to not want young children at my baby shower?

[stella1w]

I reckon this is my last change in a long time to have a quiet chat with some friends over tea and cakes and focus on ME..
This is no. 2 so I do plenty of playdates with 3yolds and what happens is they run rampant and make a big mess. I am heavily pg and just want a lowkey event.
Andif I am NOT being unreasonable how can I suggest to people they don't bring their children!

Before I had my second baby I organised a meal out for my female relatives and called it "last chance to go out before the baby comes".

If that's what you mean OP, then YANBU, but if you are calling it a shower, then it sounds like you are expecting presents. I think you need to clarify this point as people, myself included, are addressing that aspect instead of your original question which was whether to go child free.

A baby shower? How perfectly naff

I didn't mean to divert the thread.

I meant to point out that you are diverting from the traditions of showers, so can do what you like in regard to children or anything else. And I still think bubbaluv's suggested wording is good, as is the one to get DH/DPs to remove and entertain the children for the duration.

OP - no-one is trying to stop you from having a good time with your mates in whatever way you want. But when you describe you event using a term that has specific traditions, then of course many posters will assume a traditional event. A name for the party other than "shower" might help avoid confusion about what you are doing. (After all, no one confuses "hen do" with "bridal shower").

The name of a shower for a second baby is a Kitchen Tea. The idea is similar to a shower, a get together of the woman's friends late in the pregnancy to celebrate the impending arrival but without the presents and in my experience, without the games/awkward silliness of the usual baby shower.

It is usually literally tea and cakes in someone's kitchen. The few i have been too (in oz) people brought round casseroles/freezable meals to help for when the baby is born and the mother is trying to manage new baby plus older child.

Asking for it to be child free though, i think that is a bit much personally. The whole concept is to celebrate motherhood. It sounds more like you want a last hurrah with your mates rather than a shower/kitchen tea.

Yabu due to saying the men are babysitting. No, they are not! They are looking after their children. Shudder.

Jesus, is this the stage of evolution we have reached?
Spolit women expecting other women to indulge them with useless tat (shoes that last for 3 weeks, babygros arranged like flowers in a nasty raffia basket) but forbidding them from briniging their children despite the fact the occasion is ostensibly about celebrating the joy of children.

Fucking hell.

This sounds awful, I would not personally get a babysitter to attend a babyshower for a second child (indeed any child.

Is it just me, or people used to be superstitious about not giving gifts before the baby was born? I still wait til the baby is fine and well in the world before giving anything. Am I out of touch?

I suppose along with good US imports (The Wire) come some of the less desirable US imports -- baby showers being but one.

With you moondog.

agrees with moondog

totally with moondog on this

I agree that baby showers are a little tacky, it's the expectation of presents. I also agree that evening is a really good idea, and calling it anything but baby shower!

'so the menfolk can baby sit'

Have I wandered inadvertantly into the 1950s?

Baby showers are an American import. They are supposed to be given to the mum-to-be by someone else. For a first baby. They are not held in the evening. They're held in the afternoon.

So, YABU. And tacky and grabby.

I just want to make it clear that I didn;t say anything about fathers babysitting. I suggested that the fathers take all the children to the park.

Fathers "babysitting" is one of my particular bugbears!

its a tough one, I work FT and my kids are with me at weekends, I'd be a bit gutted to get a baby-free invite and most likely would not attend

I think YABU to have a babyshower for 2nd baby - as expat said, fine for Baby #1, not subsequently. And always, always arranged by someone else, not the mum-to-be herself.

But child-free time down the pub with your friends is obviously your right as a human being. Just arrange the time/venue so that's it's obviously not a children's event. And don't call it a baby shower.

Yanbu to have a babyshower for your 2nd child. The whole point of them is for first time mums to receive all that they would need for a baby, you already have most things I expect. Wh not arrange to meet your friends for a meal or tea/coffee and cakes at yours instead

Meant yanbu gah stupid predictive text

Meant yabvu

The OP must have collapsed under the weight of all the presents as she hasn't been back :o

If you meant a baby shower whereby people bring gifts and play silly games, sounds a tad grabby tbh a kitchen tea sounds much better. As you will learn soon enough childcare is not always easy to find and cheap so you should make allowances if people can't come or they have to bring their kids

God if someone asked me to go to their 'baby shower' (in other words buy me presents because I'm pregnant) and said you can't bring your kids because I want the focus to be on 'ME' I think I'd genuinely tell them to grow up and get over themselves.

Whatever happened to women simply getting pregnant and getting on with it? Extending your family is a natural thing but expecting a pat on the back and a 'shower' because of it??

Seeker, I was referring to the OP's post about the "menfolk babysitting". I know you'd never say such a thing.

Well said worraliberty.

Please don't organise any event called 'baby shower' for yourself. Please. This is coming from a Yank who has thumbed her nose at British disdain for them and hosted several in the UK for Brits. Unless you don't care if people think you're bonkers and grabby.