Low Cost Baby Shower Games

Baby Shower Game Rule-Out Questions

1. Are you ok spending money on prizes for these games? If so, how much money can you spend on each prize? If not, is there something else you can make or give the “winner” of each game, like a homemade cookie mix or a set of stickers?
2. How long do you have to plan your baby shower? If you need any special supplies, do you have the time/resources to procure what you need?
3. Do you have a specific theme you’re hoping to stick with? Pick games that you can integrate your theme into.

A quick note about baby shower game prizes..

Low Cost Baby Shower Games 

Diaper Changing Challenge

Supplies Needed:

• Newborn size diapers (bonus – you can buy this pack and pull two out, keeping the rest!)
• Cheap life (ish) size doll (here’s a cheap one)
• Table
• Baby Powder (optional – get this one if you want to keep it for baby)
• Wipes (I like these if you’re keeping the extra)
• Swaddle or blanket (you can use a regular baby blanket or here’s my favorite swaddle)

Directions:

1. Decide what baby changing supplies you want to purchase, and/or if you can use anything you have on hand. You can just do diapers, or you can add in the complication of using wipes and/or baby powder. You can complicate it more by adding in the requirement of swaddling the doll.
2. Set up baby changing station with dolls and whatever changing supplies you decided on.
3. Decide on teams. You can do this randomly, or try to separate by a specific characteristic like boys against girls. If kids are playing the game, you can try to evenly distribute them on both teams.
4. Establish and announce rules. For example, each contestant that completes the task gets five points. However, they get one point docked for anything done out of order, and two points docked if they completely skip a step.
5. Have contestants line up 10 feet or so from the changing station, and set a timer so they can begin. Each team will need to take the old diaper off before putting a new one on. Whichever team finishes first wins.

Additional tips/ideas:

• Switch out dolls for stuffed animals if you’re doing an animal theme
• Add a blindfold to your guests or play the game in the dark
• Make guests perform diaper change one-handed 

Related: The Ollie Swaddle – A NON Sponsored Review

Related: The Most Important Baby Stuff You’ll Need

Baby Food Tasting

Supplies Needed:

• Multiple jars of baby food in a variety of flavors
• Spoons
• Paper
• Pencil

Directions:

Mix It Up/Tips:

• Be sure to check with all of your guests for potential allergies before beginning the game
• Add in a few “normal” foods to mix it up

Don’t Say “Baby”

Supplies Needed:

• One clothespin per guest

Directions:

1. Give each guest a diaper pin or clothespin and instruct them not to say the word “baby.” (or insert whatever word you want to use). The game can begin and end whenever you want.
2. If someone catches another guest saying “baby,” they get to take their pin.
3. The guest with the most pins at the end of the game wins.

Mix It Up/Tips:

• You can make the word whatever you want – it doesn’t need to be baby.
• Switch the word for something else halfway through.

Nursery Rhyme Charades

Supplies Needed:

• Cards with name and some key lines of common nursery rhymes printed on it (this is a good list)
• Scissors (to cut cards out if utilizing printable)
• Bowl
• Timer

Directions:

1. Split your guests into two teams
2. Take turns allowing your guests to pick a card with a nursery rhyme. Include at least 3 lines – this way even if the actor isn’t familiar with the rhyme, they can still act out the literal words
3. Set a timer for 2-3 minutes and allow the actor to try and get their team to guess the rhyme – no talking!
4. If the person’s own team doesn’t guess the rhyme, the opposite team is given one minute to try and steal the point before switching actors.
5. Mix It Up/Tips
6. Add a second actor and have two people acting out the rhyme at the same time together!

Pin the Pacifier on the Baby

Supplies Needed

• Picture of a baby’s face (you can buy one, but personally I’d just draw one)
• Pacifier (honestly you could use anything here and call it a pacifier)
• Tape or another way to attach the binky to the baby’s face temporarily 

Directions:

1. Attach the baby face onto a wall at about eye height with everyone, then blindfold guest and spin them around three times.
2. After a gentle nudge in the direction of the baby, allow them 2 turns to get the pacifier as close to the baby’s mouth as possible. Timer is optional.
3. If using tape, make sure to dot the baby’s face with a color coded marker so that you can keep track of who gets closest

Mix It Up/Tips:

• Because of the ease of the game, this is a great baby shower game for kids to join in on.
• Consider using a point system, giving those who get closer to the mark more points than those further away.

Baby Pictionary

Supplies Needed:

• Words for Pictionary (You can buy a printable version of this, but the ones I saw were literally all lists of words that you’re still going to have to cut up. Personally it’s more budget-friendly to create your own – type/print out any and all baby related words you can think of and cut them into strips)
• Scissors (for cutting out words)
• Bowl
• Timer

Directions:

1. Establish both teams and pick a person (from both teams) to draw first.
2. Once they pick a baby related card, both opposing guests can begin drawing. 
3. Start a two minute timer.
4. The two guests drawing should continue adding to their picture until the timer goes off or their team guesses their word correctly. 

Mix It Up/ Tips

• Get rid of teams and just play all together for fun.
• Allow the person drawing to draw a new card when the current one is guessed correctly. Allow them to continue drawing new cards until the timer goes off. You could adjust the timer and add a minute if you decide to play this way.

Baby Guess Who

Supplies Needed:

• ***In advance***A photo of each guest as a baby 
• A few photos of celebrities as babies
• Paper and pen for each guest to guess identity of baby photos

Space Needed/Setup: Print/cut and number all photos to be uniform in sizing and color (including celeb photos). Be sure to use the same printer/paper so that the celebrity photos aren’t distinguishable from the other baby photos.

Directions:

1. When guests arrive, hand them a slip of paper with everyone’s first name on the left hand side. Tell your guests to match one of the (numbered) baby photo’s to a name. 
2. At the end of the party, tally up and see who got the most right.

Mix It Up/ Tips:

• You could make this a timed game instead if you prefer to finish the game faster

Baby Name Race

Supplies Needed:

• Timer
• Paper
• Pen
• A way to draw a random letter (here’s an online random letter generator)

Directions:

1. Break up your guests into teams. You can do two large teams, or more smaller teams. The smaller the teams, the less chaotic the game will be.
2. Generate a letter for each team.
3. Set a timer for two minutes and have teams try to come up with as many baby names that begin with a specific letter as possible within the time limit.

Mix It Up/ Tips: 

• Make a rule where the names must be 5 letters or less. You can mix this up by asking guests to pick gender specific names (articles below!).
• Require names to be sensical so that they aren’t putting random letters together – you know, names that aren’t actually utilized as names.

Related: 3 Letter Girl Names

Related: 4 Letter Girl Names

Related: 100+ 3 Letter Boy Names

Baby Shower Emoji Game

Supplies Needed:

• • Make or download a free baby shower emoji game printable online (I found one I liked here).

Space Needed/Setup: Minimal. Have your baby shower emoji game printable ready to go. Decide if this is a game you’ll let your guests play passively throughout the shower, or if you want to set a time limit on it.

Directions:

1. Give your guests a copy of the printable and instruct them on the amount of time they have to figure it out.
2. Each emoji symbolizes a part or a whole baby related word. Let your guests know that research on their phone is not allowed. 
3. Each correct answer is one point. Whoever has the most points wins.

Wrapping Up Low Cost Baby Shower Games

Just a reminder – definitely don’t be shy in asking for help if you don’t want to have to purchase any supplies. Get creative with it. I had a friend that played the paper clip game at her baby shower ,only she used hair ties on the wrist. There is ALWAYS something you can do to make it cheaper/easier for yourself.

Ultimately – try not to worry momma – you’re gonna put on this baby shower and it’ll be perfect (because imperfectly perfect is a thing). These things feel big at the time, but they aren’t.

Remember that common trope of sitting with friends reminiscing about past events while laughing at how silly we were worrying so much about blah blah blah? It’s a real thing for most of us, so don’t willingly take on that extra stress. How? Not by belittling and invalidating ourselves – that’s for sure (this is the tact I use to take).

What has worked best for me is figuring out the core of my fear and/or overwhelm. What reaction or outcome am I afraid of, and are my actions going to likely elicit that happening? Do I actually have control over that thing?

I promise that once you identify the root or core, you’re going to be able to either work a solution or talk yourself out of most potential fears.