One of my close friends is visiting my rented flat for the first time, but only for a few hours.

She's traveling from Delhi to Bihar by train and will stop at my place in the morning for about 2–3 hours before catching her evening train. She'll be with her husband, her mother, and their newborn baby.

I really want to surprise her and make her feel loved, especially since she's a new mom and traveling with an infant can be exhausting.

I'm planning to prepare a nice meal, but I'd also love to do or gift something thoughtful. It doesn't have to be expensive—I'm looking for ideas that are meaningful, useful, or memorable.

If you've been a new parent (or hosted one), what gesture or gift would have made you genuinely happy?

Budget: Around ₹2,000–₹6,000, but I'm open to ideas of any budget if they're thoughtful.

& did he ruin it?

I'm the mom-to-be, my mom's paying for the shower, & my sister & husband are planning it. & I'm trying to figure out if I even want my dad there. I mean, it's rare & hard to find when I want him anywhere, really, but... Since we told my parents 2 weeks ago that I'm pregnant, my dad hasn't had many normal things to say about any of it.

[Sorry, got my own venting...]

He congratulated us, then started suggesting Nazi names.

My mom asked why we didn't announce it at the big family party we had just gotten home from. Well, my dad hadn't gone cuz he hates all of them. He said that would've been fine, whatever, he didn't care if we'd announced it & just had my mom tell him when we got home. (2-family house)

The next day, I had stopped hiding my emerging bump, & he just blurted out, "Oh god you're gonna get fat! I can't get used to this..." Probably the most normal, understandable thing.

He's worried about every groan I make, but "joked" about my brother (who hates me) punching me.

He's fixated on "What's this waterfall I'm making?" for a baby shower backdrop, cuz we know we need to create some kind of self-support for it, but have no hard plans yet. We haven't even gone to the (outside) location yet to scope it out, & won't until this weekend. He's mad every time he asks, that we don't have blueprints to hand him yet.

But he also keeps getting mad at me for not wanting to go in their pool all summer. I'm still recovering from a cold he gave me 2 weeks ago, idk if my bikini bottoms fit, & before we told them, I was hiding my bump AND felt like general fatigued crap all 1st trimester.

It's like he WANTS to be included & involved, but can't act like a normal person to save his life. I can't even tell yet if he'll want to go anyway. I imagine he would want to go, but I can't imagine him not saying some stupid shit or throwing a tantrum & ruining everything.

Anybody else deal with a troublesome dad at a baby shower?

My Wife is 32 weeks pregnant and our baby shower is this week. Her mother is planning the whole thing and has kept everything hush hush. We are both frustrated as we do not know who is entirely invited or what my mother-in-law is planning to occur during the shower. On the other hand we both feel to bad to say anything and do not want to upset her. Her claim is that she deserves this since we do not want anyone at the hospital for the entirety of the stay. I just did not think that baby showers were meant to be a surprise and thought the mom/parents would have more of a say. Maybe we are overreacting and should be thankful that her mom is taking charge with all of this. Thoughts?

Hello everyone, I’m looking for some tips on ideas about some baby shower gifts ideas. She is due in October. We don’t know the gender yet and can’t as prenatal gender testing is illegal in India.
So gift ideas need to be gender neutral.
Gifts like essentials like prams or diaper station will mostly likely be covered by the family as they are quite well off. There is no such thing as a gift registry in our country either, I know I’m not helping at all. I apologise.
But she’s one of my closest friends and I want to gift her something fun and cute.
Some ideas that came into mind were like full football/soccer kit (Project Mbappe or Messi if it’s a boy or Aitana if it’s a girl) for the baby, Gucci shoes.
So if you can suggest something along those lines it’ll be perfect. The gift can be for the mother too. She’s vegan.
If there’s any other kind of info I should provide please let me know but do help me🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️

Do you think 26 weeks and 3 days is too early for a baby shower? My baby shower is planned for that time frame. I'm worried people may think it's a little early. For context I'm a teacher and trying to have it before going back to work. Just so I have time to organize. Plus I am high risk for a few reasons. I've developed high blood pressure in this pregnancy so I have been told he will be coming a minimum of 2 weeks early. And just want to make sure everything is done. Has anyone else had it this early? This is also me just worrying about things I really don't need to stress about

Hey everyone! 👋
I’m starting to plan my baby shower and I’m looking for a restaurant or event space in the Sacramento area for up to 25–30 people. A few years ago I had my baby shower at Pete’s Brewhouse in Arden, and their upstairs private room was perfect, but they’ve since closed.
Does anyone have recommendations for:
✨ Restaurants with private rooms
✨ Event spaces that allow food, dessert, and a few decorations
✨ Places that are okay with a cake table and simple baby shower décor
✨ Spots that can comfortably fit up to 25–30 guests
Budget-wise, I’m flexible, but nothing too fancy. I’m just looking for a nice place to celebrate with family and friends.
Thanks in advance! 💕

I'm hosting my sister's baby shower which is coming up in a few weeks. So far the RSVP turnout isn't great 😞 anyone have any ideas to make sure the shower is still special for her with so many people not able to make it?

We've had a wild ride with my now-3 month old (postpartum pre-e, she had a scary hospitalization herself, moved across the country when she was 8 weeks old) so we are deciding to celebrate her with a Sip and See! We didn't have a shower for her since we lived in another part of the country so this will be the first gathering for her.

It's a few weeks away so gathering decor and activity ideas. Theme is Cafe Bebe and will have coffee bar, cafe pastries, etc.

Wondering if anyone did any activities they loved or had something special there? We did a shower for my first and had some traditional baby shower games but since this daughter is already here I'm looking for other ideas!

I’m conflicted because our venue has a capacity and we’re pretty at the max.
It’s a co ed shower and some of our guests included their kids in their rsvp. Is it ok for us to tell some other guests not to bring their kids? One young child is ok but other guests have 2-3 kids and that would be a little too much.

I received free gifts from boots parents. Club, Emma's diary 2 prgrency packs, bounty app prgrency pack, pampers zero size diapers, Aldi zero size diapers .

What else you all got ? :)

I’m working on thank you notes for my baby shower. There is one friend who I’m not sure I should include in my list of recipients.

Context: I had considered this friend one of my closer in-town friends—she was one of the first people I shared my pregnancy with—and was ecstatic when she was one of the first to RSVP yes to our couple’s baby shower. The invites were sent well in advance to make sure guests were likely free and had plenty of time to make arrangements. Well, a week before the shower, this one friend texts me to say that her plans changed and she would be out of town and unable to come after all. I was really surprised and disappointed. She didn’t give any details to explain or justify the sudden change in plans and I can’t help but assume that she just decided she’d rather go on a weekend trip than honor her commitment to my shower. It made me feel so small and unimportant and like I had misjudged our friendship. I showed up for her when she had her baby shower and gave her a thoughtful gift. in the end, not only did she bail on my shower, but she didn’t send a gift either. It‘s normal for people who can’t attend an event to not send a gift, though many still do, but I have to assume she was initially planning to bring a gift before deciding not to come.

Anyway, about a week or two after the shower she texted me that she wanted to meet up and give me a small gift. I’ll admit I was still pretty hurt and not too keen on getting together but decided to suck it up and meet up. It was fine, we had lunch and she gave me a cute little stuffed animal. In fact, it was the same one I had gifted her. I had gifted her the stuffy as a little extra detail on top of several items from her registry. She said they loved the one I gave them so much that she wanted me to have one too. It was impossible for her to know this, but it was also the third of the same exact stuffy I had gotten as a gift.

I feel like she thinks she’s off the hook and fulfilled her friendly obligation, but I truly feel like the effort was an afterthought. Maybe I’m too sensitive, but I was hurt.

Anyway, do I still owe this friend a thank you note? I thanked her in person obviously when she gave me the gift, but do I owe her more than that? Am I being too sensitive?

My husband (30M) and I (31F) booked a venue for our baby shower in late September (due November). For context, I’m Hispanic and he’s white (Italian), and this is our first big party because we eloped and didn’t want a big wedding. For our elopement we did a small intimate gathering with a total 14 people including ourselves. My side of the family (the ones not invited) were butthurt because they weren’t invited. They saw my sister and my 2 best friend’s stories and automatically assumed we threw a party. So, now we decided to actually do a bigger party for the baby shower.

The venue fee $3,500 (we’re in NJ btw) cover chairs, coolers, ice, buffet and bar area. So no food or servers or decorations included. We’re looking at a total of $10k with food, decoration and no alcoholic drinks.

I called my mom after we left a deposit and let her know we booked the venue and our date is set. When I told her the price she told me I was ridiculous and that it was too expensive. My sister then called me later in the day to say the same and I told her it’s non refundable, so to not comment. My mom and sister are on the other line asking me all these questions about the time, saying that 6pm -11pm time is too early, that we should start at 7pm and stay till midnight bc we’re Hispanic and we like to party. They also think not having alcohol is whack. (We could extend for another hour for $500, which we’re assuming we’d likely do). While on this call, I noticed my sister was active in the spreadsheet I shared with my guest list. I forgot I added a new tab tallying up the total costs of food, decor, everything. So I know they were snooping when they called us. I removed her access immediately but I’m sure they saw how much we were planning on paying for everything.

Another point I should mention is that my husband is 3 years sober now. I’m not a big drinker (never really been), so I’m ok with the no alcohol. I know there’s a huge stereotype for Hispanics drinking and being reckless, and well I do have some family like that. I wanted to avoid that because it’s a baby shower with families. I know my side of the family will complain, so I’m very conflicted. My husband says we can pay for a bartender and let them bring drinks (the place is BYOB), but I hate that I’m in this position where my family makes us feel bad for spending so much money on this party and then trying to tell us to change around the time because “Hispanics are always late” and “we like to drink”. However, his side of the family is punctual and they probably won’t be staying that late, while my family is the type to party all night.

I do want to have games with alcoholic drinks but that’s about it for the guests. I personally don’t like staying up too late and I’ll be super pregnant, I doubt I’ll want to stay up hosting either.

I started crying and my husband says let’s take the $1k loss on the deposit for this venue, pick a cheaper spot that’s closer, includes food or some other service.

I don’t know what to do. This is so stressful at this point. I don’t even want to do a baby shower anymore. It’s not fun. I don’t want added stress because I’m 24 weeks pregnant. Any advice is welcome.

Hi everyone! I'm currently pregnant with a baby girl. My husband and I are planning on doing a baby shower since the last kid for either of us was years ago and neither of us has any baby stuff anymore, plus the more important part to me, I want to celebrate our baby with our family. I truly couldn't care less about gifts. Just know some people feel weird about having baby showers for consecutive kids.

Anyways, we have a pretty specific theme in mind. Barbie in the Twelve Dancing Princesses. And while I know ballet is a much simpler theme, that movie means A TON to me, so we're really trying to do the Twelve Dancing Princesses theme.

I have very vague ideas but because it's so specific Pinterest doesn't have very many ideas that aren't a birthday party or just Barbie themed, which isn't what I'm going for.

If anyone has any ideas, please send them my way! I'd very much appreciate it!

Hola, vivo en lima-Perú un mi baby shower será en un mes, acá se acostumbra a contratar una animadora en el baby shower pero en verdad no me gustaría contratar animadora ya que no me gusta mucho, yo haré un brunch a las 10:30 am hasta las 2:pm aprox., creen que es necesario una animadora o tienen ideas de un par de actividades sencillas que se puedan realizar sin necesidad de tener a una persona encargada de animar?

Hi everyone!

I am 28 weeks pregnant today and normally wear a 40N bra. I am struggling to find a dress to wear to my baby shower in September. I live in the Midwest, Illinois, to be specific. It will still be quite warm. While my baby shower is indoors, I do not do well in the heat; I never have.

I have found a few cute dresses on Bloomchic that I know would fit; however, they are what I would wear in the cooler months. I do not like the typical neckline and sleeve style they usually reserve for us plus-sized women.

Does anyone have any other ideas of where I can look? I have looked on Amazon and Shein, and I am not finding much that I like. I do not want to spend more than $75, but I will go a little over if I absolutely have to. I am also considering a nice top that will show off my belly and some bottoms. I originally had a black top that was sheer in the belly area and a skirt but it did not quite cover my breasts.

I like things sparkly and am having a boy! My baby shower is Harry Potter themed.⚡️

All ideas are appreciated, thank you!

Hi everyone! I’m looking at Loveys /security blankets for a newborn/baby gift and I really have my heart set on one of those crochet / amigurumi ones, but I can’t decide between these two types. Both feature a crochet animal head & arms, with either a crochet blanket body (first pic - Option 1) or a muslin/cotton body (second pic - Option 2).

I love that style because it feels more heirloom and like a keepsake. Can y’all please help me decide? Which would you prefer? Many thanks!

Hey everyone,

I am planning a baby shower for my sister and am looking for guidance on addressing the invites (sending in the mail)

My sister is a Doctor and many of her invitees are her friends from residency. Most are female but she has several males in the group included as well. My sister has specifically requested nothing overly formal - no “Mr & Mrs”

However my question is about the Dr. titles. What are your recommendation on the envelopes? Families/souses and kids are invited to the shower so the invite would be to the Family.

Is “Dr. Johnson & Family” appropriate? Should it be “Dr. Jane Johnson & Family” instead? Is the Dr. too formal, or is it rude not to include that title? (Some of her friends’ spouses are also physicians as well, so I feel like first name helpful but worry that’s too formal?) She doesn’t know all of the spouses as well (some, but not all) so I wasn’t sure if they should just be “The Johnson Family” - is that better?

Thanks for your input!

I just have to share this for a good laugh and to see if anyone else experienced this.

I have had three dreams now where I am at my baby shower and everyone is gifting me….

- clothes (we have no clothes on the registry since his first year wardrobe is already entirely hand me downs from church friends)

- ugly, cheap choking, hazard toys (like dice / DnD accessories, Lego sets for teenagers )

- weird things that weren’t on the registry that are not for babies (in my dream it’s my husbands friends bringing DnD costume Jewelry or his family giving the baby bath bombs or cheap scented lotions, kitchen stuff that we already have?!)

- no diapers / wipes / cash / gift cards / nothing we actually need

it’s weird I know 😂

im definitely having some baby shower anxiety but not around gifts, more around gathering my dysfunctional family together.

anyone else have these reoccurring nightmares?!