Three Creative Ways To Celebrate A Pregnancy During Covid-19
It doesn’t matter how crazy things get. Our little bundles of joy are still screaming their arrival into the world (you’re telling us, kid!), and we’re still going to celebrate them and their parents every step of the way.
Just because we can’t be beside each other doesn’t mean we can’t have intimate celebrations together. Now is the time to lean into miracles! So why waste an opportunity to connect with your loved ones—even if it looks a bit different than usual?
Below we rounded up a few creative ways to celebrate a pregnancy during these unconventional times so you can show the expecting parents how loved they and their new babe really are.
Send a Gift Card—and a Little Something Special
Not sure if a gift card feels personal enough for such a big moment? Customize the experience and your message to the parents-to-be. You can record and send the parents a video telling them about your hopes for them and their little one, sharing a funny story or two from childhood or your past together, or passing on the best (or worst!) parenting advice you’ve ever heard. You can send longer videos through the Marco Polo app or by uploading them to Vimeo, but just texting a short clip from your phone works, too.
If you’re not ready for your big screen debut, you can send other virtual treats along with your gift card—such as, a soothing playlist to listen to during breast pumping breaks, nap times, and those car rides around the block. Even just sending along a photo of you and your family holding welcome signs for the new baby will turn a simple gift into a special memory.
Throw Them a Zoom Shower
Even in the best of times, throwing a baby shower is a lot of stress for an expecting mother. Who wants to think about decorations and cleanup when you’re creating a little person in there?
The silver lining to quarantine is that now you have a chance to be the ultimate support system: do the planning for them, act as the baby shower host, and give mama the gift of a stress-free celebration. She’ll be able to put her swollen feet up and actually enjoy the experience, and you’ll win the cool aunt/”funcle”/godparent competition.
Modern technology has streamlined the process, so you won’t feel buried by tasks. Here are just a few ways to celebrate a baby shower over Zoom:
Send out the virtual email invites including the link, login, and password, as well as an event schedule in case people are hopping in and out. One cool thing is that you can have up to 100 guests on Zoom, and you can even record the event (free for up to 30 days or you can use your computer’s screen recording function) to allow the guests of honor to rewatch the fun.
You can coordinate gift deliveries and re-create the opening experience (the best part, in our opinion) by making a slideshow of the gifts with notes from the senders. Having a slideshow of photographs is also perfect for helping the parents keep track of what they still need to buy for the baby. If you need any gift ideas, we have you covered there, too.
You can send a balloon delivery to the expecting mama and decorate your own zoom background with banners and signs. Treat it as if you were all together and stick to a theme, such as a pajama party. We may be biased, but we think the nightgowns and robes from our Mommy + Me collection make perfect gifts—and party attire. They’re made out of special Peruvian Pima Cotton with a longer fiber length, which gives off a slight luxe luster (our ideal fancy dress situation right now).
For activities during the Zoom event, you can take traditional baby shower games and tweak them slightly to work online. Make up a quiz on Google Forms with questions about the parents back when they themselves were wee babes. Or, ask each guest to send in a baby photo to compile into a slideshow. Have guests guess who’s who to win a gift card (or just bragging rights!).
Create A Digital Scrapbook
If you’re like us, you’ve sought comfort during quarantine by looking back at photos of your loved ones and reminiscing about hugging them close. While we aren’t quite out of those days yet, you can give the parents something better than Facebook photos to remind them of all the joy and memories you’ve shared together.
Use Google Slides, a Power point presentation, or a special online service to create a digital scrapbook. You can fill it with photos of you all, as well as letters and prompts for them to read and fill out after important milestones. You can also open it up to all of their family and friends and collect pieces of advice, favorite quotes, mementos from trips (photos of maps, artworks they saw, menus from restaurants) and more.
In the end, we’re thankful for any occasion to reflect, get together, and celebrate these days—even if it happens online. Hope you have fun, and our congratulations to the expecting parents!Join Us