add an extension that allows you to see all participants at the same time on one screen.
Skype very similar to ‘Zoom’ you can host multiple devices meaning that you can all see each other.
House Party specifically for hosting parties. It can host up to 8 in a room but you can have multiple rooms. There were rumours of data breaches although the house party website strongly denies this claim. You can also play games via the house party app so perfect for virtual baby showers.
To decorate or not?
Why not go for it? Consider just decorating a smaller area that is visible in the screen rather than use all of your energy decorating a whole room. There are plenty of posts on Pinterest that give inspiration for DIY decorations.
Virtual invites
You can still send invites virtually if getting to the post office is a challenge. There are a number of websites that give you the option to create your own invites such as Evite and Canva.
Similarly, you can use such websites to create ‘thank you’ cards for those that attended.
Gifts
Your family and friends will no doubt want to give you and baby some gifts. You can set up a baby gift ‘wishlist’ online. Major stores such as John Lewis allow you to do this or you can use something like UK Baby Wish List. It allows you to select which items you are hoping for. If you give everyone enough notice, they may be able to send their gifts to you before the baby shower so you can open things with everyone there to see.
Virtual Baby Shower games
Ok, so many traditional baby shower games will be tricky without your guests in the room. However, with a few tweaks, you can certainly find some games that can be played virtually.
Baby price is right
Have a collection of items you have bought for the baby in a box/basket. Show your guests each item and they have to write down what they think it cost. At the end, they add up the total of all the items to see who was closest.
Baby Hunch
This website allows you to set up a ‘pool’ where your guests can guess information such as due date, birth weight etc. Once baby arrives, you can input the information and a winner is declared. You can access the website here.
Quizzes
There are plenty of baby shower quizzes available online. Pinterest particularly has some great examples. Alternatively, you can generate your own quiz to share.
Mum or Dad Quiz
Ask the parents-to-be that who is ready to do the tasks mentioned in this quiz and then test the guests if they can guess it correctly or not. You can print some questions from this website. It is a good idea for guests to have pre-prepared cards with the words mum and dad on them. Then they can hold them up to guess their answer.
Name that Baby Tune
Prepare a playlist of songs that have the word ‘baby’ in them. Play a snippet of the tune and the guests have to write down the song title. Need some inspiration? Here are some songs with baby in them.
Mocktails
Just because you are avoiding alcohol, it doesn’t mean that you can’t sip a delicious alcohol-free option. Here is a lovely recipe we found for a blackberry-lemon mocktail that would make a great addition to virtual baby showers.
- 1/2 cup fresh blackberries
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup pre-made lemonade
- juice of 1 lemon
- lemon slices
- soda water
- fresh mint
Instructions
- Add the blackberries to a small saucepan and mash them with a fork or potato masher until broken down into small bits.
- Add the sugar, water and lemonade and bring to a simmer.
- Simmer over low-medium heat for about 10 minutes.
- Strain the mixture to remove the bits of blackberry, add the juice from the lemon and refrigerate the liquid until cooled.
- Once cooled, pour the liquid evenly among 4 glasses filled with ice cubes.
- Add soda until glass is full.
- Garnish with lemon slices, mint and extra blackberries.
Hopefully, you found this post about virtual baby showers helpful? There are plenty of other blogs on our site that you may find helpful. Please take a look here.
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