Baby Shower Games That Won't Make Your Guests Cringe

I was thirty-five weeks pregnant with my oldest, feet swollen into the shape of overcooked sausages, sitting on a floral armchair in a rural Texas living room while my mother-in-law's friend Brenda aggressively inhaled a microwaved Snickers bar smeared inside a size 1 Pampers. She had chocolate on her nose. She looked me dead in the eye and yelled, "It's a Milky Way!" I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. I'm literally typing this while staring at a mountain of unmatched tiny socks and drinking lukewarm coffee, so I'm just gonna be real with you: that shower was a cautionary tale of epic proportions, and we've got to do better for expecting mothers.

Let's permanently retire the poop candy

I don't know who invented the "guess the melted chocolate in the diaper" game, but I assume they harbor a deep, unhealed resentment toward pregnant women. You take perfectly good, expensive diapers, ruin them with brown candy, and then force a room full of people—including a woman whose stomach is currently operating like a turbulent washing machine—to pass them around and sniff them like fine wine.

It's visually horrifying. There's nothing quite like watching your former college roommate tentatively lick her pinky finger after swiping it across a diaper gusset to see if she's tasting peanut butter or caramel. We're grown adults, y'all.

And then there's the sheer indignity of making the pregnant person sit there and smile while everybody pretends this is a totally normal Tuesday afternoon activity instead of a scene from a psychological thriller. Bless their hearts, I know the older generation thinks this is hilarious, but my grandma used to insist on it and I finally had to tell her we were putting an end to the madness.

I also refuse to engage with the blindfolded peas-and-carrots baby food tasting, and if you hand me a clothespin at the door and tell me I can't say the word "baby" at a literal baby show, I'm turning right back around and getting in my truck.

Activities that actually help the parents

If you're hosting a shower, your main goal should be making the mom-to-be feel loved and setting her up with stuff she actually needs, rather than measuring her expanding waistline with a spool of yarn while she sweats through her maternity dress. The diaper raffle is the greatest invention of the modern era. You just tell everyone on the invitation to bring a pack of diapers of any size, and for every pack they bring, their name goes in a hat to win a prize.

It takes exactly three minutes, nobody has to smell anything weird, and it legitimately saved our budget for the first two months of my oldest kid's life. We had a stack of diapers up to the ceiling in the nursery closet.

Another thing that actually works is having a station where guests can decorate something useful or write down real advice. Not that toxic positivity Instagram parenting nonsense, but actual survival tips for when it's 3 AM and the baby just blew out their outfit for the second time. You can pack all those advice cards into a basket with a beautiful blanket to give to the mom at the end of the party.

I highly think throwing in the Organic Cotton Purple Deer Blanket for this. My pediatrician threw out some passing comment once about how organic cotton might be better for my youngest's mysterious eczema flare-ups since there aren't harsh chemical residues baked into the fabric, but honestly who seriously knows if that's what fixed it or if his skin just finally decided to behave. Either way, it's wildly soft, the double-layer is perfectly weighted so they don't overheat, and it doesn't instantly pill up into a scratchy mess when I inevitably leave it in the dryer too long.

Check out Kianao's full collection of sustainable, organic baby essentials if you want to build a gift basket that doesn't look like a plastic explosion.

Prizes people won't immediately throw in the trash

If you're going to make your friends play baby shower bingo while you open gifts for forty-five minutes, you need to offer game prizes that don't come from a dollar bin. People are taking time out of their weekend to buy you a nose Frida and tiny washcloths; give them something decent.

Coffee shop gift cards are always a win. Fancy hand soaps work. Or, if the shower has a lot of other moms in attendance, you can give out practical kid stuff. At a friend's shower recently, the prize for winning the nursery rhyme emoji game was the Walrus Silicone Plate. I use one of these for my middle child, and I'm going to be completely honest about it: the divided sections are an absolute lifesaver for the daily dinner meltdown when the peas accidentally touch the chicken, but that "powerful suction base" they brag about is no match for a determined two-year-old with use and a bad attitude. He can still rip it off the high chair if he really commits to the bit. But it's thick, high-quality silicone, it survives the dishwasher, and it's a million times better than picking shattered cheap plastic off my kitchen tiles.

The ultimate group gift flex

If you've got a tight-knit group of friends, skip the twenty little individual games and just pool your money for one massive, show-stopping gift that doubles as the centerpiece of the shower. You can have guests try to guess the total cost of the nursery setup, and the winner gets a bottle of wine.

With my oldest, my house was quickly overrun with neon plastic monstrosities that lit up, spun around, and sang off-key songs until I quietly "lost" them in the garage. Running a small Etsy shop means I really care about craftsmanship, and the plastic junk was ruining my life. So by the time baby number three rolled around, I was begging my friends for natural materials.

They went in together and got me the Wild Western Wooden Baby Gym, and it's hands-down my favorite thing in the nursery. It has this incredible natural wooden A-frame, a little wooden buffalo, a cactus, and a crocheted horse. Zero blinking lights. Zero robotic voices. It honestly looks gorgeous sitting out in my living room, and the varying textures of the wood and the soft crochet kept my youngest completely mesmerized during tummy time when she was tiny.

A quick word on making pregnant people move

Please remember that the guest of honor is currently housing a human bowling ball. When I was pregnant with my second, my OB-GYN basically looked me in the eye and told me that something about a hormone called relaxin was making my joints turn to absolute rubber and my center of gravity was completely shot, so maybe I shouldn't be doing any sudden athletic movements.

Instead of making your pregnant friend sprint across the backyard with a water balloon squeezed between her knees while balancing a baby bottle on a spoon, just sit her down on a comfortable sofa, bring her some snacks, and let her be the judge of a diaper-decorating contest while everybody else does the heavy lifting.

Ready to plan a shower that feels authentic, relaxed, and genuinely helpful? Shop Kianao's sustainable, beautifully crafted baby gear to find the perfect gifts and game prizes that parents will genuinely use and love.

Real answers to your party planning questions

Are we legally required to play games at a baby shower?
Absolutely not. I've been to a few "display showers" lately where the gifts are just set out unwrapped on a table so everyone can see them, and people just eat barbecue and hang out. It's glorious. But if you've a mixed crowd of people from different friend groups who don't know each other, one or two quick games really do help break the awkward silence while everyone is eating their pasta salad.

How many activities is too many?
If the party is two hours long, don't plan more than two games. Three if one of them is entirely passive, like filling out a raffle ticket at the door. Nobody wants to spend their entire Saturday afternoon being ushered from one forced activity to the next like they're at a corporate team-building retreat.

What if the mom-to-be hates being the center of attention?
Then you definitely skip the games where she has to perform, guess things, or be measured. Focus on team games where the guests compete against each other, like racing to change a baby doll's diaper blindfolded. The expecting mom just gets to sit in a chair, sip her sparkling cider, and laugh at her friends struggling with tiny snaps.

How do we make the gift opening less painful?
This is the hardest part of any shower because staring at someone opening tissue paper for an hour is mind-numbing. Baby Shower Bingo is the only way I've found to fix this. Give guests blank bingo cards, have them write down what gifts they think she'll open (swaddles, pacifiers, books), and let them mark it off as she goes. It gives them a reason to genuinely pay attention to the fourth pack of burp cloths.