Real-Life Examples of Baby Showers During Covid-19
Not totally sure about baby shower alternatives? Get inspired by these real stories from Babylist users.
By Amylia Ryan
Covid-19 has caused a lot of expecting parents to reconsider their baby shower plans—some families are having virtual or drive-by showers, some are waiting until their little one arrives to have a Welcome Baby party once they feel things are safe again, and others are flat-out canceling their shower plans altogether. But many other expecting parents simply aren’t sure what to do now.
If you’re curious about what baby shower options are available to you while things are looking uncertain with the pandemic, it might help you to hear about others’ experiences before making a decision. We asked some Babylist users to share their IRL Covid–safe baby shower alternatives, and we hope you’ll be inspired by all the ways these expecting parents, their families and their friends made the most of the situation and found ways to make their baby showers fun, unique and, most of all, meaningful.
Surprise Drive-By Shower
@erinngwhite: My sister-in-law totally surprised me. I thought my husband and I were just going over to her mom’s house to take some maternity pictures. When we pulled up she had a big table and balloon arch set up. I was very confused at first, and then I saw that my parents were there as well (practicing physical distancing guidelines) and I was totally surprised. She contacted everyone who had RSVP’d to her about my actual shower and gave them a window of time for them to come by to drop off.
My brother, my SIL and my husband all had on gloves and sanitation wipes so when someone would drive by they would take the gifts, wipe them down and put them at the table. My SIL also had individual pre-packaged Nothing Bundt Cakes to give out to everyone who showed up as a thank you. After the window of time passed for drop offs, myself and my husband opened up our gifts in front of my family members who could attend. It was something really special especially because this is my first baby and thought I would not be able to have a shower at all.
Fourth Baby, BIG Zoom Shower
@cassandra.hough.123: This is my fourth baby and also my fourth boy, so to be honest I wasn’t expecting much. Decided to do a virtual baby shower since this is our last baby. And OMG this is my BIGGEST baby shower yet. I literally got everything off of my registry 😳 I was completely shocked and super excited.
We sent out official paper invites to everyone letting them know that we were doing a virtual baby shower, and I included cute baby prediction cards with the invites just for fun. I can’t believe how many I got back, even from the guys (so funny reading their predictions 😂). That was the only game we played. We read them out loud and introduced everyone to each other.
We ended up having 22 screens join and most of those had multiple people. I created a Facebook event where I try to post something every couple of days to keep everyone excited, like updated nursery items or pics of baby just for them to see. I ordered decorations from Amazon to decorate the room we were in for the Zoom baby shower. We kind of just jumped into opening gifts since my kids were super eager to see what we got. On our invites we requested that everyone have their gifts delivered to us by the baby shower so we could open them and we had all but two show up on time. We just stored the packages away until the shower and unboxed them all. My advice is to give people at least a month’s notice because shipping times are kinda crazy right now.
We did our shower via Zoom and we decided to leave it unmuted so everyone could chime in, and even with that many people it worked out great and it was so nice hearing everyone say all the “oohs” and “awwws” and “how cute.” It was also helpful to just say thank you to everyone individually without messing with the computer. After gifts, everyone was just so excited to see us; they would ask to see my belly or how I was feeling or more info about baby and I shared ultrasound pics. It was great and felt more intimate than a normal baby shower.
Abundant Community Support
Stephanie Donvito: We had family drop off whatever they had purchased. We reached out on Facebook to anyone who was giving away clothes and had an outpouring of messages (I’m the only one working right now 🙃). We’re literally stocked on clothes and other stuff till she’s at least six to nine months.
I belong to a COVID-19 group for the county that I live in (they post where products and whatnot are available), so seeing as how both showers (the original in March and the rescheduled one in May) got canceled, I took a chance and explained our situation. We had only gotten furniture from a family member as a gift to begin with, but the outpouring of support from local moms was unbelievable. I received numerous boxes/bags of almost new and new clothes ranging from newborn to six–nine months, two boppy pillows, crocheted blankets, diapers, bottles and toys.
We’re hoping to plan a half-birthday for our little girl in November if we get the all-clear in Pennsylvania since our area (Northeastern) has been hard hit with COVID-positive cases.
And after she grows out of everything, I’m paying it forward and giving the clothes to another new momma in need.
Coworkers and Cookies (and Celebrity Baby Photos!)
@skloeckener: My office is amazing and was planning an in-person shower way before COVID meant we were going remote. They moved it to a surprise Zoom shower! They sent out an invitation to other coworkers along with choices to change their backgrounds to look like baby shower decorations during the Zoom meeting.
They mailed us a box of Milk Bar cookies the day before the surprise Zoom (and I had no idea who they were from, lol). I even posted a plea on my stories to figure out who sent them! My boss sent me the link to the meeting (he posed it as a separate meeting for something else) and I was surprised with my coworkers and husband (who they invited in on the fun!).
They made a PowerPoint or Google slideshow (one of my coworkers shared her screen with us) where they surprised us with the gift they got us from our Babylist registry (our amazing high chair!) and then they prepared some “guess the baby” trivia, featuring baby photos of celebrities.
They let me know at the beginning of the shower that it was them who sent the cookies, and they told me to enjoy while we were in the meeting. They didn’t have cookies too, but it was a nice snack! It was a great way to celebrate (my office knows I love a good presentation) and they even included the Jonas Brothers in the celebrity baby game (huge fan!!). The trivia was multiple choice along with the photo of each celeb baby and we had to shout out who we thought it was. They even included a baby photo of me that I had posted a few months ago of me eating a cookie 😂.
Virtual Cupcake Contest
Anonymous: Our shower was originally scheduled to be in person, so a text message was sent out about two weeks from the shower date saying that we would not be having it in person. My mom and sister helped source gifts from attendees and mailed them to us or had locals drop them off. They also came up with the whole Zoom event idea! About 15 different people called in.
In preparation for the call, everyone was asked to bake cupcakes and decorate them according to the shower theme. We decorated a corner of our house that would be on the screen to make things festive for us too.
After opening gifts from those we knew were on the call, I played celebrity cupcake judge. Everyone presented their best six cupcakes. We had lots of creative baby-themed and a variety of TP-themed ones too :) Winners were gifted with a donation to their local food bank.
To keep with physical distancing, only my husband and I were in our home during the event.
Socially Distant Tailgating
@beckyjv: I had some sweet friends throw a “tailgate” shower for our baby. We had 14 guests there and just parked at our church’s parking lot. Most everyone brought camping chairs to make conversation a little easier, but we still stayed six feet away from each other. One of the hosts brought a folding table and had people place their gifts on it.
They had a time of sharing advice and prayer, and then I opened gifts. They gave me plastic gloves to use while opening the gifts and we played gift bingo (the winner got a pack of toilet paper). It was definitely a much simpler shower than usual, but that made it feel so special and sincere! Everyone willing to sit in the parking lot to just watch me open gifts and pray for me made me feel so loved, and I know our boy is already so loved!
Facebook Live + Food Delivery
@jessicamaciver: We had a virtual baby shower for our first baby on March 29th. We made a Facebook group for the event and streamed the video through Facebook Live. It went well! To be honest it was fun. My mother and sister arranged for porch pickup of presents and dropped off sub sandwiches, soda and cookies. I still wore my intended shower dress that I bought, and my friends and family got to see my baby bump! After the shower was complete, my husband and I got to go back and watch the entire video and comments my guests made during the stream! It definitely was different, but it fulfilled most of that baby shower experience I so badly wanted.
We originally had about 90 people invited to our in-person shower, with those that have Facebook about 50 people RSVP’d and participated in our virtual shower. We played one shower game where we asked our guests to grab a pen and paper during the intro of the shower. We asked 15 questions in the form of “Guess Who: Mommy or Daddy.” The winner won a gift basket that was dropped off on their porch.
My mom and sister arranged the gift porch pick ups from our guests and dropped off their sub sandwich, soda and cookies. My mom and sister disinfected our packages and then dropped them off at our house. During the live stream my husband helped manage the gifts. I did receive a lot of gifts by mail, so to save on time I had everything arranged and labeled. During the shower we even got to show our guests the nursery. The entire process was a little over an hour.
To be honest I really struggled with the idea of not having an in-person shower. My husband and I struggled with infertility for over three years. I had been dreaming of that magical baby shower experience to honor my IVF miracle. But we truly enjoyed the virtual baby shower. It helped fill that void of all the “normal” things that mothers not having a baby during a pandemic get to experience. My best advice for parents-to-be is to have fun with the virtual shower. Decorate your space, buy your special baby shower dress and let your family and friends celebrate!
Virtual Games Galore
@dtlacouple: We did our virtual baby shower via Zoom. It was nice because people from other parts of the world were able to join! We did a few virtual games such as Name That Tune, Guess Whose Baby Picture, we made people take shots for every time the word “baby” was said, and we had a virtual “What Do You Meme” game with baby pics. It worked out really well and people were actually engaged!
It was actually a really fun baby shower, about two hours long! It was a lot more than we could’ve asked for. We sent virtual invites with our gift registry info and link for the meeting ahead of time. I honestly thought it was better than a physical baby shower because a lot more people were able to attend and we didn’t have to spend so much on the venue.
Shower by Mail
Hours and Hours of Fun
@singh_saum: My baby shower was supposed to be held on April 18th. Most of the things we confirmed back in January—venue, catering, etc.—but due to the COVID-19 situation it was canceled and I was heartbroken 💔.
Just two weeks before the date, my friends got an idea to do a virtual one; it didn’t feel feasible at the time, but now that I think about it, it couldn’t have been more perfect. All credit goes to my best friends and my dear husband for making it possible ♥️
We had more than 30 families join for our virtual baby shower for more than four hours. We used a Zoom Pro Account ($14.99/mo); basic Zoom only allows 40 minutes on group meetings and includes 100 or more participants. We used Evite to send invites, messages, reminders and thank you notes, Amazon/Babylist Baby Registry, Google Photos to create a picture album and Google Sheets for a guest list.
The virtual games we played:
- Guess Who
- Baby Bingo
- Baby Feud
- Price is Right
- Pictionary
The games did take up a lot of time because of the number of people, but there were some conversations in between, like how they all know us (me & my husband) so that everybody gets familiar with everybody before playing the games. We didn’t have a gift opening session because a lot of my gifts didn’t reach me by that time due to delays.
Guess Who? “Mommy” or “Daddy”: The organizer made a list of questions in Google Spreadsheet, like “Who will change more diapers,” etc. (you can find a number of templates/questions online). The organizer sent the link of the spreadsheet to everyone through Zoom chat. Then she asked everyone to answer the questions in five minutes. They had to mark each question in their spreadsheet with either mommy or daddy. Once everyone was finished, she started asking questions to us and we both had to respond at the same time. If we both said the same answer and it matched with the guests’ answers, they’d get a point. And if we said different answers (for example, I said “mommy” and my husband said “daddy”), then we’d scrap that answer and nobody gets the point. In the end whoever got the most right answers wins the game.
Baby Bingo: Before the party, the organizer distributed free baby bingo templates to everyone’s numbers/emails. Before starting the game, she made sure everybody had the template. Then, as the organizer started calling out baby products, people had to mark it. The first person to complete a row or column won. And the next prize was for the person who completed both a row and a column.
Price is Right: The organizer created a presentation for this. One slide without the price of baby items and another with the price. With each slide, she would ask the price of a baby item, and everybody had to write the price in the chat box on Zoom. Once everyone was done, she would reveal the price on another slide and announce who was the closest with their guess. Once all the slides were done, she declared the winner by seeing who had guessed almost the correct price most number of times.
The best thing about creating it in spreadsheets is that I still have everybody’s answers with me. The organizer (my friend) also created stats and pie charts.
My friends really did a wonderful job in organizing the games. They all took ownership of one game and nailed it, rather than all trying to be involved in all the games. So ownership is important!
Amylia Ryan
Associate Editor
Amylia Ryan is the Associate Editor at Babylist, specializing in the topics of health, wellness and lifestyle products. Combining a decade of experience in writing and editing with a deep passion for helping people, her number one goal in her work is to ensure new parents feel supported and understood. She herself is a parent to two young children, who are more than willing to help product test endless toys, books, clothes, toiletries and more.
