How to Plan a Baby Shower: Your Ultimate Checklist

Every baby deserves a celebration, whether they’re being born into a family, carried by a surrogate or lovingly adopted, and whether they’re the first child in a family or the second or the third. But no matter how baby arrives or in what order, one thing is for certain: baby showers can be a fun and special way to welcome them into the world and celebrate the parents at the same time.

If you’re planning a baby shower—even if you’re planning your own as an expecting parent—you might’ve already figured out that a party this special involves a lot of tasks. From themes and food to RSVP management and gift tracking, there’s a lot to remember.

So we’ve created the ultimate checklist below (including a handy downloadable PDF!) to keep things on track and help you plan the most memorable baby shower ever. With all the tasks organized in order of operation (though the timeline is somewhat flexible), we hope you can eliminate some of the stress that comes with party planning and focus on having fun with it.

How to Plan a Baby Shower

Download the full Baby Shower Planning Checklist

Tips to Get Started

✅ Enlist help. No need to plan the entire party on your own! Delegate tasks to willing friends and family to help reduce your stress and allow others to feel included in the process. You might also consider finding one to two people to co-host with you.

✅ Get ideas from the internet. Resources like Pinterest, Etsy, TikTok, Instagram and Babylist are full of fun, creative and trending ideas for everything from baby shower themes to games to party favors.

Two Months Before the Shower

✅ Decide on the vibe of the shower. Do you want a more traditional shower or something more trendy or unconventional? Do you want it to be co-ed? What personalized touches can you add to make it feel more special to the expecting parent(s)? A casual vibe is totally fine; a modern baby shower can just be loved ones hanging out and mingling—but casual doesn’t mean a free-for-all, so there will still be some planning involved.

✅ Set the budget. Planning a baby shower often means decorations and food for guests, which also means spending money. If you’re going to hire services like a caterer or an entertainer, or if you’re going to buy everything yourself, we recommend setting a budget early on so you don’t accidentally go overboard.

✅ Make a guest list. Adults only? Kids allowed? Co-ed? If you’re planning a baby shower for someone, be sure to create the guest list with their input to ensure all their favorite and most important people are invited. Also consider that more guests may increase your budget. Gather guests’ contact information (mailing address, email address and/or phone number) to send out invitations once you’re ready.

✅ Pick a date and time. It’s important to have the date set well in advance, or at least have a couple in mind, if you’re planning on reserving a venue. Whether the celebration takes place before or after baby’s arrival should be determined by the parent(s)-to-be. When planning the exact date of the shower, take into consideration the parents’ schedules as well as guests’ schedules (especially if anyone is traveling for the occasion)—that should help you decide if a weekday or weekend would be better, and what time of day.

✅ Pick a theme. Baby showers don’t have to have a theme, so if traditional pastel/neutral colors, pacifiers and baby bottles are more your speed, you’re sure to find plenty of matching decor. But if you’re thinking of doing a more trendy theme or something unique, we recommend deciding on that pretty early, since the style of party could have some influence on where you have the shower. And since you already have your budget, now is a good time to start thinking about decor, games and party favors that will fit the theme.

✅ Pick the venue. Whatever vibe you’re going for can help determine what kind of space you need. Are you throwing an elegant afternoon tea that requires an intimate indoor space? Or is it a large, casual gathering in someone’s backyard? Or maybe you want a trendy venue like a brewery or a cafe. And once you know how many people the location will hold, make sure there’s enough room for everyone on the guest list to sit and eat, mingle, participate in games and activities and have the parent(s)-to-be open gifts.

Four to Six Weeks Before the Shower

✅ Order & send invitations either by email, snail mail or even text message. If you’re ordering custom invitations, be sure to place the order about six weeks before the shower so that there’s plenty of time for designing, printing and mailing. All other invitations can be sent out about four weeks before the shower—this leaves enough time for guests to mark it on their calendars and, if necessary, take time off from work or plan for their travel. Make sure to include all shower info on the invitations:

• Date & time

• Location

• How to RSVP (text/email the host, respond to digital invite, etc.)

• Registry info

• Any special requests or information guests need to know, like where to send larger gifts or whether gifts should be left unwrapped for a display shower

✅ Plan food and drinks. Refreshments are a must-have no matter what the rest of the baby shower is like. Start planning the menu ahead of time so you can secure catering or ask for friends’ and family’s help with food and drinks. A potluck can make a baby shower menu fun and easy if a lot of the guests want to pitch in, and it’s also a budget-friendly option. If the parent-to-be is pregnant, be sure to include pregnancy-friendly foods like mocktails, veggie sushi and pasteurized cheeses for a charcuterie board. It’s also a good idea to check with guests for any food allergies. And when it comes to desserts, remember that they tend to fall into the aesthetic category more than the food category—the dessert is an opportunity to tie the food into the baby shower’s overall theme.

✅ Plan games and activities. If you want to include them, two to four baby shower games is plenty to keep guests entertained. They can be a mixture of traditional pen-and-paper games, active games or creative activities (like decorating a bodysuit or baby blocks). Diaper raffles are an easy, stress-free activity that guests can participate in for prizes, and the parents-to-be end up with a decent diaper supply.

✅ Buy decor. The baby shower’s theme should be solidly in place by now and represented in the invitations, venue, food and drinks, but you can really bring it to life through decorations. Balloon arches are a big trend in baby showers, as well as photo backdrops and centerpieces for guests’ tables. If buying a bunch of decor isn’t in your budget, we fully support going the homemade route. Origami baby clothes? Adorable. No-sew bunting? Easy peasy. A stack of wrapped diaper boxes with letters that spell out baby’s name? Genius.

✅ Rent equipment and furniture. Check with the venue to see if you need to rent extra chairs or tables. If you’re making a balloon arch, you may need to rent balloon equipment like a frame and an air pump. Casual outdoor showers call for outdoor activities, so you might look into renting lawn games.

✅ Hire vendors. If you’re thinking of hiring any professionals to help with day-of tasks, be sure to secure them early.

• Hire caterer

• Hire entertainment (DJ, live band, magician, etc.)

• Hire event decorator

• Hire photographer

• Hire photo booth or other activities

One to Two Weeks Before the Shower

✅ Finalize headcount/confirm RSVPs. There’s always a good chance that some invitees won’t RSVP by the deadline—check in on those few stragglers and finalize the headcount a week or two out to ensure there’s enough time to adjust any reservations or food if needed.

✅ Confirm reservations for location and any vendors. If you’ve booked a venue, catering or any other service, it’s a good idea to confirm the reservation about a week out. If the shower is at a friend’s or relative’s house, or if guests will be bringing food, double check with them about their commitments as well.

✅ Buy party favors. Just one or two smaller gifts for each guest is enough, and they can even be customized to fit the shower theme and guest-of-honor.

✅ Buy whatever you need for the activities. Don’t forget the small items, like markers and paints for decorating baby items and pens and pencils for paper games. This is also the time to print any paper games.

✅ Buy game prizes. These can be slightly higher-priced than the party favors, like gift cards, nice candles, plants or bottles of wine.

✅ Choose music. If you’re not hiring a DJ, create your own playlist to set the tone for the shower and keep the party rhythm flowing. (This is an easy task to delegate if you need to take something off your plate!)

✅ Plan the event schedule. Decide whether you want to follow a structured order of activities or give the shower a loose flow, allowing guests to mingle, eat and participate in activities as they choose to.

Day of the Shower

✅ Prep any food and drinks that aren’t ordered. Make a grocery run one to two days before the shower (especially if you’re doing any cooking or baking), and put drinks in the fridge or on ice a few hours before guests arrive. If food can be prepped the day before the party, that means less for you to do day-of—but small, ready-made snacks can wait until just before the shower starts.

✅ Set up/decorate party space. If you can take a look at the party space beforehand, even better. And if possible, it’s a nice touch to have some decorations like balloons outside to make the location really noticeable for guests.

✅ Assign someone to keep track of gifts. If the guest of honor is opening gifts at the shower, have someone write down each gift and who they’re from. Or if you're having a display shower, designate a table and someone to keep track of who brought what. If the parents don’t have a baby keepsake book yet, or if someone purchased one off of the registry, assign a willing guest to write down the gifts inside the baby book. A lot of baby books have a special page or two just for baby shower gifts, but if it doesn’t—or you don't have a book—you can always write the gifts down on a separate paper.

✅ Assign one or two people to take photos. If you don’t have a photographer, then designate a co-host or any partygoer with a camera or smartphone. And the baby shower itself doesn’t have to be particularly Instagram-worthy—but the parents are going to want to document those memories.