How to Plan a Baby Shower during COVID

So many celebrations have been cancelled, postponed or are now completely different due to the new environment that we are in right now. The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a lot of new rules including crowd size, social circles, social distancing, excessive handwashing and wearing masks which makes celebrating major milestones a bit difficult, but not impossible. For birthdays, a lot of people have been doing drive-by birthday parades. We had a small one for William’s fourth birthday in the Spring and it was great and we made the best of it.

I recently helped plan a Baby Shower for my sister and we had to come up with COVID-friendly ways to celebrate. Luckily, the timing was the end of September and we were able to host it outside in the backyard. Make sure you check the rules for gatherings in your area when you are planning because it is constantly changing over here.

Here are some tips for a COVID-friendly Baby Shower:

Split the guests into small groups

A week before the baby shower, the government changed the number of people for an outdoor event from 50 to 25. We were slightly over, but since it was important to us to follow Public Health recommendations we decided to split the guests into two groups. Everyone who attended was very understanding and we didn’t have any issues with numbers. This also helped us space ourselves out in the backyard and my sister was able to spend lots of one on one time with her guests.

Provide individually-served food and drinks

Deciding on food and drink was the most fun and challenging. Instead of providing platters and trays of food where people are handling spoons, tongs and forks, we decided to prepare personal charcuterie boxes for everyone. These were a big hit and they looked great too! Other low-touch items we had were mini cupcakes, individual bags of chips, bottled water and juice boxes.

Games that don’t require writing or touching things

Some of the common games that are played at Baby Showers are not really COVID-friendly, especially if you need to pass out paper and pens to everyone. We came up with 3 games for the bride and groom to play, and the guests could participate. These games were Price is Right with common baby items, Who is Most Likely to, and Baby trivia. These were fun games that everyone could play, easy to plan and safe to play at a distance.

Open Presents after the event

In most wedding and baby showers, the guest of honour usually spends a big chunk of time opening presents. With COVID being a big concern, opening presents after the event in private was more enjoyable. The parents were able to wipe things down and sanitize their hands properly without any pressure to rush.

Promote social distancing rules

Since we wanted the event to be as safe as possible, we informed guests that we would be following social distancing rules. This included staying 6 feet apart, providing lots of hand sanitizer and wearing a mask when distancing is not possible. This did not affect the baby shower at all and everyone had a great time. I think people were just happy to be out and be able to see each other in person, even if it was for a short time.

We were so lucky that we had great weather. Our backup option was to hold a drive-by baby shower and those are still a lot of fun. A virtual event is also a great option because you can ship a gift from the registry directly. We considered both but based on the time of year, we really wanted to do a backyard shower and I’m so happy with how it turned out.

I hope this gave you some good ideas for any upcoming events during COVID you may have. I highly recommend doing the individual charcuterie boxes and if you do them, let me know!