✍️ Best Baby Shower Games Editorial Team · Updated May 2026

Baby Shower Charades

Pull a slip from the bowl. Act out the baby word — diapering, swaddling, the 3 a.m. feeding — without saying a word. Your team gets sixty seconds to guess. The dad-side of the family lights up the second someone mimes "breast pump."

✅ Crowd-pleaser
🏃 Active
🧒 Kid-friendly

⏱ Prep: 15 min
👥 Best for: 8–30 guests
🍷 Coed: Yes
📹 Virtual: In person

What you'll need

25–30 printed slips with baby-themed phrases (designed free in Canva or hand-written on index cards)
A small bowl or basket — anything pretty from Anthropologie or Target works
A phone or kitchen timer with an audible buzz
A pad of paper and a pen for score-keeping
Two named prizes — one for the winning team, one for a single MVP player
Index cards from Walmart if you're going hand-written ($3 for 100)

Before the shower (setup)

A few days before the shower, write your slip list. Twenty-five to thirty slips is the right count — fewer and the bowl empties before everyone's had a turn, more and the round drags. Mix four buckets: baby actions ("rocking a baby to sleep," "changing a diaper," "burping a baby," "swaddling"), nursery rhymes ("Twinkle Twinkle," "Old MacDonald," "Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Hush Little Baby"), baby items ("pacifier," "stroller," "diaper bag," "breast pump," "baby monitor"), and parenting moments ("3 a.m. feeding," "the first ultrasound," "announcing it on Instagram," "baby brain"). Hand-test each slip — anything you can't act out in fifteen seconds gets cut.
Print the slips on a single sheet from Canva (free template) and cut them apart with scissors, or write them by hand on index cards from Walmart. Fold each slip in half so the words don't show through. Drop them in a pretty bowl or basket — anything from Anthropologie or Target on clearance works. Set the bowl on a coffee table where it'll be visible during the round. Pre-test five or six slips on a friend or your partner to make sure the hardest ones ("postpartum recovery," "breastfeeding") can actually be mimed without saying a word.
On shower day, clear a wide-open spot in the living room — a six-foot diameter circle is enough. Push back the coffee table so the actor has room to mime without bumping into a couch. Set the timer on your phone with the volume up so the buzz cuts through laughter. Decide ahead of time which two prizes you're giving out (one for the winning team, one for the best individual actor) and have them visible from the start. Tell the mom-to-be she can play, sit out, or just judge. Most moms-to-be want to play this one; it's the most fun game on the shower's whole roster.

Front-door setup for Baby Shower Charades — basket of clothespins and a chalkboard rule sign by the entryway — Set up at the front door so the game starts the second guests walk in.

How to play

Split the room into two teams. Easiest method: divide by which side of the family or by where guests are sitting — the kitchen-side versus the living-room-side. Six to eight per team is the sweet spot. Teams sit on opposite sides of the playing space. Set the bowl of slips in the middle. Pick which team goes first by coin flip or by whoever yells "us!" loudest. Teams alternate turns. Each turn, one player from the active team grabs a slip, reads it silently, and starts acting.

Set the timer for sixty seconds and call go. The actor mimes only — no talking, humming, mouthing letters, pointing at real objects, or writing. Their team shouts guesses. "Diapering!" "No, swaddling!" "OK, but what kind of swaddle?" If they guess the exact phrase within sixty seconds, the team scores one point. If the buzzer hits zero before the right answer, no point — pass to the other team. The room gets noticeably louder by round three. Encourage the actor to commit; the half-acted slips are the boring ones.

After every player has had a turn (or the bowl runs out), tally the team scores on the scratch pad. Highest score wins. If both teams tie, run a final lightning round: one player from each team acts out three slips in ninety seconds, head-to-head, with their team guessing. Most correct breaks the tie. Hand the team prize to every guest on the winning side (small gift bags work) and award the MVP prize to whoever drew the loudest reactions of the night — the room knows who it was.

A hand lifting a clothespin off another guest's shirt — the steal moment in Baby Shower Charades — The moment of the steal — someone slipped, someone caught it, pin changes hands.

Variations to try

Solo (no-teams) version. Each guest takes a turn acting for the whole room. The first guest to shout the correct answer scores one point. No teams, no team prize — just a points race. Faster, simpler, and better for tight groups under twelve.
Couples teams. Couples team up against couples. One partner acts, the other guesses — alone. Round ends when a couple correctly guesses or the timer hits. More intimate, slightly slower, and the couples dynamics are funny on their own.
Pictionary mode (drawing instead of acting). Skip the miming. Use a whiteboard or a flip pad with markers. Each player draws their slip instead of acting. Pair with [[baby-pictionary]] for a longer charades-and-drawing block. Better for shy guests who don't want to perform.
Thirty-second lightning round. Cut the timer in half. Thirty seconds per slip instead of sixty. Brutal but very funny — most slips don't get guessed and the points stay close. Best for a tied final round.
Zoom version. Share a pre-built list in the Zoom chat. Each guest gets a slip via DM from the host, acts it out on camera, and the room guesses in chat or voice. Works for video showers; the only catch is the limited camera frame, so easy slips work better than physical ones.

Pro tips from hosts who've actually run this

Mix slip difficulty. Easy slips ("changing a diaper") fill the early rounds; hard slips ("postpartum recovery," "Hush Little Baby") decide the winner.
Pre-test every hard slip on a friend before the shower. "3 a.m. feeding" mimes great; "postpartum mood swings" mimes terribly. Cut what doesn't work.
No props allowed. Pointing at a real baby in the room ruins the round, and so does grabbing a pacifier off the gift pile. Mime only, hands only.
Pair with [[baby-pictionary]] for a forty-minute charades-and-drawing block if you've got the time — same theme, two mechanics, no overlap.
Use a phone timer with audible buzz, not a silent visual one. Visual-only timers get missed in a loud room.
Skip the very abstract slips. "Maternal instinct" and "baby brain" are funny on paper but impossible to mime cleanly.
Award two prizes, not one. Team prize for the winners plus an MVP prize for the funniest single actor keeps every guest invested through the whole round.

Common mistakes to avoid

Writing slips that can't actually be mimed. "Postpartum hormones" and "breastfeeding bond" are abstract — guests freeze up holding the slip. Pre-test the hard ones.
Letting players point at real objects. Pointing at a real pacifier in the gift pile gives away "pacifier" in three seconds. No props, hands only.
Running the timer silently. A visual-only timer gets missed in a loud room. Use a phone with the buzz turned up.
Going too long on team size. Teams of ten plus mean half the players don't get a turn. Six to eight per team is the right count.
Skipping the MVP prize. The winning team takes a group prize home, but the single funniest performance of the night deserves its own moment — pick one MVP.

Best prize for this game

Two prizes is the right structure for this game. Team prize: small gift bags for each winning team member, filled with mini Hershey's bars, a $5 Starbucks card, and a tiny Bath & Body Works hand sanitizer ($10 per bag from Target). MVP prize: a $25 Target gift card, a Yankee Candle classic, or a Trader Joe's gift bag for the single funniest performance. For an over-21 shower, a small bottle of wine works for the MVP. Wrap visibly so the room sees what's at stake from the first acted-out slip.

→ More baby shower prize ideas, by budget

Our verdict

Loud, social, and the dad-side of the family lights up the moment it starts. The single best coed-shower game once the awkward icebreaker has been done.

Baby Shower Charades — FAQ

How many slips should be in the bowl?

Twenty to thirty. Less than twenty and the round ends too fast; more than thirty and the game drags. Twenty-five is the sweet spot — every player gets at least one turn, and the bowl runs out around the natural twenty-five-minute mark.

What are good baby charades phrases?

Easy: rocking a baby, changing a diaper, burping a baby, breastfeeding, swaddling, taking a baby photo. Medium: 3 a.m. feeding, baby's first laugh, hand-washing bottles, the first ultrasound, baby brain. Hard: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Hush Little Baby, baby gender reveal, breast pump.

How long does this game take?

About twenty-five to thirty minutes for two teams of six with sixty-second rounds. Plan it as a mid-party round — after appetizers, before gift-opening — when guests are warmed up but not yet tired.

Can kids play this game?

Yes — kids enjoy charades and their acting is usually more dramatic than the adults'. Pair very young kids (under seven) with an adult teammate if any slips are too abstract for them to interpret on their own. Older kids play solo and often steal the show.

What's the right group size for this game?

Eight to thirty. Smaller groups are fine but less competitive; larger groups need bigger teams of five to seven each. If you've got more than twenty-five guests, run three teams instead of two so every player gets a turn within the half-hour.

Can this game run on Zoom?

Yes, with one limit — guests can only act within their camera frame, so physical-action slips ("swaddling a baby") work better than wide-motion ones ("stroller jogging"). Send slips via DM, run a sixty-second timer in the call, and use the chat for guesses if voice gets messy.

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About the author

Best Baby Shower Games Editorial Team — Party planners, parents & writers. We’re a small team of party planners and parents who’ve hosted — and been guests at — dozens of baby showers. Every game here is sorted by what actually lands in a real room, not by what just looks cute on a Pinterest board.