Baby Shower: Give Your Friend the Gift of Mother Wisdom

Advice unlimited
If you’re planning a shower for a friend who is about to have a baby, the best gift you can give her is a guided tour of life on Planet Mom. Here are five fun ways to give your party guests a chance to pass along their best advice to the mom-to-be.

1. Picture Perfect Advice: Create a poster for your friend that features an eye-catching photo (perhaps a shot of your friend’s very pregnant belly). Ask each guest to jot her favourite tip on the poster as she arrives.

2. AdviceCam: Most shower guests are natural-born hams and will welcome the opportunity to offer on-camera advice. By the end of the party, you’ll have a one-of-a-kind motherhood video to pass along to your friend.

3. Recipe for Success: Include an index card with each baby shower invite, and ask each party guest to jot down her best advice on the card.

4. First Year Survival Guide: Purchase a scrapbook and ask party guests to jot their best bits of mother wisdom on to pages dedicated to such themes as “chasing down the sandman,” “taming the laundry monster,” and “making time for romance.” Voila! The ultimate first year survival guide!

5. Postcards from the Edge: Ask each party guest to purchase a postcard which best symbolizes what the early weeks of motherhood will be like (a mountain climbing expedition? swinging from a trapeze?) and to include their best mothering advice on the back. Let them know that if they include their favourite quote about motherhood, they’ll be eligible to win a special door prize (a collection of quotations about motherhood, naturally!)

It's in the cards
Want to take our card idea and run with it? To help get you started, we’ve jotted down some ideas below....

Bet you never thought….you’d find yourself describing the colour and texture of your baby’s stools with the same enthusiasm you once reserved for paint chips and fabric swatches until the day when….your slightly squeamish single girlfriend asks if you could switch topics until after she was finishes her lunch. So my advice to you is….to choose your audience with care when you’re passing along the poop on motherhood. And know when it’s best to skip to the executive summary!

Bet you never thought….you’d have to rent the same movie more than once in order to catch the ending until the day when…. you caught yourself dozing off during Cold Mountain for the third time. So my advice to you is….to consider watching movies during the daytime rather than the evening, and to shift any post-movie romance to an earlier time-slot, too. (You won’t score any points with your leading man if you doze off during sex either.)

Bet you never thought….it would be that difficult to make a home-cooked meal after your baby was born until the day when….you looked in the refrigerator and couldn’t find anything to eat but condiments and moldy mystery casserole. So my advice to you is….to fill your freezer with healthy entrees and to let friends and family members pitch in with meal-making after your baby is born. You’ll also want to stock your cupboards and your refrigerator with healthy, easy-to-prepare foods, including every new parent’s best friend—salad in a bag!