1. Fancy a baby shower a la Victoria Beckham? How about playing the ‘create a dress’ game. The guests should split into 2 teams and are then given one or more toilet rolls each. Each team will nominate one member of their team to be the ‘model’ and the rest of the team will race against the clock to create the best dress design around their model with the toilet paper. Don’t let each team take too long – about 5 minutes should be enough. If you want your guests to be really creative let them choose from different colour toilet rolls for a truly ‘creative’ look! Let the mum-to-be be the judge as to which team created the best look.
2. A twist on the ‘create a dress’ game is the ‘dress the baby’ game. Again the guests should be split into teams and each team should be given a doll or teddy as the model and one or more toilet rolls. Racing against the clock again, the teams should attempt to create baby clothing for their model out of the toilet paper. This game can require a little more skill as the clothing will need to be on a much smaller scale! Again around 5 minutes is the maximum the teams should be given. If you know the sex of the baby you can go for pale blue or pink toilet paper to blend in with the overall theme. Mum-to-be gets to be the judge of the best outfit as she is the guest of honour!
3. Looking for a good ice-breaker for your baby shower? The ‘toilet paper words of wisdom’ game is a twist on a popular ice-breaker used by many trainers to warm up their delegates. The idea is that everyone takes turns to pull off a length of toilet paper – it is up to each guest how much they pull off. They may want to take just one sheet or many but the critical point is that they are not told what the game is about or given any indication as to how many sheets they should take off. Once everyone has their sheets the host explains that each guest is required to give as many pieces of advice on pregnancy, birth or looking after babies/children as they have sheets of toilet roll. This is where the guests who only took one sheet of paper look relieved! The game doesn’t have to have a winner but if you want to make it more competitive you can have the mum-to-be judge which piece of advice she has found the most useful.
4. If the mum-to-be is up for a laugh and doesn’t mind her bump then the ‘measuring mum’s tum’ game is a classic. Each guest should tear off a length of toilet paper that they think is equivalent to the size of mum’s bump. Once everyone has their length of toilet paper the host can measure the bump (it doesn’t have to be with a tape measure – just a length of string or wool will do) and then compare this to the lengths of toilet paper. Obviously the winner is the guest whose length of toilet paper is the closest.
5. Are your guests a little bit crafty? Test their skill with a game of ‘toilet paper origami’. The idea is that each guest should attempt to create a baby related item using one or more sheets of toilet paper – let them use their imagination and creativity to see what they come up with – clothing, bottles, nappies, bibs, dummies etc. Time the game to add a bit of extra pressure and have mum-to-be judge the most realistic item.