Pros and Cons of Having a Baby Shower

A baby shower is a celebratory event held in anticipation of welcoming a new baby into the family. A baby shower often allows friends and family to share their love, experiences and advice and help new parents prepare for their new life through gifting items for the growing family.

Baby showers can bring together family, friends, love and well wishes through games, decorations, gift-giving and socializing. However, there can be some downsides to coordinating or attending a baby shower. This article outlines the pros and cons of having a baby shower so you can decide if a baby shower is right for your family.

Pros of Having a Baby Shower

1. A practical way to help new parents prepare
One of the greatest tangible benefits of a baby shower is that it can help new parents gather needed baby items. Friends and family often provide useful gifts at a baby shower, including items such as diapers, baby clothes, strollers and cribs.

These gifts can help ease the transition to the early days of parenting, as they can help reduce financial, coordination and/or time constraints to get the right baby items while welcoming their new baby.

2. A chance for emotional support and encouragement
If you are a first time parent, pregnancy and the transition into parenthood can come with many emotions. A baby shower provides the opportunity for family and friends to provide encouraging words, wishes and emotional support during this time. A baby shower can provide a huge comfort in knowing they are not alone on their parenting journey.

3. A time to celebrate a new life
Baby showers are also a time to celebrate the new life that is coming into a family. Baby showers create an opportunity to share and participate through a special moment and celebration in the family as it transforms into parenthood. Baby showers also allow people to take the time to think about the joys and hopes of being a parent.

4. Opportunity to Bring Family and Friends Together
All of these get-togethers get different parts of your life—friends, people in your family, coworkers—together so they can bond and celebrate you together. It promotes the development of a support network that you will treasure once your baby arrives.

5. Allows You to Make Memories
A baby shower creates a memory, beyond just being a party, with all the decorations, games, photos and keepsakes. In fact, for many parents, this baby shower will ultimately become part of the story they share with their little one.

6. Good Advice From Other Parents
A lot of the guests at a baby shower are parents who can’t wait to give you tips and knowledge. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming, but usually the advice is followed by an honest desire to help and be positive.

7. Themed Shower
Baby showers can be as sophisticated or simple as you want them to be. Baby showers can be as traditional as having themes for upcoming gender reveals or as modern as casual co-ed baby showers, and everything in between. You can bring your personality, beliefs, and cultural traditions into your day.

8. Virtual Shower Options
Baby showers can be in person or virtual. With a virtual baby shower, you can incorporate people from anywhere in the world, especially those who can’t join you in person.

Cons of Having a Baby Shower

1. Planning is Stressful
Hosting a baby shower, whether you host it yourself or someone else, is enough to stress anyone out! Planning a shower means dealing with guest lists, sending invitations, coordinating a venue, planning food, planning activities, the list goes on! If you are in the later stages of pregnancy, that planning can feel overwhelming.

2. Can feel financially burdensome
Depending on the number of people invited to the shower, and the type of shower you host (e.g. fancy) the costs of decorations, food, venue rental, and party favors can accumulate quickly. Even if someone else is hosting, you could still face potential out of pocket expenses, pressure to pitch-in, or just financially assist people in wanting to bring an extravagant gift.

3. Not everyone wants to be center of attention
Some parents-to-be can be uncomfortable with the idea of being center of attention, even if it might mean not all guests will be staring at them the entire time. Some may not appreciate the aspect of opening gifts in front of a crowd or the games and feel anxiety or discomfort.

4. Tension with social or family relationships
Bringing together all the people from various parts of your life could lead to awkward non-interactions or family drama. When bringing together people from different ‘places’ it could dredge up parenting decisions, unresolved disagreements, or just differences in experience between generations, making it less fun for parents-to-be.

5. May not align with cultural beliefs or family beliefs
In some cultures or families baby showers are not a customary thing, and may be inappropriate to celebrate prior to the birth of the child. Some may rather celebrate after the fact (and some parents-to-be may not want to celebrate at all—especially if they have had a challenging pregnancy with losses, or complications).

6. Pressure to host or attend
There can be pressure to host a baby shower, when the parents-to-be are not in a position to host one, or if they don’t want one. There can also be that pressure from guests, if they attend or feel obligated to either go to someone else’s shower or, if they go, to bring a gift, and their financial or logistical situation does not allow for it.

7. Environmental Impact
Like many events, baby showers have some costs from a sustainability point of view. Many baby showers are decorated with, use, or give-away paper, plastic dishes, single-use gift wrap, and food waste. For parents who want to be conscious of the environment, this could be a downside, unless the event is designed as sustainable from the start.

8. Focus on gifts overshadows the celebration
In some instances a baby shower can feel transactional, because the focus on gift giving was the primary aspect to the celebration. This could make a baby shower feel awkward, or like pressure for guests to spend more on a gift than they could afford to.

Conclusion

A baby shower can provide an extremely enjoyable and wonderful way to prepare for the arrival of a new child. It can provide the practical aspects with gifts and advice, and social-emotional aspects such as support and celebration.

However, when looking at all of the benefits of a baby shower, you need to also consider the stress, financial costs, and personal discomfort it may bring. In the end it should be your and your family’s decision, on whether or not you want to host or attend a baby shower.

If you carefully plan your event, and consider what you want out of it, the baby shower can be an event that can acknowledge your experiences and journey, and align with your values.