Guide to eco-friendly baby shower

Organising a baby shower can be stressful. However, with a little guidance and planning you can create an enjoyable event that is eco and budget friendly. Here are some tips.

1. Location: choose a location that is easily accessible to reduce travel times and emissions. If possible, host an event outdoors to reduce energy costs.

2. Invitations: send out invites electronically or create personal invitations made out of recycled material. Alternatively, use a plantable seed paper invitations that are made from recycled papers and are embedded with a seed, once used, plant the paper into the ground or pot.

3. Gift Registry: Create a sustainable baby gift registry including the things you need such as organic clothing, cloth diapers, reusable baby products, eco-friendly nursery items and how much you need. Removes guesswork for your guests and reduces unwanted gifts or the receiving of too many of the same items. Encourage guests to consider second-hand gifts as well.

4. Gift bags: you can ask your guests that may be bringing a gift or taking a gift to someone else’s baby shower, either not wrap the gifts or to use reusable gift bags. This helps reduce unnecessary waste.

5. Sustainable Decorations: Opt for reusable and eco-friendly decorations, such as fabric banners, potted plants, or flowers from local and organic sources. Avoid balloons and other single-use decorations.

6. Partyware: Use reusable tableware, such as cloth napkins, reusable plates, and stainless steel or bamboo utensils, instead of disposable options. Or opt for eco friendly disposable utensils.

7. Party Favours: Offer eco-friendly party favours like plant seeds, organic soaps, or reusable items that guests can take home and use. Avoid plastic and single-use favours.

8. Responsible Waste Disposal: Set up clearly labelled recycling and compost bins to ensure proper waste disposal during the event.

9. Eco-Conscious Games and Prizes: Organise eco-conscious games and offer sustainable prizes:

   Games

   1. Guess the baby food:

      1. 10 cans of unique baby food jars
      2. Blindfold
      3. Blindfold each guest and ask them to sample and guess what each sample is.
      4. The guest who guesses the most number of samples correctly wins a prize.

   2. Because I said so

      1. Get each guest to write down on a post-it note, a parenting saying or advice that they got from their parents. Fold and put the post-it in a bowl.
      2. Mix them in a bowl
      3. Get each guest to draw one and read it out loud.

   3. What am I

      1. Write a baby item such as nappies, wipes, baby food etc on each post-it note
      2. When your guest arrive, stick a post it note on their back.
      3. Each guest then asks the other guest yes or not questions to try and identify what baby item is stuck on them.

   4. Balloon Twister

      1. Each guest puts a ballon under their clothes representing a pregnant mom.
      2. Play a game of twister
      3. Winner is the one with the most twisted pose.
      4. To increase difficulty, guests can place more number of balloons under their clothes.

   5. Baby animal names

      1. Make a list 10 or more animals
      2. Get each guest to write down what the baby version of the animal is called.
      3. Once everyone is done, read out the correct answer and let each guest score.
      4. Chuckle at the creative answers some guests may come up with.

   6. My water broke

      1. Generally done using tiny plastic baby dolls. However, you can substitute the plastic doll with a tiny fruit such as a grape or berry.
      2. In a large ice cube tray, put the grape or the berry, and fill the water and freeze.
      3. Give each guest a drink with fruit filled ice-cube.
      4. Objective is to melt the ice and get the fruit out as quickly as possible.
      5. Whoever gets the fruit out first shouts “My water broke”

   7. Guess the craving:

      1. The Mom-to-be describes all the strange things she has been craving without revealing the name.
      2. Guests have to write down what they think each item is.
      3. Whoever guesses the most correctly wins.

   Prizes

   1. Reusable water bottles.
   2. Eco-friendly beauty products.
   3. Seed packets.
   4. Mini honey jars.
   5. Eco-friendly homemade candles.