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Archive for the ‘Baby Shower’ Category

Twins are double the fun, right?  For mom and dad, though, they are double the work!  Double the blessings, to be sure, but double the clothing, double the diapers, the bibs, the food… Help mom and dad out with a twin baby shower.  Here are some fun themes that celebrate twins and the double love they bring to a family.

There are plenty of cute baby shower themes for twins, and you could also opt for a more general twin theme for the entire party.  Let’s take a look at two popular themes to get your creative juices flowing.

Peas-in-a-Pod. It’s very easy to do peas-in-a-pod.  Your baby shower favors, for instance, can be several green jelly beans wrapped in green cellophane.  Twist and tie at the end, and you have an adorable pea pod.  For decorations, you can get balloons and green cellophane.  Wrap an inflated balloon in the cellophane and make little twists at both ends to resemble a pea.  For twins, simply do two balloons – or two peas in the pod!  You can do this with triplets as well.  You can also:

• Bake sugar cookies and frost them with green icing for peas.

• Make several small round cakes and ice them with green frosting, adding a bit of darker green icing for cute vines and leaves.

• Find peas-in-a-pod salt and pepper shakers for your decorations or favors.

• Make peas-in-a-pod with bath bombs and green cellophane.  Just as with the green jelly beans, place two bath bombs in green cellophane and twist the ends and secure with ribbons.  This is a cute, fun favor for guests.

• Look online for sales on favors and decorations. You can find cute pea candles, green streamers and balloons, and much more to add to the theme of your baby shower.

Thing 1 and Thing 2. Another very fun baby shower theme, this Dr. Seuss-inspired party is sure to be a success.  Again, this is a fairly popular theme – and rightly so! Because of this, you will be able to find premade supplies.  You will also be able to make a great deal of the decorations, favors, and food on your own.  When decorating for a Thing 1 and Thing 2 baby shower, use lots of red, blue, and aqua balloons – not pale shades, but bold, bright colors.  Find tablecloths or napkins featuring bold red and white stripes; dishes and flatware can be bright red, blue, bright yellow or green.  Very Dr. Seussian.

• Make Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes.  These are adorable and simple to make.  Make red velvet cupcakes in red liners.  When cool, frost them with white frosting and add blue cotton candy for their hair (you can buy bags of cotton candy at many stores and online). You can make little labels to stick on the liners that say Thing 1 for some cupcakes and Thing 2 for others. Delicious and mischievous.

• For decorations, simply Google “Dr. Seuss pictures.”  You will find printable coloring pages, which may be a fun party activity, especially if there will be children there.  Otherwise, you can color these yourself and hang them around your room, framed with red, blue, yellow, or green ribbon or dangling from ribbons suspended from the ceiling.  You can also buy big wall decals or signs online.

• Find inexpensive white, blue, and red paper lanterns and hang them around the room.
• Prop Dr. Seuss books around the room.
• Make green eggs and ham.  Really!  You could make deviled eggs and splash a drop of green food coloring in the mixture.
• You must get Thing 1 and Thing 2 onesies for the twins.

Twin baby showers are all about double the fun.  Make sure to acknowledge and welcome two babies in all of your decorations and details: twice-baked potatoes, double cheeseburgers, twin pops, two flavors of drinks or ice cream, sets of two stuffed animals, and, hopefully, two sets of great baby gifts!

If you have never hosted a baby shower before you may not realize just how much it costs. You have the expenses of baby shower favors, invitations, food, plates, forks, cups, drinks, and games and prizes and possibly even more. However, there is a way that you can throw a wonderful baby shower on a shoestring budget. It just takes a little planning and some creativity.

Invitations

You can go out and buy the invitations or you can get creative and make them yourself. It’s not always easy to come up with the right material but you can make invitations with construction paper or stock paper. If you know calligraphy, you can create a formal invitation that is unique and beautiful. If you are going to use a theme for your baby shower then purchase stamps that display the theme so you can stamp each invitation. Save on stamps by passing out as many invitations as possible. A personal invitation means more when it is hand delivered.

Decorations

Over time, it’s easy to accumulate streamers from various occasions but streamers are not that expensive to buy per roll. You can decorate with streamers in a variety of different ways. Streamers can be tied, twisted, placed in a special design, and can come in many different colors. Search online for templates that can be printed out and applied to cardboard to hang up at the party. Place some string through the top and hang decorations from the ceilings. Use the streamers to highlight or accent.

Purchase some small pieces of material from your local sewing shop and cut them in half. Fold them up to resemble a cloth diaper and use a small safety pin to pin the diaper together. These homemade cloth diapers can be made with any color or theme, depending on what you want the decor to look like. You can place name cards in the diapers, a number used to draw on the doorprize for the evening, or a baby shower souvenir. Flower seeds are a great souvenir to place inside the cloth diapers with a little note telling everyone to plant their flower seeds on the day that the baby is born. You may want to place the flower seeds in saran wrap or zip lock bags so the seeds will stay fresh until they are planted. You also want to make sure that the flowers fit the season. You can also use the cloth diapers to place mints or nuts in.

Games and prizes

There are several baby shower games you can play with guests that cost little to no money. Draw a baby face, measure mommy, and guess who the baby is. To draw a baby face, you need a paper plate and crayon. For the measure mommy game, you need cheap toilet paper or yarn. To guess the baby, you simply need all the guests to bring a baby picture of themselves and have the guests match the baby picture to the right person. You will still need a prize for the winner who got the most right.

Prizes should be simple like candles, bath and body kits, or a disposable camera. It’s best to keep the prizes simple so you can use most of the money on everything else. After all, it’s about the mommy-to-be and not so much about what prizes there are to take home.

Baby Time Capsule Gift

When there’s a new baby in the family, you wish you could capture every moment and freeze it in time. While no one can stop time, one way you can preserve this special time in your lives is by creating a baby time capsule.

The Idea

The concept behind the time capsule is not new. People have been preserving things for future generations to unearth since time began. The baby time capsule is an idea that’s recently become popular. It involves filling a tube or other non-degradable, air-tight container with mementos of baby’s first year. Then, you bury it for baby to dig up later when she’s all grown up.

Kits

There are some fantastic kits on the market that include everything you need to personalize a time capsule of baby’s first year. They include things like stickers to create photo album pages, certificates to note the baby’s birth date, stationery to write a “Letter to the Future” on and, of course, an airtight capsule to store it all in. Kits can range from the very inexpensive to very pricey, so choose one that best fits your budget. These make great baby shower gifts for expectant parents.

Do it Yourself

With a little ingenuity, you can make a time capsule yourself. Find yourself an air-tight container that won’t corrode or rust. A steel tube with secure lid works well. Don’t use anything cardboard or wooden that might get wet underground and damage the contents inside. If you have a unique metal chest, that would be perfect. Just make sure it has a tight seal. Store items inside the container that pertain to baby’s firsts—first time walking, first words, first outfit, picture of first pet, etc. You might want to include things from the whole first year of baby’s life, or just the first day they were born. It’s up to you. Then, store each item inside a sealed plastic bag. Some things to include are: a newspaper from the day baby was born, a picture of baby’s first day, a picture of the parents holding baby, an item of fashion of the day like shoes or an outfit of baby’s, pictures of the town on the day baby came home from the hospital, an unused cell phone (to show what cell phones looked like when baby was born), a record of baby’s first visitors (have visitors sign and write a note), printouts from the Internet of news stories the day baby was born, baby’s footprint keepsake frame, and a lock of baby’s first haircut. You can personalize this as much as you like. Try to include items that will have changed by the time baby opens the capsule in the future.

Leave Instructions

The fun of a time capsule is of course in finding it and digging it up. Be sure you leave a detailed letter of where you buried the capsule. You might want to place the letter inside a baby book you’re keeping for your child or another important place in the house. Include any landmarks that might be near where you buried it so baby can find it when she’s all grown up. Include a date when your child can go and dig for it. Make your letter as creative as possible. After all, you’re writing a letter to the future!

Are you in charge of planning a baby shower in the near future?  Do you want a creative way to pull it all together?  If so, then consider one of these two themes for a day of fun and laughs.

Babify it!  Theme
Ok, so it is not a real word, but nevertheless, this theme can produce a truly wonderful baby shower.  Rather than simply choosing a few pastel colors for plates and streamers, consider ways to take the term baby and make it apply to everything.  Serve baby back ribs with a salad of baby carrots, baby corn, baby spinach, and baby scallions.  For dessert, consider bite-sized baby cheesecakes, or even go so far as to pick up a few of the nostalgic candies with baby themes- baby bottle pops and pacifier shaped candies.  You can even go one step further and serve drinks out of baby bottle bottoms.  Remove the nipple, pour and serve.  The best option for bottles in this case would be those with a large base, such as Avent bottles.  At the end of the day, wash them, sterilize them, and give them to the mother-to-be. Throughout the shower, play traditional baby shower games such as “name that baby food” and “diapering relay.”

 Tea Party Baby Shower Theme

Tea Themed Baby Shower Table Setting from Pixelpackinmama at Flickr

If you would rather opt against the over-the-top baby theme, then perhaps a tea party would be more suitable.  This party idea is especially successful for the mother-to-be that is expecting a little girl because mini tea sets, intended for play, can be used in the festivities.  Line up a number of the small plastic tea cups, and fill each of the small pots with a different flavor of tea.  Much like a wine tasting, allow the women in attendance to try a few sips of each flavor.  There are a number of excellent online gourmet tea sites that will provide loose teas in a large variety of flavors, or if you are looking for a quick solution, go to the local grocery store and peruse the tea aisle.  For a sit-down style tea party, the teapot place card holders shown to the right make excellent favors too.  You might also serve small desserts that would typically accompany a tea party and play games that would be featured at a child’s tea party. These might include musical chairs and a dress-up race.  For the race, place maternity clothes, shoes and socks in a large pile at the end of a long space; have women form two teams and lineup in their teams at the opposite end of the room as the pile.  One by one, women should race down, choose a full outfit from the pile, put it on and race back.  Have the next woman in line take the clothes that the other woman is dressed in, wear them, run to the pile and change into a new outfit.  This process continues until one team goes through their entire line. The winning team might be presented with a small tea gift basket.  At the end of the party, wash the tea sets thoroughly, and give them to the mother-to-be for more tea parties in the future.

If you’re planning a baby shower on a budget, not only do we offer a wide selection of reasonably-priced shower favors, we also give you baby shower games for FREE!  Simply print one or two of your favorite games and enjoy!  The free games we offer are:

1. Name The Nursery Rhyme – We list 20 short phrases included in popular nursery rhymes.  You may think it’s easy to fill in the rest of the rhyme along with the title, but we’ve found a few that are pretty challenging.  Don’t worry, we also provide an answer key!
2. Baby Shower Word Jumble – 20 words associated with pregnancy and babies have been jumbled and it’s up to your guests to decipher them.  To make this game even tougher, put a time limit on it.  The person who comes up with the most correct answers in 5 minutes takes home the prize.  Again, we provide the answer key in case there are a couple tough jumbles.
3. Who Knows Mommy Best – See who knows the mother-to-be best by having guests answer questions like “What is mommy’s favorite color?” or “What is mommy’s shoe size?”  While guests work on their answers, have the mother-to-be fill in the correct answers.  You may be surprised at how much – or how little – guests know in a short time period!
4. Baby Shower Categories Game – Similar to Scattergories, this popular game can be played individually or as a team.  Guests must come up with words that start with a specific letter and that fit into a specific baby-related category such as Baby Boy Names, Baby Products, Baby Food Flavors or Items Found in a Diaper Bag.
5. Baby Shower Guest Discovery – A great ice-breaker, this game should be handed out to guests when they arrive.  As they mingle, they will try to find someone who shares their shoe size, who has gone on a blind date, etc.  The one who fills in the most answers wins!
6. Baby Shower Purse Game – One of my personal favorites, this game rewards the guest with the most “junk” in her purse!  The sheet is basically a checklist of items – mundane to eccentric.  Guests receive points based on how many items are in her purse.  One point items include keys, a pen and a credit card.  Guests can earn 20 points if they are carrying a spoon, socks, earrings or a jar of baby food.
7. Baby Animals Game – We’ve listed 25 adult animal names and your guests will have to fill in the baby name.  The animals start out easy (Cow/Calf), get a little more difficult (Goose/Gosling) and end up extremely challenging (Penguin/Fledgling).  The guest to score 25 out of 25 deserves a truly special prize!
8. Baby Shower Bingo – The last free game we offer is also our most popular.  The game set includes 25 different bingo cards along with 75 bingo names.  Simply cut the names apart and place them in a hat.  Draw out names one at a time, then wait for someone to shout “BABY BINGO”.  If you want to play more than one game, provide candies or diaper pins to cover the names as they are called.

One of the most fun laugh-out-loud games, the candy bar baby shower game can be played in several ways, but the most popular way is to play it as a memory game. You simply play this game like you played a classic childhood memory game. Just set up a poster board or cork board that measures 5 squares by 6 squares (total of 30 squares or 15 pairs of baby terms). You can use a yardstick and sharpie pen to draw straight lines while creating the grid. In each grid square, write one of the baby terms being sure to mix them all up (each term will appear twice within the grid). Then, pin or tape small construction paper squares with a number (1 through 30) on them over each grid square so that all the terms are covered up. Going around the room, each guest takes a turn by choosing 2 numbers. If they don’t guess a matching pair, cover the 2 squares back up and the next person in line is up to guess. If they get a matching pair, they win the candy bar associated with the term. For instance, if they get the matching pair of ‘breastfeeding’ squares, they’d get a Milky Way candy bar as their prize.  Be sure that you buy at least one of all the candy bars on the list so that you have a prize for each correctly guessed answer.

A game variation would be to list all the baby terms in a column down a sheet of paper with scrambled versions of the candy bars in a column down the right hand side of the paper. Make copies of the game sheets for all the guests. The goal would be to unscramble the candy bar words and match them to the correct baby terms. The person with the most answers correct wins candy bars or you can divide the candy bars up amongst the guests that have correct answers. Some suggested terms and corresponding candies are listed below (just choose your favorites) -

The Conception: SKOR

Pregnant Belly: Chunky Bar

Epidural or Grandparents: Lifesavers

Umbilical Cord: Twizzlers

Late to the Hospital: Rocky Road

Hospital Address: 5^th Avenue

Choosing A Baby Name: Watchamacallit

Newborn Girl: Baby Ruth

Twin Boys: Mike & Ike

Triplets: Three Musketeers

10 Pound Baby: Whoppers

Preemie: Runts

Hospital Nursery: Cry Babies

Delivery Doctor: Butterfinger

Father or Dad: Sugar Daddy

Cool Mom: Peppermint Patty

Breastfeeding: Milky Way

Breast Engorgement or Dirty Diapers: Mounds

Hospital Bills or College Fund: 100 Grand

Bottle: Bottle Pop Candy

Mom Alone Time: Zero

Mom Nap Time: Take Five

Baby Giggles: Snickers

When you are on a tight budget, the cost of baby shower favors can sometimes put you over the top so consider some of these fantastic do-it-yourself favors. They are both clever and affordable.

Cinnamon Rolls – Bake cinnamon rolls either from a can or made from scratch. Then add a tag reading ‘Thanks from (Mother’s name)’s bun in the oven’.

Tea or Coffee – Buy packets of tea or coffee and punch a hole where you can hang a tag reading ‘A Baby is Brewing – Thanks For Being A Part of The Party’.

Jelly Beans – Buy pink and blue jelly beans and fill plastic bottles or small glass jars from your local craft store. Then add a tag reading ‘(Mom’s name)’s Baby Shower’ along with the shower date.

Homemade Cookies – Buy a cookie cutter and make gourmet sugar cookies to give your guests as favors. For example, duck shaped cookies for a duck themed shower.

Small Shaped Soaps – Available in numerous shapes, small soaps make excellent baby shower favors. Just choose a shape to coordinate with your theme. Attach a personalized tag with the baby shower information like Mom’s name and date.

Small Potted Plant – Buy small pots of African violets, ivy or other houseplants and hang a tag with the shower details. Blooming flowers are perfect for an April Showers bring baby flowers themed shower.

Candles – Buy shaped candles to fit your theme or pink or blue votive candles that you wrap in cellophane. Add a tag with the baby shower information.

Photo Frames – Small 2″ x 3″ photo frames can be purchased and placed in pink or blue organza bags. Just add a hang tag with shower details for an elegant favor.

Edible Candy Bags – Buy Jordan almonds, Hershey kisses or M&M’s along with pink or blue organza bags to hold the candy.

Candy Bar Favors – You can either print your own candy bar wrappers or buy them pre-printed online. Buy your favorite candy bars at a local shop and wrap them up for a great favor.

Keeping the expense of throwing a baby shower down can be difficult so we’ve put together this list of 10 fantastic diy (do-it-yourself) baby shower games that will be fun for everyone.

1)     Baby Item Memory Game – Borrow 10 to 15 small baby items (or buy them if you want some little gifts to give to the expectant Mom after the shower). Place the items on a large tray or cookie sheet. The hostess should parade the tray around the room stopping for just a few seconds at each guest’s chair so they can get a quick look at the tray of items. Cover the tray back up and give the guests a few minutes to write down all the items on the tray. The one that gets the most items wins.

2)     ABC Baby Alphabet Game – Make up game sheets or hand out blank pieces of paper where the guest’s write down the A-B-C’s in a long column down the left hand side of the piece of paper. Then, tell the guests that they have 2 minutes to write down a baby related term or item for each letter of the alphabet. For instance, Bottle for B. Whoever has the most letters filled in wins.

3)     How Big is Mommy’s Tummy Game – Using rolls of toilet paper or yarn, let each guests tear off toilet paper or cut a piece of yarn that they think will measure the same length as Mommy’s new waste-line. Then have each guests wrap their toilet paper or yarn around Mom’s tummy to see who is closest to the right size to determine the winner.

4)     Baby Food Guessing Game – Buy 10 jars of baby food and remove the labels (be sure to mark a number on the side of the bottles with a sharpie and keep a master list of what food corresponds to what number (so you can determine the winner). Pass the jars of food around and have the guests write down what kind of baby food they think is in each jar. The guest who gets the most right wins.

5)     Guess Who? Baby Pictures Game – Have all of the shower guests bring along a baby photo of themselves (newborn to 1 year old). Place the photos on a piece of poster board and hang on the wall or lay them all out on a table and assign each photo a number. Have the guests write down which shower guest corresponds to which numbered baby photo. The guest who gets the most baby photos matched to guests wins.

6)     Guess How Many Game – Fill a jar or large glass container with a baby item like safety pins, baby blocks or blue and pink jelly beans. Depending on what you use, you can give the items to the expectant Mother as a little gift. Then have guests guess how many items are in the container. The one closest to the correct number wins.

7)     Baby’s First Photo Game – Have guests make up a photo using images and items they cut out of magazines (requires magazines, paper and glue) to make a baby photo. Then have the guests vote to determine the winning photo.

8]    Baby Scramble Game – If you have a computer, you can easily make up game sheets for the guests to use at the shower. Take 20 to 25 baby words (like bottle and pacifier), scramble them up (otlebt and rfcaipe) and put them on the game sheets. At the party, give guests 5 minutes to unscramble as many of the words on their game sheet as possible. The person with the most unscrambled words wins.

9)     Don’t Say Baby Game – When they arrive at the shower, give each guest a necklace that has either removable beads or safety pins. Any time they get ‘caught’ saying the word baby during the shower, they must give one of their beads or pins to the person that caught them. At the end of the shower, the person with the most beads or pins wins.

10)     Draw Baby’s Face – Give a round paper plate and crayon to each of the shower guests. Have them place the plate on top of their head and ask them to draw the baby’s face on the plate while they are being timed for a minute. After the time has passed, ask the mom-to-be to pick the best baby face drawing.

Insure that the Mommy-To-Be and guests have the time of their life at your baby shower! Like most things in life, it all comes down to preparation and organization to make sure that things flow smoothly on the shower day. Enlist the help of a couple friends if you ever feel overwhelmed by the planning process. Just follow these 10 simple steps to make sure that you shower is the best it can be!

1)     Put together the guest list. Do you want to invite both sides of the family plus friends and co-workers or will they be throwing their own baby showers? Contact a few of her friends and call her office to see if they are planning anything. If not, ask your contact to put together a list of potential invitees. Once you’ve gathered and assembled the list, make sure that you have up to date addresses and phone numbers for everyone. Also, give the list to the honoree to make sure that she doesn’t have anyone else she’d like to add (or take off) of the list.

2)     Choose a shower date. Normally showers are thrown on a Saturday or Sunday one to two months prior to the baby’s due date. It is also recommended that you contact the mom-to-be relatively early in the planning process to make sure that the date is good for her too. Once you have a few dates in mind, contact the out-of-town family members and the central shower guests to find a date that works best for all of them.

3)     Set a budget range. The cost of a baby shower can add up quickly when you account for the location rental fees, food and drink, decorations and gifts. If you have a large guest list, you may want to consider enlisting a couple of co-hosts so that you can split the shower costs amongst a small group of people.

4)     Choose a shower location. Based on the guest list, you should be able to get a rough idea of just how many guests can be expected at the baby shower. If you are on a budget, try to find a home (either yours or friends or family) that can accommodate the number of guests. Another low cost option is to throw the shower at a neighborhood recreation center or local church. Often times, neighborhood residents and church members can use the facilities for a nominal fee or even for free. You could also consider a restaurant with a banquet room, but remember this will cost a bit more money.

5)     Choose a shower theme.  Does the mom-to-be know if she is having a boy or a girl? Do you know if she has a motif picked out for the nursery? What is Mom’s style? These are just some of the questions to ask yourself when deciding on the baby shower theme. If Mom knows the baby’s gender, you could simply use a pink or blue color scheme. But if you know she is having a boy and she is decorating the nursery in a Winnie-the-Pooh theme, you might throw a shower that has a Pooh bear theme by incorporating that with Pooh themed dinnerware and balloons.

6)     Finalize the guest list, order and mail out the invitations. Invitations need to be mailed out 3 to 4 weeks prior to the shower date. When choosing invitations, be sure to select something to match the baby shower theme that you’ve chosen. Order enough invitations to cover the guest list plus a few extra to cover any unexpected additions to the list. The invitations should include the Mom’s name, shower date and time, location of shower including the specific address (include a map), name of person(s) who is throwing the shower along with their phone number, RSVP date (should be at least 7 days prior to the shower), shower theme and baby registry information (if Mom is registered somewhere). If you aren’t comfortable including the registry information, you can always mention it when people call to say they are attending. If you haven’t heard from everyone on the guest list, you should call them about a week before the shower to see if they are planning to attend.

7)     Choose the menu. Depending on the shower location, you may have several options here. If you decide to use a restaurant, you will need to coordinate the food selection through them. If you are having it in a home or church where you can bring in your own food and drink, you can either make all of the food yourself, have the event catered or buy prepared food from somewhere like Sam’s Club or Costco. They have great cakes at reasonable prices too and we suggest that you order the cake a few weeks prior to the shower date.

8]    Buy shower decorations and baby shower favors. Balloons, streamers, plates, cups, napkins, tablecloths and utensils should be purchased a few weeks prior to the shower. Of course, these items should fit-in with the shower theme. Be sure to coordinate with friends and family to make sure that you will have enough tables and chairs to accommodate all the guests if it is being thrown in a home. You can always rent a few tables and chairs if necessary. You can also buy baby shower centerpieces to put on each table or one central centerpiece to put on the food table.

9)     Choose the baby shower games and buy game prizes. Again, you have a couple of options. You can buy shower game kits online at Baby Gifts & Gift Baskets or you can use do-it-yourself games that cost little money. Be sure to have enough writing paper and writing utensils on-hand. When buying prizes, make sure that you wrap them all and buy a few extra in case you have ties on some of the games.

10) Prepare for the day of the baby shower. Clean up the party area and house if you are throwing a home shower. Set up tables and chairs. Print out name tags and seating assignments if necessary. Prepare the food and get the platters ready. Decorate the location with balloons, streamers and other party gear. Set aside a special table or area for the baby shower gifts that guests bring. Be sure to have lots of film for the digital cameras and batteries for the video cameras on hand.

If you’ve followed these 10 easy steps, you should be all set for a successful shower. The most important baby shower tip is to relax and have fun!

If you work in an office or have a group of friends that want to go in and buy a shower gift for the new baby, here are some great ideas.  Many baby items can be quite pricey for gift-givers to buy on their own.  However by pooling your money, you can purchase some of the more expensive items without breaking the bank.  These days many parents have a baby gift registry somewhere like Target or Kids R’ Us.  Normally, the registry store is included in the shower invitation.  If not, just ask the shower hostess if the parents-to-be are registered somewhere.  Baby registries make selecting an appropriate and useful gift much easier.  In addition most of these registries will have price breakdowns so that you can select a gift based on how much money your group has pooled together.  Of course if your group has something in mind that isn’t on the list, don’t feel that you must buy from the registry.  No matter what your group decides to give the parents-to-be, it will be greatly appreciated.

Consider a high-ticket baby gear item such as a stroller or high chair as your group baby gift.  When it comes to strollers, there are many choices ranging from lightweight to jogging to Bugaboo strollers and more.  High chair selections seem to be just as complicated these days.  Choices include contemporary, space-saving, wooden high chairs and more.  When it comes to baby gear, we recommend checking the registry, relying on the opinion of Moms in the group or visiting a site such as the Baby Center Store which has recommendations and a parent’s picks section.

Cribs, rocking chairs, changing tables and bassinets are also great group baby gifts. There are many styles and color choices for baby furniture so make sure that you coordinate with someone that knows the parents-to-be well.  You don’t want to buy something that they already have or something that doesn’t match the nursery.  Most parents have a theme and color scheme in mind so if you can manage to wrangle that information out of the parents without ruining the surprise, furniture would be an excellent gift to give from the group.  Again, we recommend visiting baby gift sites such as the Baby Center Store to get furniture opinions.

Finally, consider giving the parents-to-be a housecleaning or diaper service gift certificate.  New parents can utilize any gift that will save them time.  Parents need to spend free time sleeping rather than cleaning house or washing diapers.