If you have gotten pregnant during the craziest of all years 2020, let me first start by saying: Congratulations, mama! A baby is such a blessing and brings so much joy no matter the conditions. However, this year might be a particularly tough year to get pregnant if you are someone who loves to celebrate pregnancy and the expansion of your family with the other people around you. If you are like me, then you are someone who has been having a Pinterest board with baby shower ideas for a long time. You might be afraid that the outbreak of COVID-19 has just thrown out your whole vision of a picture-perfect baby shower (and the gifts that come with it), out of the window, but don’t worry, I got some alternative ideas on how to throw a virtual baby shower and share the joy with your loved ones.
Let’s Get Started
Mama, you deserve to be celebrated and so does your new baby! So, let’s make this virtual baby shower happen! There are actually a lot of advantages to hosting a baby shower online. To name a few: people from out of town or people who are sick with a cold still get to attend. As a matter of fact, my sister-in-law who did all my party favors and was supposed to MC my shower had a fever in the week of my event and was highly advised by my other SIL who is a doctor to not attend to avoid getting me sick so close before giving birth. Moreover, it is generally really not a great idea for pregnant women to be exposed to a lot of people as pregnant women have weakened immune systems and cannot take any cold or flu medicine. Your first step should be to make sure to download Zoom and then send out virtual invites on your baby shower, e.g. from Evite or you can create a Facebook group as well. Just to make sure that older family members who are not too tech-savvy still get their invite. You might want to opt for a text message, email, or good ole’ traditional snail mail for these people. Hopefully, you have someone who can help you with all of this. And don’t worry about not getting any gifts! Nowadays, it is super easy to have an online registry where the items get sent directly to your home. But there is an even better gift idea tip I would like to share with you that I wished would have been around when I was pregnant for the first time. Baby and Sunshine has amazing subscription boxes with everything a new mom needs for herself and her baby. Your friends and family can also opt to send you a one-time box. The boxes have different sizes and are priced accordingly which means this can be the perfect gift for everyone – for those on a budget and for those who want to give a very generous gift. There are so many things I love about these boxes but let me list a few:
- All items are made out of premium quality such as organic cotton, bamboo, and cashmere. Not only are these materials very comfortable but also gentle to your baby’s skin making rashes a lot less likely. Their sleep sacks, baby clothes, and baby clothes are a lot nicer and softer than the ones you find at other baby stores.
- They can pack the contents of your hospital bag in one box. How awesome is that! So many moms are so stressed about what to put in their bag. I would have loved to just delegate that task and just move all the contents of the box in my bag to avoid that headache.
- You actually get to personalize your boxes. Thankfully, most of my friends and family have great taste. But there were a few baby gifts that I may or may not have returned. Here, you get to actually let Baby and Sunshine know what you are looking for.
- You get some awesome mom items as well. People tend to forget about moms and only buy stuff for the baby but moms need to be taken care of too in the postpartum stage. They even have awesome postpartum belly binders that will help you bounce back quicker and comfy clothing that you will need after giving birth
- They collaborate with other mom-owned small businesses giving you plenty of options to choose from. Recently, they even added skincare products by Baby Bear Naturals to their repertoire. I was so excited to hear about that as a woman’s skin usually suffers after giving birth due to the changes in the hormonal levels. This will give moms to chance to practice some self-care after giving birth.
It can still be a Pinterest-Worthy Baby Shower
In order for you to feel like this is a special event, I would highly recommend you still dress up and get dolled up like you would for an in-person baby shower. Make this a day to remember and decorate the house so you have a nice backdrop. A balloon arch looks super cute and maybe add some letter balloons or some baby balloons. Again, you should not be doing all of this alone and have someone help you. Another reason to make sure you are dressed for the occasion is so you get to take some nice pictures to keep as a memory of this joyous celebration. In all honesty, I do not think that you need to hire a professional photographer as most modern phones take amazing pictures but that is obviously up to you. You can also use the picture to send out a sweet Thank You card to everyone who attended later. Little Pickle Memories offers beautiful cards and other paper items for you to memorize your pregnancy and child’s first months in this world.
Have a host
As mentioned before, do not do this alone! Baby showers are meant to be organized FOR moms so they do not have to worry about anything and they get celebrated while being gifted items that they need for the baby. The last thing you need is to add extra stress to your last trimester. Additionally, “preggo brain” is a real thing and you may or may not forget half of the things you had planned. Have someone be the host of the entire event who guides attendees throughout the baby shower. Thankfully, Zoom has mute buttons for every participant that the host can control so things do not get too chaotic. Additionally, Zoom has a feature where questions pop-up on everyone’s screen allowing for some baby shower games even though it is a virtual event. Questions can include: what advice do you have for the new parents? What were your pregnancy cravings? Or you could even play some of the traditional baby shower games such as “Guess the belly size.” If you wanted to you could send the winner a virtual gift card from Starbucks or someone similar. The host could also coordinate for key people to hold a short speech like the grandparents-to-be giving well wishes to the expecting couple. If you are willing to ship out prizes, scented candles are always a hit. You can check out the online store Happy Momma Merch for some of their hand-made candles. If you wanted to go all out, you could even create some cute gift bags that the attendees could either pick up before the event or you could ship to them if your budget allows it. These could be bougie little bags with a piccolo bottle of sparkling wine so there could be a virtual toast for the mom-to-be. To give it the typical brunch feel, you could also include a cupcake, some non-perishable snacks, and a party favor of your choice.
I hope these tips can help you create the baby shower of your dreams even if 2020 put a damper on your plans. But even if you are not planning a baby shower, if you are currently pregnant and know someone who is, please check out Baby and Sunshine. They currently have an amazing offer where they will donate a mini box to a mom or mom-to-be in need for every box purchase. You can also check them out on Instagram or Cratejoy .
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