To regret not having a baby shower?

[Applebears]

I’m nearly 34 weeks now so it’s too late to organise one. I always said I wouldn’t bother as I thought they were grabby and OTT. I’m now seeing everyone else’s photos in my due date group and thinking I wish I had one. You only have your first baby once! I’m the first of my same age friends to have a baby and I’m not sure how well attended any party I’d put on would have been anyway, as some of them live quite far away.

(Please no comments about celebrate after the baby’s here - this is my rainbow baby so don’t need any new worries popping into my head at this stage!)

Has anyone got any ideas as to what I could do instead?

It's no different to a birthday party, and those are once a year.

I think it's fine to organise your own, not everyone has people on their lives that can or will do it for them.

I didn't have one but if I did I'd have had to organise my own - my mum is too shy, my sister hates baby showers and my best friend is in the middle of adopting a child.

We had my daughter-in-law's baby shower when she finished work at 37 weeks and then baby came early - 10 days later!
We had a great afternoon tea 😊

you are right, they are grabby. You will gets lots is stuff once the baby is here in any case. You just got a little bit of FOMO ;-)

Not having a baby shower for my first baby has made no difference whatsoever to my life & how I feel about my son. I don't feel like I've missed out on anything, and you're right, they are grabby and OTT, seems like a case of fomo

Definitely not to my taste but I think it’s my age saying that. I’d be sure you actually want one and aren’t just feeling pressure because it’s the “done thing” for insta or Facebook. They don’t seem to be a one-off for the first born either.

Send a group message now instead of posting on Mumsnet, invite your friends for brunch at a restaurant, this is exactly the right time to do it! Have your baby shower, doesn't need to be extravagant but I agree it's a really nice rite of passage. I didn't have one with my first as I thought it wasn't important to me, but I had one (brunch with girlfriends) for my second as I regretted not celebrating more with my first. And it was 100% worth it!

You might not have 6 weeks... I went into natural labour at 36 weeks so if you want a celebration do it soon! Don't compare it to what you've seen, if you've not got long to plan you don't need balloons or hundreds of games, just a little get together should be more than lovely and will give you a nice opportunity to talk about your upcoming birth if you wanted to.

It’s not too late to have one if you want one! I had one but nothing big (I could not be bothered at the thought of having anything big going on while that heavily pregnant😂), I just invited family & close friends to our house, I put some decorations and balloons up, got some picky food and cakes etc, prosecco for all the non-pregnant people and it was lovely to see everyone to catch up before baby came. Didn’t take too much organising and I didn’t even have to take my slippers off🤣

Agree go for a low key tea party sort of affair with your good friends, which shouldn’t take a lot of organising or planning from attendees. I don’t think anybody really enjoys attending the sort of “shower” which includes tedious little games and photo ops all set up for posting on social media (I know I absolutely don’t) but pretty much everybody enjoys spending time with their friends.

Horrid things. Never had one and never felt like I missed out on anything. Ditto for a gender reveal. All so naff and grabby.

Its very different to a birthday, its saying look at me, I had sex and got pregnant, now shower me with gifts!

Oh lord I had one and now cringe thinking about it… they are boring as batshit

You need to delete social media - photos on social media don’t reflect reality

Lol that's a weird way to look at it.

It's like saying a birthday is "look at me, my parents had sex and I came out of my mum, now shower me with gifts!"

See I think this really depends on what a baby shower looks like to each person. I have been to a couple which were very Insta/tik tok affairs which were quite dull and pose-y. But equally I’ve been to a couple and had my own which was really just a nice opportunity to all catch up, no “organised fun” type games just some food, drinks and chatting with friends which was really nice.

I do think it’s a good idea to step away from what you see on social media for these things and just think about what you will enjoy. For mine we had picky food, cake, prosecco (nosecco for me) in my house and just had a really good catch up and had an amazing time, not very Insta-worthy but was a much nicer day than some of the ones I’ve attended and seen online!

Agree.
Celebrate the baby when he or she is here.

I agree with others, you’ve got enough time. Yes some babies come early but most come close to due date - unless there’s reason to think you’ll go early? Just have an informal wee celebration with whichever friends and family can make it in three weeks’ time.