Preggie Pals
“Planning A Baby Shower or Sprinkle”
Please be advised, this transcription was performed from a company independent of New Mommy Media, LLC. As such, translation was required which may alter the accuracy of the transcription.
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[Music]
Elisa Suter : There’s a bundle of joy on the way which means it’s time to plan for your baby shower. But with so many choices to make, it’s easy for the planning process to become more frustrating than fun. I am event designer, Elisa Suter and today I will share some tips and tricks for celebrating your special day with friends and family. This is Preggie Pals Episode 8.
[Theme Music/Intro]
Sunny Gault : Welcome to Preggie Pals broadcasting from the birth education center of San Diego. I am you host Sunny Gault. This show is all about our listeners. You can visit our website at https://www.preggiepals.com for more information on how you, yes you can become part of our show. You can send us your comments or suggestions through the contact link on our website. You can also call our hotline which is 619-866-4775. Preggie Pals is also looking for pregnant women to join our blogging team. If that sounds like a lot of fun to you and you want to share your experience with the world, send us an email through our website. Alright, let’s introduce our panelists and Rachele will start with you,
Rachele DeMeo : Hi, my name is Rachele. I teach college part time. My due date is June 23rd and we are expecting a boy. This is our second child. We already have a little boy at home, a little toddler and we are hoping for a natural birth.
Kelli Auld : Hi, my name is Kelli. I am a Kindergarten teacher. I also have a June 23rd due date. Our gender is gonna be a surprise for us. This is our first and we are having a natural home birth.
Cherri Christiansen : Hi, I am Cherri. I work in Market Research and I am also due on June 23rd with my first child. We are waiting to find out if it’s a boy or a girl and we are also planning to have an un medicated home birth.
Sunny Gault : I love that we two home births on our show.
Elisa Suter : I do too.
Sunny Gault : I love it. Okay, we will be right back.
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[Featured Segment: Pregnancy And Vaccines]
Sunny Gault : Alright, we are here with Dr. Bob Sears who was recently a guest on our Parent Savers show talking about vaccines and Dr. Bob I am interested to know what type of vaccines are recommended for a pregnant woman because I understand there has been some changes recently?
Dr. Bob Sears : Yes, we used to not vaccinate pregnant woman at all. You wanna be careful during pregnancy, you wanna be as natural you can and avoid chemical exposures. So, we are very careful but a few years ago they started recommending vaccinating pregnant women against the flu because if a pregnant woman catches the flu it’s not only her health or her life dealing with it, it’s the baby and some women who catch the flu during pregnancy might have a miscarriage or might go into preterm labor. Then the flu itself is gonna obviously infect the unborn baby but it can cause pregnancy complications. Now, that’s not common when it happens. Most women who catch the flu during pregnancy are just fine but there is little more worry so, they just started recommending the vaccine. The other vaccine that is brand new recommendation for pregnant women is the T-Tab vaccine or the whooping cough vaccine.
There has been an occasional arise in the whooping cough in our country and in a couple of years ago we had a rise and it has declined again. But the part of the effort to try to contain whooping cough is to give the pregnant women a whooping cough vaccine so that when the babies are born the mom will have the immunity so she might not catch whooping cough from somewhere and give it to the young baby. And theoretically we are thinking that mom’s vaccine might actually give the baby some protection, some of that immunity might go into the baby so that the babies born are some whooping cough immunity already. No one’s proven that in research. We haven’t research that yet, that’s all the theoretical benefit that they are hoping might happen.
Sunny Gault : Are there certain risks that pregnant women should know about in you know, opting to take these vaccines?
Dr. Bob Sears : Yeah, I think there are two risks, No.1 the flu vaccine, most of them have mercury and it’s really a no brainer you know, mercury is toxic to people and pregnant women are counseled to avoid mercury and avoid mercury containing fish, avoid all kinds of chemicals. Yet we’ll just happily inject pregnant women with a mercury containing vaccine. Now they do make flu vaccines without mercury. And so, if you do get the flu vaccine during pregnancy, by all means try to get one without mercury. In fact, some states have banned the use of mercury containing vaccines for pregnant women. Problem is that they will make much of every year. So, as soon as this kills everybody, as soon as they run out of mercury free vaccines they lift the ban, they put a hold on the legal ban allowing doctors to give pregnant women and babies the mercury containing flu vaccines and tell flu is over. So, get a mercury free one and No.2 with a T-Tab vaccine, with a whooping cough vaccine for a pregnant women there is zero safety research. There is no safety research that’s been done yet to prove or demonstrate any sort of safety for pregnant women or unborn babies when mom gets their T-Tab, whooping cough vaccines. So, it’s really important for a woman to be informed of that and when you look at the flu vaccine research there is almost no human research. All the safety data is based on animal research and I have a problem with that. I think we need better safety, human safety research in using the flu vaccine in pregnant women.
Sunny Gault : So, what is your recommendation for pregnant women out there who have this decision to make you know, there is a lot of questions, right?
Dr. Bob Sears : I know, you know I am a Pediatrician I am not an Obstetrician. So, I am not providing medical care to pregnant women but I certainly see a lot of them in my office. You know, I honestly tell them not to get the T-Tab, Whooping cough vaccine during pregnancy just because it’s too new, there is no safety research. With the flu vaccine I am kind of in the middle. I sort of just talk to them about the pros and cons but really just say get a mercury free if you are gonna do it.
Sunny Gault : Well, Dr. Sears talks a lot more about vaccines on our sister show which is Parent Savers it’s Episode 3, if you guys wanna check it out. Also his book, The Vaccine book will be available in our online store. Thank you, Dr. Sears.
[Music]
Sunny Gault : So, it’s time to plan your baby shower but with all the choices out there where do you even begin, event designer Elisa Suter is here to help guide us through the process. Elisa, welcome to Preggie Pals.
Elisa Suter : Thank you.
Sunny Gault : I did say your last name, right?
Elisa Suter : Yes, you did. Yep.
Sunny Gault : Alright, so let’s talk in general terms about baby showers and what to expect? Who typically hosts a baby shower?
Elisa Suter : Okay, well most of the time baby showers are hosted by either friends or family.
Sunny Gault : So, what if you are one of those people who likes to plan everything yourself, can you plan your own baby shower? I guess it’s my question.
Elisa Suter : Well, I don’t always recommend it. I usually tell moms who want to plan their own baby shower to give their preferences to their friend or their family member who is actually going to be their host and let them go from there. A lot of times you know, moms have other things on their mind and really it should be a way for your friends or family to celebrate you. It’s much better for you to be showered rather than to shower yourself.
Sunny Gault : Nice point, okay, that makes sense. What if someone wants to throw you a shower that you don’t want them to throw you a shower because you know that it is gonna be pink with purple coconuts you know like pink with purple coconuts?
Elisa Suter : Well, I hate to say it but it’s something that they wanna do for you. Even if it’s not your preference it’s nice to let your family or friends to do something nice for you. Obviously, you know, you have your own things that you would rather do and you can make those known but at the end of the day they are throwing a party for you so, It’s really, it gets into a really tough area if you gonna tell them “Well, no I would rather not.”
Cherri Christiansen : I think there is a little bit of a fine line too because people sometimes forget the host whoever that may be “This is, this is my party. I am planning the party. I am doing everything. It’s in my house. It’s my, my party” And I think that sometimes they forget that you know, they are throwing this party for someone else and that they should be taking you know, the mom to be into consideration and I see that happening often and that’s not the case.
Kelli Auld : I had a little bit of that ago, my mother in law wanted to throw a shower and we just wanted to be kind of colored party and it was gonna be on the St. Patrick’s day and we were like “Oh! Perfect, we don’t know what we’re having- it can be green, it can be you know, just like everybody getting together to celebrate the baby” And she wanted a total girly tea party. It was a little bit of like quench for a moment but I think you just kind of look at the person who wants to throw you something and it’s out of love, consideration and just being appreciative for that. I just want the intention to be about celebrating the baby. I don’t want all this decoration and everything you know the hoopla of the event I wanted the reason to still be there. So, it being wonderful and I kind of little bit of opera for rolling my eyes at the beginning of it but you know just as long as the intention was there celebrating the baby you know, just like a new member of the family then I kind of let it out go and let them measure my belly and do all that fun stuff.
Sunny Gault : So, you said you had what five baby showers, how many did you have?
Kelli Auld : Yeah, there was kind of what she had said about keeping the cost on it was I had smaller groups of friends that were kind of in different places, one was in Los Angeles, one was down in Lounge County you know, one had may be five girlfriends and another one had six girlfriends and it was just small little luncheons and different things. So, I had a larger one with my in laws and then a larger down here in San Diego but then the other two were just small girlfriends little lunch here and there, not a big deal, just getting together to see each other. And then my kindergarten class actually threw me a shower.
Sunny Gault : Oh! So cute,
Kelli Auld : That was very cute and the kids wrote letters to the baby and they gave me a little like a scrap book and it had their hopes and dreams for the baby like “I hope you’ll become a soccer player” like it was just like, Yeah that was a real touching special one because they have been through this whole pregnancy with me. So,
Sunny Gault : So, when should you schedule your baby shower? I have a funny story that goes among with us I have two baby showers for my first son. I didn’t have anything for my second son but with my first son, the first baby shower was for 30 weeks and I found that to be pretty good. You have your bob that everyone wants to see and touch and all that kind of stuff and that’s always fun and then the second one was like at 38 weeks something like that. And it was literally because I wanted my mom to be out here because she lives you know, couple thousand miles away and it was, she was gonna come out anyways for the birth. So, I was trying to get my mom out here I wanted certain people to be a part of it that was I mean a great shower but I will tell you what “my feet were killing me. I don’t know if I would recommend having a baby shower at 38 weeks” So, Elisa, what’s your take on that?
Elisa Suter : Well, usually it is the case that moms are just too tired to have a shower at 38 weeks and you never know if a baby is gonna decide to come early. So, it’s definitely not something I recommend to people. I usually try to recommend if someone contacting me about a baby shower to have the shower at 7 to 8 months because that will hopefully mean that the mom has the enough energy still to enjoy the shower and you know, hopefully there won’t be any early surprises and no one will miss the shower. And it will give the mom enough time after the shower to buy anything that she still needs.
Sunny Gault : Yeah.
Cherri Christiansen : Yeah, I had a similar question and I asked a friend of mine she said to me, she didn’t give me an exact time frame but she said you wanna be pregnant enough where you are showing like you said for the cute pump but not too pregnant that you can enjoy it and I didn’t show until really, really late too inside. I was thinking everything was fine but I ended up having my shower about probably 33, 34 weeks. I just suddenly got to a point just days before my shower where I just felt like “Oh! My god, I am just way too pregnant for this” Of course I was planning on wearing and it didn’t fit and I didn’t find that out until the night before and I just suddenly went through this like “Oh! I should have done this 3 weeks ago when I was feeling fantastic.”
Sunny Gault : That is the thing you are not gonna if it is your first kid or even if it is your second because every pregnancy is different. You just don’t know how you are gonna feel and it can change so quickly and in the later months.
Elisa Suter : Right, exactly I actually had someone last week give me, sent me an email and say “Hey, we are gonna have the shower for my friend. She is gonna be 8.5 months pregnant and I want it to be all day. And because it was gonna be a girl’s shower in the morning and then a co-ed shower in the evening.”
Sunny Gault : Actually it was a bachelor party or what?
Elisa Suter : Well, my suggestion to her was you might wanna rethink that because she is gonna be exhausted and I know I have been to so many of my friends have had babies. I have been to so many showers, I have planned so many showers and it’s just a bad idea to plan a shower for more than 3 or 4 hours.
Sunny Gault : Yeah.
Elisa Suter : Because all day is just not good for a very pregnant mom.
Kelli Auld : I think we had planned that thing kind of as you mentioned having enough time past the shower to figure out what you still need because obviously the shower involves gifts and it’s something that you want to kind of know that you are not at 38 weeks and you are thinking Oh! My god we didn’t get car seat yet” We can’t get the baby over the hospital.
Cherri Christiansen : It’s pretty much me right now.
Kelli Auld : There are important things that you still need you know, you are kind of hoping may be somebody is gonna get you, you’re waiting to see it comes off the registry but knowing that you have enough time than to deal with those last minute we still need that diapers or we still need, you know, the essentials having enough time that kind of windows nice.
Elisa Suter : Exactly you don’t want to be rushing out the night before your due date and trying to get a stroller and a car seat and you know, the crib put together and all those things.
Sunny Gault : Incidentally how many of you kind of cheated on your registry and looked prior to your baby shower to see which items were already taken?
Cherri Christiansen : That was so funny, I totally was looking and I did the same thing with my wedding I was so excited I was like “Oh! My god what is the ice cream maker and you know” But my husband asked me like “We could do this, why are you looking?” And I was like you know I wanna see and also because like 3 weeks before the shower nothing had been purchased.
Sunny Gault : Because everything was done in the last minute.
Cherri Christiansen : Yeah, and so I was getting a little bit nervous and he was like “Why are you looking, why are you looking?” And I was like “I wanna see you are running a surprise” But I am like but we already know what we asked for so already we are taking away the surprise and so what I actually decided to do was the week prior I controlled myself, I stopped looking and I was like we’ll just see what happens and it turned out I was surprised for couple of things but for most part no one board anything from my registry anyway.
Kelly Auld : Lot of surprises.
Cherri Christiansen: So, that was a big surprise that pretty much everything on the registry is sitting in there waiting for me to go and purchase all these items. So, I am glad that I have couple of weeks able to go and do that.
Sunny Gault : So, who do we invite to the baby showers?
Elisa Suter : Well, that again a lot of times people will have multiple showers with different groups of friends but at the very least you wanna make sure that you have the most important people to you. So, anyone that you want to really be a part of the baby’s life, grandma’s, sisters, sister I laws, other family members granted you wanna make sure that you have a good relationship with people. You don’t want anybody there who is gonna stress you out. So, you don’t have a good relationship with someone you know obviously use your discretion if you just don’t like your, the grandmother to be but she is gonna be part of your kid’s life no matter what then just suck it up. Yeah, but you know, if there is someone who is obviously you know, really toxic for you, you know feel free “I am sorry I don’t want them there” That said you wanna also invite your friends, you wanna invite coworkers, anyone that you feel it’s gonna be important to you in your life and your baby’s life.
Sunny Gault : What do you do? This kind of question is for everybody but what do you do if you have somebody on your list you want to invite who is either struggled with infertility or miscarriages? How do you bring that up? Has anyone had to deal with that?
Cherri Christiansen : Yeah, I kind of had a situation like that and I just felt that not inviting them was not an option like I felt like that was really inappropriate for me to just be presumptuous about not inviting them. So, I felt like one of two things either I could sit down and talk with them about it before hand and ask them how they felt or just send them an invitation and kind of leave it up to their discretion if they felt comfortable attending or not. And you know, I wasn’t gonna be offended if they didn’t come. I totally understood and I think if it the rolls were reversed I might not wanna attend someone else’s baby shower if I had just gone through something like very recently. So, I ended up not speaking to them about it before hand mostly just because it was one of those things where I didn’t wanna keep bringing it up you know, I don’t wanna, it’s like when you are not thinking about it when someone mentions it. I was totally comfortable with them, with them not coming so, which is ultimately what happened.
Kelli Auld : I was the issue, I struggled with fertility and had two miscarriages and had plenty of friends get pregnant and the like “Yeah, it happened after a month” you know sort of things. So, I definitely absolutely appreciated being invited. I felt like my journey was my journey and that I needed to still celebrate the life that, you know, my friends were having. You know, sometimes it was harder like the day of the shower sometimes I had to kind of like force myself to get out of bed and know I was gonna go. But I think that’s more, I think if I had to tell that morning say I can’t go they totally would have understood and they seem to be sympathetic to that. But I think like you said to be presumptuous that I wouldn’t wanna go and celebrate what else was going on in somebody’s life you know, I appreciate it rather to be invited and let that be my choice you know, and then all those people now can celebrate that we are having one with us.
Sunny Gault : Alright, let’s talk about where the shower takes place. Obviously a lot of people have it in their home. Sometimes you have it at a specific location. For mine, I actually have them in anybody’s home. My first one had the theme when we were having a little boy and we kind of went with a sports theme, we have nursery that has a sports theme and we actually had it in Ohio my husband and I are originally from Ohio and we had it at a minor league baseball stadium. It was pretty cool because they had a little reception area you know and everything but after we invited people and paid for everyone to have a ticket to be able to watch a baseball game. It was on a Sunday, it was pretty cool. I like themes, my wedding had a theme and everything has a theme in my life.
Kelli Auld : I like themes too.
Sunny Gault : Yes, yes exactly so, what would be your recommendation Elisa as far as you know, should people have it in a home what would you consider because I know there is no right or wrong answer, what should we consider?
Elisa Suter : There are definitely things to consider. First of all you know if the home is large enough you know, obviously here in Southern California we usually have the kind of weather that you can go out to the yard if you have one. But, if you are having a baby say in the winter that might not be an option when I did the under the sea baby shower that I did last November it was meant to be at someone’s home. We had rented tables and chairs and everything to have in the yard. There were gonna be something like 70 people there. And so when it was going to be raining that day we said “We really can’t do this outside” and the host couldn’t fit 70 people into her house. So, we had to come up with Plan B other venues that you might consider you know, club houses, restaurants, parks, there are community centers, women clubs and then other fun party venues you know, there are millions of them. Most important thing to think about when you are looking at venues is to think about what’s actually included.
So, just like when you are planning your wedding, you wanna make sure that you are not going to get a blank slate that ends up costing more than the fully you know, equipped restaurant for example. So, it might actually cost you less money in the end as a host to go to a restaurant where they’ve got the tables, the chairs, the plates, the flatware, the napkins and the servers than going to a club house or a women’s club or something where they don’t have anything. You have to bring it on in and you have to clean up afterwards. So, I always tell people make sure that you look through what’s included, what’s not included, weigh the cost because if you are gonna be the host for someone’s baby shower you don’t want to be paying through the nose for you doing extra work and not having exactly what you want.
Sunny Gault : Let’s talk a little bit about expectations when you go to baby shower. You know, because we are talking about venues and what things should be included immediately I am thinking food. Okay, you know sometimes people choose to have a whole buffet type things, sometimes it’s just you know the cake and sweets and all that kind of stuffs. So, what you know, typically should we expect to do at a baby shower. I know that kind of sounds simplistic but there is like a lot of different ideas out there.
Elisa Suter : Of course yes, again at the core of the shower it is the celebration.
Sunny Gault : Alright.
Elise Suter : So, theoretically you could get a group of people together, open up the gifts and say Hi. One of the things that I always do when I am working with people to create a baby shower is look at the time of day and the theme to determine what kind of food we want to do. So, if we are having an early afternoon sort of a shower we might do a teething. We would want to make sure that everything kind of matched. And you don’t wanna have a huge meal if it’s going to be in between meal times because no one is gonna eat. But if you are going to be having a shower at noon you wanna make sure that you have enough food for everyone to eat.
Sunny Gault : Okay, so keep in mind for the time for the party.
Elisa Suter : Absolutely. And then aside from food you know, you will usually have shower activities. A lot people aren’t big fans of shower games. So, I always recommend to the hosts to make sure that they talk with the mom to be because I know that the majority of the showers that I have actually helped to plan have been for people who really did not want to have games. I know that there are lots of different things you know, you can scrap book, you can create a cast of the belly and everyone can sign it or paint it you know, works of art for the baby’s room. At one of the showers that I did, we actually each wrote a short story for the baby and decorated the pages. A lot of times you see these shower games and they are fun for everyone but if you can do an activity that the mom can hang on to, it actually can be more meaningful.
Sunny Gault : Sure, so I have to ask our panelists here, are their activities that happen at your baby shower that you liked? And are their activities that happened that you not like so much?
Kelli Auld : I was pretty clear from the get go that I wasn’t very interested in games and I think a little bit was of just the intention I didn’t want kind of this silly side I just wanted us to get together and celebrate. And yeah, I think some people groan at him so, let’s just not do that but I did really like one of my showers there was sort of like a little tree, center piece and everybody wrote a little note kind of to the baby, to us or advice and they just sort of hung it on the tree which was kind of cute and it became a little center piece. And then we were able to take all of them you know, and put them in a book later on it was actually I found out later that if they put a pink ribbon or blue ribbon to hang it on it was whether they thought it was a boy or a girl. That was like a cute little touch but I had them do them measure my belly again you know, which is kind of like “Let’s see how huge she is” but you know, it goes quick, it goes easy you know it was like I have to groan about too much. But I had always said I thought you know if you are going to do a game like have it be something a kind of cheeky and inappropriate I have always wanted to pin the baby on the boob, I am yet to go. I’m sure in baby shower they have done it but I have always set this image of you know just like large boob cut out and like we both are blind souls with the baby’s sticker trying to get it on the bulls eyes of the nipple so, that’s an idea you can use for the next shower. I will give that one to you for free.
Elisa Suter : I will keep that in mind.
Kelli Auld : Yeah.
Sunny Gault : That’s awesome. Rachele, is there anything you liked or didn’t like on your baby shower?
Rachele DeMeo : No, yeah I liked everything that was planned you know, couple of games I think like keeping not too many games is good because if there is too many it’s like overwhelming. So, the thing I don’t liked that wasn’t planned for mine that was planned for someone else and I immediately requested it not to be of mine was the one where used to smell like diaper it’s like,
Sunny Gault : Candy bar and chocolates?
Rachele DeMeo : Yeah, the taste and some of them like “I don’t want that” that was the one like I definitely didn’t want because I was seeing that in somebody else’s shower.
Sunny Gault : Yeah, that’s kind of gross that kind of crosses the line, I think the boob thing is funny.
Rachele DeMeo : Yeah, that’s cute.
Elisa Suter : The only people that actually really like that are usually at co-ed showers with the guys because they think it’s hysterical.
Sunny Gault : Oh gosh! It is kind of male humor, isn’t it?
Elisa Suter : Yeah, it is.
Kelli Auld : Oh! I will give you another one too I wanted to have a chugging contest out of baby bottles. I want it if it is a co-ed shower like half the men half the women. The drinking competition and let them know that they have to drink it from the bottle.
Sunny Gault : Yeah, drink it from the bottle. That’s fantastic, that’s great for a co-ed shower like that. Okay, so now we know the baby shower basics but what if you are planning a shower that’s bit more unconventional. Ever heard about baby’s sprinkle? We’ll explain when we come back.
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Sunny Gault : Okay, welcome back. We are here with Elisa Suter. She is an event designer and we are talking about the best ways to plan baby shower. So, we are more on the unconventional side right now. We are talking about baby showers that you haven’t been invited to yet. They are bit more unconventional for example a baby sprinkle. So, I am not gonna explain this Elisa. I am gonna pass this off to you. What is a baby sprinkle?
Elisa Suter : Well, a baby sprinkle is actually a shower for second, third or fourth child you know, on down the line I suppose. It’s usually smaller than a baby shower hence the name “sprinkle” right. But it is still important to celebrate. You know, how often does a mom actually get the chance to relax when she is already got a little one at home and enjoy her day. So, it’s really important for people to celebrate mom and I think that’s why this idea of baby sprinkle has really taken off.
Sunny Gault : Yeah. I think that’s a big question a lot of the second time and third time whenever the parents have is, is it okay to have another you know, another party and Rachele I know that you had a second party, you said it was smaller but you know, it was the second boy. So, what kind of planning went into that and did you ask yourself the question you know, should I do this, should I not do this?
Rachele DeMeo : I wasn’t even planning on it since we already had one you know, most of the things we can just reuse but assuming in terms of the things that you need like diapers or I don’t know they are certain things that you do need that you know, just like baby shampoo or things like that you really saw like okay, you can use this stroller but now you get into double stroller. You can use baby cars, you can use clothes but there are certain things that you do need. And also like if the baby, the first was born in December now this one’s born in June so even with clothes there are certain clothes that we needed. But I wasn’t gonna have one but my friend, she offered it. She was like I don’t want this baby to feel gypped like we didn’t do anything for him but it worked out.
Sunny Gault : What should we be asking him ourselves a second time, third time parent whether we should not have shower or whatever?
Elisa Suter : Well, I mean obviously if there is a long time in between babies most of the time you know, there has been 5,10,15 years there may actually be some changes in what you might need, you might not have the baby things anymore, might not have been expecting to have another set of children. And you know, if you are gonna be having a child of different gender and you want gender specific bits and pieces for the baby hope you have anything that’s broken, etc. I mean there’s always going to be things that a mom might need. But it’s also important just to celebrate and to make the mom feel special so anyone who is thinking of hosting a sprinkle for a mom to be just remember that the important thing is to make her feel special. So, a lot of times you will see with these sprinkles you know people will just request you know, books they will just request something small or nothing at all and just come and celebrate.
Sunny Gault : Alright, I like that idea you know we just want you to, my husband and I thought maybe won’t do a baby shower but maybe will have a baby celebration afterwards so come meet the baby you know, after the baby is born you know, you can see his little brother too. You don’t have to bring gifts you know come see in our house because we just moved in as well you know something like that where it’s more about just getting together with friends and family.
Elisa Suter : Well, that is actually a trend that is happening. A lot of people are having post baby parties so they actually have a name for it, it is called “Sip N See.”
Sunny Gault : “Sip N See?”
Elisa Suter : Yeah, “Sip N See” where you are having you know cocktails or whatever you are having.
Sunny Gault : And you see the baby.
Elisa Suter : And you see the baby, yeah. Exactly, what it is?
Sunny Gault : With a beer?
Elisa Suter : Yeah, with a beer. It is a nice way for everyone to get together. Obviously, you will never know if the baby is gonna be asleep or screaming but it’s still a nice way for everyone to get together, see the baby and getting excited about it and it’s a good way. If you are not quite sure it’s appropriate to have a shower or a sprinkle that may be you would want to do this instead.
Sunny Gault : And a love the idea too of parents, adoptive parents having baby showers.
Elisa Suter : Absolutely.
Sunny Gault : I have never been invited to one but it makes perfect sense you know, given everything we are talking about it’s all about the stuff you need for the baby and all of that. And adoptive parents need that too whether it’s your first or third or whatever.
Elisa Suter : Exactly, you know it’s really important to remember that a parent is a parent.
Sunny Gault : Right.
Elisa Suter : And a new parent is a new parent they are still going to need all the things that any new parent would need. So, I think that it’s totally appropriate to have adoptive showers and it’s actually a really nice way to celebrate this new addition to their family.
Sunny Gault : So, keep that in mind Rachele because I know adopting a child is on your list. So, what are the common mistakes that people make during a shower?
Elisa Suter : Oh! My favorite question, my favorite question, I have four mistakes that I kind of was thinking about was and I think I have touched on most of them if not all of them. No.1 waiting too long to plan.
Sunny Gault : Okay.
Elisa Suter : Anytime that you are trying to plan something in a very short amount of time it’s very, very stressful for everyone involved. So, if you are the host for a baby shower just try and do the things a little bit further in advance. I prefer to have 2 to 3 months to plan something like a shower. It just makes things easier. You have time to do research, find just the right venue, think about themes and menus and send out paper invitations which I think are still really important. The second thing is having an RSVP by date on those paper invitations.
Sunny Gault : Oh! Yeah.
Elisa Suter : Anytime that you are going to be getting food for example, you wanna make sure that you have enough and if you don’t have an RSVP by date people don’t RSVP.
Sunny Gault : A lot of time they don’t RSVP regardless. You have to call them.
Elisa Suter : Right, but at least if you have an RSVP by date people will have a tendency to RSVP a little bit more and you know, if they don’t RSVP you don’t know how much food to get.
Sunny Gault : Alright.
Elisa Suter : So, it is a really important thing. The third thing that I would say is this is something Sunny that you had talked about, it’s really important to have some kind of a theme even if you say “Okay, I want everything to be green because we are having a gender neutral something” You wanna make sure that there is something to organize this party around. A lot of times I will see people who are throwing any kind of a party, a wedding party, a birthday party, a shower whatever and they go around and buy things really that they like. And then it comes to the day of the party and they have no clue how to organize them. If you have some kind of a shower, excuse me. If you have some kind of a theme for your shower you will actually be able to organize what you need, what you are buying, what it’s gonna look like and you won’t end up spending extra money that you don’t need to spend on decorations that you won’t need.
Sunny Gault : Alright.
Elisa Suter : The last thing is actually Rachele, you had talked about this, planning too much. Anytime that you have a million different activities that you are doing on shower day, anytime that you have a shower that’s gonna be going all day long, it’s just too much, too much for the guests, too much for the mom to be. So, I always recommend to people you know stick with one or two big activities or may be a handful small activities and try and really limit the time at the shower to not more than 3 to 4 hours because aside from that you know, once you get more than that you start to feel like this is dragging on forever or I am just so exhausted that I am gonna drop.
Sunny Gault : Alright.
Elisa Suter : So, those are really my 4 main mistakes that I see when people are planning showers and how to fix them.
Sunny Gault : Alright, good information. Thank you, Elisa for joining us today.
Elisa Suter : Thank you.
Sunny Gault : Eye Opening, well if you wanna learn more about Elisa and her event planning services you can simply visit the episodes page on our website and look for today’s topic which is “planning a baby shower.”
[Music]
[Featured Segment: Help Military Moms-to-be]
Sunny Gault : As you know today’s show was all about baby’s showers and no one knows how to throw a baby shower better than https://www.operationshower.org. This organization celebrates and honors military families by collecting donations and hosting showers to help ease the burden of deployment. And joining us on the phone is Julia Nunis is the product director at the Operation Shower which is based in St.Louis. So, Lia in your own words what does Operation Shower do?
Lia: Operation Shower hosts awesome baby showers for units of military moms to be who have deployed spouses or signifcant others. We collect all the products in our offices in St. Louis and then pack up boxes to send all over the country for our showers where the moms get together and have lunch and open all their gifts and have a great afternoon and they also get to meet a bunch of different moms in their same situation, and they form connections that is so important and that support system while their husbands are abroad and normally they are so far from their family.
Sunny Gault: Oh that’s great, so from start to finish, you guys are involved in every step of the way if needed. That’s great. So, tell us about a baby shower experience that you had, you know, in working for this organization and how it impacted the life of a military mom?
Lia: There are so many great moms. There are always so many happy tears at the shower and so much laughter and fun. There is one mom who just had twins and her husband had been depolyed for her entire pregnancy and her twins were premature and they just gotten out of hospital. She didn’t really have much. At that shower we actually received donations of cribs, so each of the moms received a crib. She talked to us afterward and emailed us and said, it made all the world a difference. It was such a huge support. She was so much happier and relieved that she could take care of her newborns. It’s moms like her that make it all worth it.
Sunny Gault: I know, I was just going to say, I’m like tearing up as you’re telling me this story right now. I can picture all this you know, happening. Now, how can our listeners, people listening to the show, they’re hearing these stories and you talk about Operation Shower, how can they get involved? What can they do?
Lia: They can visit our website at https://www.operationshower.org. You can either donate money through our website. We have a new baby registry on Babies R Us. You can go to https://www.babiesrus.com/operationshower and review information for our registry and how to volunteer and one of the best ways is to donate products through that and you can ship them straight to us.
Sunny Gault: That’s perfect, that’s a great idea by the way. I love that. I hope our listeners take that first step to help your organization and of course we certainly wish you guys the best of luck. That wraps up our show for today. If you have a pregnancy topic you’d like to suggest, we would love to hear it. Visit our website https://www.preggiepals.com and send us an email through the contact link. If you have any questions about today’s show or the topics we’ve discussed, call our preggie pals hotline at 619-866-4775 and we’ll answer your questions on an upcoming episode. Coming up next week, we’ll have some practical tips for saving money throughout your pregnancy. Thanks for listening to Preggie Pals, your pregnancy, your way.
[Disclaimer]
This has been a New Mommy Media Production. The information materials contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media and should not be considered facts. Though such information materials are believed to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional medical advice or care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problems or disease or prescribing any medication. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified healthcare provider.
[00:38:59] End of Audio
