A baby shower is a one-of-a-kind special occasion to welcome the arrival of a new life into the world. A few decades ago, the shower always sported pink balloons for a little girl or blue balloons for a boy. Today, new parents may prefer a gender-neutral baby shower for many reasons.
Some parents prefer not to find out the gender of their baby ahead of time. You can respect this choice by hosting a gender-neutral shower that doesn’t give away any hints and let the parents enjoy surprising everyone after the birth!
Other parents do not want to buy into gendered colors that so often have sexist overtones, so they bypass the pinks and blues and use non-gendered colors like yellows and greens instead. Or the parents may want to embrace the potential of a non-binary gender for their little one.
Last but not least, the parents may enjoy a super creative theme that isn’t gender-specific!
Gender-Neutral Baby Shower Themes and Colors
The first step in planning a gender-neutral baby shower is selecting the color scheme or theme you want to use. This gives you a structure to build on with party elements like decor, food, and party favors.
1. Neutral Color Palette
The simplest theme you can choose is no theme! Instead, focus on a neutral color palette like black and gold, yellow, green, woodlands browns, or elegant white and gold.
2. Modern Theme
A “modern” theme for a baby shower also tends to focus on colors, usually stark black and white or black and gold. Think minimalist and classy with the decor.
3. Bohemian Baby
If the starkness of a modern theme sounds boring to you, go the opposite direction and host a “Bohemian Baby” shower instead! For this theme, pull out all the stops on the colors–mix and match every shade. Hang colorful backdrops on the walls and stack throw pillows on the floor, and add vases of flowers to every table.
4. Rustic Woodland
One of the most popular gender-neutral baby shower themes in recent years is the rustic or woodland theme. This one works well indoors and outdoors and allows you to decorate with farmhouse chic items like burlap and knit lace.
5. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
You can’t go wrong with a classic “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” theme, appropriate for babies of all genders! You can go in so many fun directions with the decor for this one, too, like using tons of glitter and stars, or focusing on the night sky and borrowing a mini star projector to display on the walls inside your house.
6. Welcome Little…
You can also avoid the whole pronoun question by using a “Welcome Little _____” theme. You can find so many different ideas using this format! For example, Welcome Little One, Little Pumpkin (fall theme), Little Peanut (elephant or circus theme), Little Cutie (orange theme), Little Monkey (zoo theme), Little Muggle (Harry Potter theme), or Little Sunshine (yellow theme).
7. Oh Baby
An “Oh Baby” theme also gives you a nice, generic shower theme. You can use modern decor like black and white balloons, or pair this theme with a more rustic vibe and use woodland animals like squirrels and foxes in your decor.
8. Winnie the Pooh
You could also focus on beloved, traditional children’s toys for your theme, like a Winnie the Pooh baby shower. Winnie the Pooh’s color scheme is gender-neutral with its yellow tones. And the addition of Pooh himself is such a cute addition.
9. Teddy Bear
I bet you can bearly wait for this little bundle of joy to arrive. Celebrating the mama-to-be and baby with a teddy bear themed baby shower is a spectacular idea. A teddy bear themed baby shower is perfect for a gender-neutral party with its shades of browns, creams, and tans.
10. Rubber Duck
When I think of a baby shower, rubber ducks come to mind. I have been to a few baby showers with a rubber duck theme and love this theme so much. It is adorable and perfect for helping celebrate that mama-to-be and her future little one.
Gender-Neutral Baby Shower Invitations
The key to gender-neutral baby shower invitations is to avoid using gendered colors like pink and blue on the cards. You should also pay attention to any pronouns used in the wording and highlight your chosen shower theme with fun graphics!
If you don’t have time to design a creative gender-neutral party invitation, don’t worry! You can also order premade sets online. If you can’t find the theme you want, you can even buy custom invites from sites like Shutterfly or Etsy.
Gender-Neutral Baby Shower Decorations
Nothing transforms a space into a party venue as quickly as incredible decorations!
- As you plan gender-neutral baby shower decor, focus on color schemes like yellow and grey, black and white, white and gold, or tan with pastel shades like green and yellow. Try not to use pink and blue or red and blue shades if possible. You can easily highlight your chosen color palette with balloons, tableware, or backdrops in those shades.
- Consider putting up a welcome sign or banner to clue your guests into the particular theme you picked, such as “Welcome Little One” or “Oh Baby.” You can find plenty of personalized signs online, or even make your own if you have a Cricut to cut out the letters!
- If DIY is not your thing, you can find kits of gender-neutral party decor packed with everything you need, like tablecloths and cutlery. Or wow your guests with one big splashy decor item instead of tons of little things, like setting up a giant balloon arch in neutral colors, like this one.
- If you like crafting, try adding a centerpiece to all the tables and counters in your space. Keep your theme on point by using it in the centerpieces. For example, make your own honey jars for a Winnie the Pooh theme, or create a gorgeous glowing nighttime cloud centerpiece for a Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star theme!
Gender-Neutral Baby Shower Food
Party food puts everyone in a good mood! But before you tap the Pinterest app on your phone and start planning, take a moment to consider what time of day you will host the shower. For instance, do you want to host a mid-morning party and offer brunch food, or do you want to host a late-afternoon party and provide snacks and munchies?
Once you narrow down the type of food you want to offer, think about how you could tie in the food to your gender-neutral party theme.
- If you chose a neutral color palette instead of a specific theme, focus on finding foods in those colors. For instance, you can find many yellow foods to load onto your party table, like pineapple, lemon meringue tartlets, cheese platters, macarons, and more! On the other hand, try limeade, sandwich rollups in green veggie wraps, or cucumber sandwiches for a green color scheme.
- For a modern theme, you could offer pretzels dipped in white chocolate, popcorn, ice cream, or any treat served in black and white cups like these, or even get really simple and stack Oreos on a cake platter.
- You can turn so many different foods into stars for a Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star theme! Cut out sandwiches using a star-shaped cookie cutter, or make fruit skewers with star-shaped watermelon cutouts and blueberries or grapes. Or fill star-shaped dishes with tasty treats for an easy way to promote your theme.
- You have so many options to choose from if you pick a “Welcome Little [fill in the blank]” theme! For example, with a “Welcome Little Monkey” theme, you could transport all your guests to a circus tent and offer food like iced animal crackers, buttery popcorn, and clown cake pops. You could even make your own cotton candy with one of these affordable gadgets!
- For a generic theme like “Oh, Baby” play up the “baby” element with food like a watermelon carved into a baby, drinks served in cheap plastic baby bottles, or mini pacifiers made out of royal icing, lifesavers, and jelly beans!
Gender-Neutral Baby Shower Cake
You don’t want to forget a gender-neutral cake for your baby shower! As Julia Child so famously said, “a party without cake is a meeting.”
- Turn any frosted cake into a gender-neutral party cake with a simple cake topper like this one. You can make the cake yourself if you like to bake, or just buy one from the grocery store and slap on a coat of store-bought frosting–it’s the thought that counts, and not everyone can afford the three to four hours it takes to bake your own cake.
- If you want to bake the cake yourself but don’t have much experience, go with simple elegance, like adding sprinkles in your chosen color palette to the sides of a layer cake. Then pile candy in the same color on top, and you have a bakery-worthy cake on your hands!
- Of course, you can also get fancy and design a cake based on the shower theme. For a “rustic” baby shower theme, try making one of the trendy naked cakes you see all over Instagram–you can follow this tutorial from Sugar and Sparrow to learn how. Then drape the cake with fresh flowers and greenery for a classic woodland vibe!
- You could also stick with mini munchies and make cake pops instead of a full-size cake. Try decorating the pops with moons and stars for a Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star shower, or with yellow and grey for a neutral color palette shower.
Gender-Neutral Baby Shower Games
You can plan plenty of classic baby shower games for a gender-neutral baby shower, like guess how many candies fill a baby bottle or the clothespin “don’t say baby” challenge. You just want to avoid gender-specific activities like “he or she” guessing games.
- Put together a playlist of ten to twelve songs with the word “baby’ in the title. Play each song for a few seconds and have your guests guess the title.
- For a thoughtful activity, set up a “baby bucket list” station with cute cards like these for guests to fill out. Every guest can recommend an important thing the new parents should do with a new baby to create forever memories together!
- Set up a diaper-changing station with a baby doll for a silly party game, but fill each diaper with ice cream sprinkles! Start the timer and challenge your guests to see who can change the diaper fastest without spilling any sprinkles.
- You can even buy complete sets of gender-neutral baby shower games online if you want!
Gender-Neutral Baby Shower Gifts
You don’t want to trip yourself up by presenting a gendered baby gift after planning the perfect gender-neutral baby shower! Check out this list of the perfect gift to give new parents who don’t know the gender of their new little one or choose not to announce it quite yet.
Of course, many new parents create a registry ahead of the baby shower. This gives you an excellent way to buy exactly what the parents want and need. If you don’t have a registry to work off of, though, check out these gender-neutral gift ideas:
- This baby keepsake picture frame makes the perfect gift for any new parent.
- Montessori-style toys using neutral colors also make a great choice because they provide education for the new little one!
- You can also find a gift in a safe color scheme, like this adorable yellow bath set.
- If you want to get practical, give the new parents boxes of infant diapers. During the first few months, the parents will likely feel like they constantly run out of this essential, so they will definitely appreciate your gift!
- If you know one of the new parents well, you can also have a chat and tactfully ask if there is a big-ticket item they really want. Common new-parent needs include items like strollers, car seats, and baby beds.
Gender-Neutral Baby Shower Favors and Prizes
The easiest way to plan fun party favors and prizes is to base them on the theme you picked for your gender-neutral baby shower.
- For a color-specific theme, create favors by filling empty baby food jars with candy in the color you picked, like yellow or black and white.
- You could also base your prizes for the games on your theme. For example, you could have a whole prize table at a circus-themed baby shower, where guests have to earn tickets to pick out a prize!
- For a rustic baby shower, you could fill a small paper bag with wildflower seeds for each guest.
- You can also shop for gender-neutral party favors or prizes online, like these sweet burlap bags for treats or these clever baby-foot keychains.
Conclusion
Planning a gender-neutral baby shower is a thoughtful gesture for new parents who don’t know their baby’s gender yet, or for parents who dislike traditional gender roles implied by pink or blue themes. Plus, you can get super creative when you don’t tie yourself down to basic girl or boy party themes! You can explore gender-neutral themes by researching beloved children’s songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or by considering classic children’s-book characters like Harry Potter or Winnie the Pooh.
Once you pick a theme, you can base your party invites, decor, and even the food on that theme! Don’t forget to choose a gender-neutral gift to wrap for the new family. Finally, bring the baby shower to life with engaging party games that avoid any gender-specific topics, and fun party favors for all your guests to top things off!