SO, YOU'RE THROWING A BABY SHOWER. The date is set and the invitations have been sent. The anticipation is brewing. But what are you going to do once you get everyone to the party? Baby showers are thrown all the time, but how can you make yours a memorable one? One that the parents-to-be and the guests will remember always? Plan some fun games. Games are great for entertaining your guests and creating a comfortable and fun environment for everyone to interact and loosen up. Here are just a few popular baby shower games:

Guess the Mother-to-be's Waistline
With this game, check with the mom-to-be beforehand and make sure she is comfortable participating. Some women are sensitive about their new bodies and might not want to have so much focus on it. However, if the mom-to-be is game, this is a great ice breaker and fun for everyone. Have a ball of string (or ribbon works too, although it will be more costly) and some scissors. Have each guest cut a piece of string in the length she thinks will fit around the mom-to-be's waistline. Have the guest of honor try on each string. The guest that guesses closest to the actual measurement wins a prize.

Don't Say the Word, "Baby"
When each of your guests arrives, give her a safety pin. The objective of the game is to collect the most amount of safety pins. So avoid saying the word, "baby," but get others to say it and catch them in the act. Each time a guest says the word, the first person to catch her gets to take away her safety pin. So find the person who already has collected a lot of pins and engage them in a baby-related conversation. But be careful, or you might be losing your pin(s) instead of gaining more! The guest with the most amount of safety pins at the end of the shower wins a prize.

Baby Anagrams
The baby anagram game is played at most baby showers. It's easy to prepare and fun for the guests to play. Jumble up around 20 baby-related words/phrases and put them on a piece of paper. Make sure you have enough copies for all of your guests. Once you pass out the jumbled words and pencils, set a time limit. The person who correctly unscrambles the most words wins a prize. Some sample words: ipeard (diaper), sitbenas (bassinet), treesbidganef (breastfeeding), licoc (colic), raprengdtasn (grandparents), webnonr (newborn), ditmnhig nesegfid (midnight feeding), raragice (carriage), and so on.

Baby Bingo
This is a great game for the guests while the mom-to-be is opening her gifts. Prepare a sheet of paper with a grid on it (4 squares x 4 squares). Leave the boxes blank. Pass one out to each of your guests prior to gift-opening time. As your guests to fill each square with a gift they think the mom-to-be might be getting. Each square should have a different gift listed. Once your guests are done writing in their guesses, it's time to open the gifts. Each time the opened gift matches one that was listed in a square, have the guest put an "X" through that box. The first person that gets 4 "Xs" in a row (across, down or diagonal) wins a prize.

Drinking Contest
This is a great game for couple showers. The guys definitely will enjoy getting involved. Fill up a baby bottle with apple juice or water. Have each guy take a bottle and compete against each other to see who can finish off their bottle first. Get the women involved. If there are a lot of guests, have two or three rounds of competition and then finish off with a championship round. Or divide them up into teams of three or four. Have a relay race with the bottles. Once a person finishes his/her bottle, the next person goes. The team that finishes first wins a prize.

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Other articles on baby showers:

• What You Should Know About Baby Showers
• What to Feed Your Guests...
• What to do with Baby Shower Favors
• Blessingways: Celebrating the Passage into Motherhood