22 May 2020

How to throw a virtual baby shower

Do your family and friends live far away? Or has the corona virus hit the brakes on your baby shower?

Everyone is looking for innovative ways to celebrate special moments safely. Luckily, with a bit of planning, you can still celebrate with them from afar. We’ve laid out the best way to create a virtual baby shower and celebrate with the new mum and dad before the arrival of their little one.

What is a virtual baby shower?

The typical image of a baby shower is the expectant mum and dad’s surrounded by all their family and friends. But now most pregnant women are facing not having one at all, so the next best thing is to bring it online. A remote baby shower isn’t going to replace the real thing, but it’s a lovely way to show the mum-to-be how much you care. All you’ll need is the guests and the internet to get the gang together.

How do I host it?

Firstly you need to send some invitations! Whether you want to go low key and send an email or message via text, or go all out and send some personalised invitations. We’ve got plenty of options for invites, including our  personalised pink and blue harlequin design. You also need to pick a virtual venue for everyone to meet up.

• Skype is available to use on any computer, tablet or phone, plus you can chat for up to 4 hours with 50 friends.
• Zoom is free to everyone and you can chat with up to 100 people for 40 minutes. If you need more time you can pay for additional time, but you could also just start a second call after your first 40 minutes runs out.
• Google Hangouts works for everyone who has a gmail account and can be used for a video call for 10 people. If it’s audio and phone only it’s available for 250 people.
• Facetime can be used for everyone who has an apple device, and can be used by 32 people at once. The only downside is if someone doesn’t have an apple device it may not be the best option.

• Name the song: Play a few seconds of baby-themed songs, and get guests to write down their guesses.
• How big is mum’s belly?: Get mum to measure her bump before the video call starts and get every guest to guess how big mum’s belly is.
• The Price Is Right: To play this game, the person hosting holds up 5 baby items to the camera and everyone has to write down a price for each item. At the end the prices are revealed and the person with the correct combined total price wins.
• Who's That Baby? Before the call starts, ask guests to email photos of themselves as babies to the host. The host will then share them with the group and everyone has to try to guess who is who.
• How Well Do You Know Mum? Create a quiz all about the expectant mum and ask guests to guess