How to Celebrate a Baby Shower When You’re Far Away

When a friend or loved one announces that she’s pregnant, it’s a time for celebration. Unfortunately, your happiness may be eclipsed by feelings of sadness that you’re too far away to make it to town for the baby shower. Your friend will understand why you couldn’t make it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to miss out on this special occasion. You still can celebrate a baby shower no matter where you are, even if you and your friend can’t be together. Here’s how.

Send Presents

The easiest thing you can do when you’re going to miss a baby shower is to send gifts. With gift basket delivery, you can have your gift delivered the day of the baby shower to let your pregnant friend know that you’re thinking of her and wish you could be there. You might also want to consider sending a present that’s intended for the baby or to help ease her pregnant symptoms. 

One idea is to put together a gift for each stage of pregnancy from prenatal vitamins for the first stage, all leading up to a huge, comfortable body pillow as her belly continues to grow and she struggles to find comfort in bed. 

Celebrate With a Video Call

Video calls are a great way to stay and feel connected to your loved ones. Schedule a time for you two to get together and hang out over video chat. If you’ve sent your friend or relative gifts, you can ask her to wait until your scheduled call to have her open them so that you can see the look on her face.

To make this video chat more special than all of the other video chats you do in the digital age, create a digital invite to send to your friend and maybe a few others so that you can all enjoy a small celebration together. 

Plan a Long Distance Baby Shower 

While video chats are great for staying in touch, you can also use them to host entire celebrations like a long-distance baby shower if the couple has tons of family and friends that live far away and they’re comfortable with the idea. 

Send invites as you would in the mail for a traditional baby shower, and then start planning to make it a special day even though you can’t connect with everyone in-person like you’d want to. Also, make sure to send a link or a digital invitation to the video conference so that the couple can open presents in front of their guests like they would at a traditional baby shower. 

The Plan

Plan about a month in advance so that you can execute the perfect baby shower to make your friend feel appreciated and loved in a time when she can’t be with her loved ones to celebrate. Because the couple usually hosts the baby shower in their home, end party supplies to their residence so that they can decorate as if they were having people over. 

About one week before the baby shower, mail reminders to everyone about the baby shower and how they can contribute. Ask everyone to send a gift and respond to a video conference invite so that you know who is coming to your virtual event. 

During the event, let everyone have their turn saying something nice to the couple, then proceed with the gift unwrapping and card readings. While baby showers typically include more food and conversation, a remote video baby shower can help the couple celebrate with their loved ones as best they can during times they cannot be with them. 

After the baby shower, send the couple “Thank You” cards to fill out and send back to those who attended and sent gifts, just like they would under normal circumstances. 

Celebrating a new baby on the way is a big deal, and just because you can’t be with your loved ones on that special day doesn’t mean that you can’t find a way to celebrate them.