At the start of 2019, if someone had told you that the entire world would be under lockdown restrictions, you would have called them crazy, yet here we are, at the end of 2020, facing yet more lockdowns. Of course, life must go on and people are making the best use of IT to try and carry on with their lives in the best way they can, with many working from home and ordering products online, which eliminates human contact. If you are expecting a baby in the near future, you obviously need to take extra care regarding Covid-19, and with that in mind, here is a guide to arranging a virtual baby shower.
Understanding Zoom
If you haven’t yet used Zoom, it is an application that utilizes Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and any number of people can share a video conference call; you simply send the meeting ID to your guests and they can join the virtual meeting. Many social groups use Zoom to interact and also to keep in touch with friends and family during the lockdown, which brings you that essential social contact that we all need.
Gifts for Mum & Baby
Of course, your guests will want to give you and baby a gift and with CMC Gold’s personalised baby hair brushes and other great gifts, you can send the guests a link to the website where they can order a gift and have it sent to your address. As the gifts arrive, do not open any just yet, as you can do this in the virtual presence of all your guests when the party begins, which is a great way to start the proceedings, as people love to be present when their gift is opened. If you need to download videos from the web, here are a few great applications that can do that.
Create your Guest List
Just as you would with a regular baby shower, you should sit down and decide who you want to invite to the virtual baby shower, then you can send each person an email that explains your decision, while also giving essential information to help them prepare for the online gathering. The Zoom application can be downloaded for free and installed on your digital device, and this information needs to be given to your guests in the email invitation. You can insert a link to the Zoom download website and ask the guests to install the app in preparation for the baby shower and you can send them a Zoom meeting ID on the day of the party, which will enable them to join the virtual meeting.
Baby Shower Fun & Games
There are numerous games you can play with your online guests, such as ‘guess the baby’, which involves asking each guest to email you a photo of them when they were a baby or toddler. Once you have the images, you can post them onto the whiteboard and ask people to guess who it is. Don’t forget to add one of you and your partner, which will certainly raise a few laughs. You could have an online quiz, so ask each guest to prepare a marker pen and some paper for holding up the answers and as the host, it is your job to keep score.
Make sure you keep abreast of the current Covid-19 updates from the government, as things change quickly and you might be lucky and be able to actually have the baby shower together with all your guests.