- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
June 2015 Moms
CurlyMom78
member
How to tactfully say no kids at baby shower
CurlyMom78
member
I'm the last of my friends to have a baby. My mom and her bf are putting on my shower in May but we do not want any kids at the shower as it will be a distraction and my friends will not be able to enjoy it. How do we tactfully say no kids at the shower?
Re: How to tactfully say no kids at baby shower
One of My friends her kids are incredibly badly behaved plus it's being catered for. I'm not having her distructive little shits (7&13) come and annoy everyone aswell as we will not pay for catering for a child. It's a waste of money.
Just address the invitation to the mom only and if they mention bringing the kids when rsvping have the host politely say that the invitation is only for her and not her children.
Also drop the "we want them to enjoy themselves so that's why we're not inviting kids" attitude. I don't have kids yet either, but I realize that most mons enjoy themselves a lot when they're with their children. If that's truly your reason for not inviting kids you should reconsider and let the moms make their own decision regarding bringing the kids along. However if your reason for not wanting kids there is budgetary or that you just want an adult afternoon, that is perfectly fine...just don't use the mom's enjoyment as your excuse.
If you are set on no kids, I think the most tactful way to handle this would be, as PP suggested, to address the invitation to mom only. Also, I'd plan to have your shower in a clearly adult-only setting, like a tea room, so if you do have any guests asking, you can sweetly say (possibly a white lie) that while you'd love to include the kids, your location won't allow it. If it's at someone's house then there's not really a way to come out of this without making it clear that it's your choice not to have the kids there, which, as I mentioned, could hurt people's feelings.
Went on a few tangents, but good luck and don't stress about it, especially if it wasn't your call.
2nd round exp 8/20/18.
My sense is that whether someone brings their kids or not, they have a good reason for doing so that I don't wish to question - when I have this kid, I wouldn't want people to question it. If you had a friend that could not get a babysitter, would you rather them come with a kid or not come at all?
I think for "space reasons" could be a legitimate argument but other than that I can't quite get behind a no-kid policy.
(Admittedly, maybe it's a bit easier for me because most of my friends don't have kids yet - and the two that do and using the opportunity for a kid-free day and not bringing them!) But I definitely have cousins coming who are in their teens, because they are family!
I don't think there's a tactful way to say no kids. We usually only have a kid or two and it's usually a little girl around 5/6. So they are well behaved.
With that said, I don't see a problem with kids at a baby shower. It's an afternoon event about a child after all. The hassle you will have before might not be worth the hassle you'll have with kids there. Just a thought.
It's your day. Do what you want and stick to your guns.
Franco Paul born 6/4/15 at 39 weeks. Mila Francesca born 10/19/13 at 37 weeks. Both born via C-Section after 6 years of fertility treatments, disappointments and losses. Love them!!
I'm kidding..it wasn't even a question or asked if babies could come to my shower because I would never say no. I'm the biggest Breastfeeding supporter there is so I would never put that stress on a mom. Older kids and toddlers? Thankfully no one I know besides one or two family members has kids (and they're under 5 and well behaved) so if they come the more the merrier!
While I am a "kids are always welcome!" advocate, I do agree with this. Only those whose names are on the invitation should attend - which is why, in my comment, I made sure to say that if you do decide to have a kids-free shower, the best way to tactfully handle it would be to only address the invitation to the mom. I do feel that writing on the invitation "No kids allowed" or the equivalent is unnecessary and, again, hurtful if the kids in question are old enough to read and come across the invitation. Thinking back to these situations when I was a kid, if an invitation was just addressed to my mom, I usually wasn't upset by it (if it had been a cousin I definitely would have been, but for Mom's friends I wouldn't have cared), but the explicit statement that kids weren't welcome did hurt my feelings - it made me feel as though those adults didn't like me and my siblings. Again, this would apply to kids who are old enough to learn how to read. Toddlers wouldn't care either way, but I do think that if you only address the invitations to the mother, that should be enough of a hint to her that the kids should stay at home.
Have you had experiences with screaming, unruly children? If so, I can understand wanting a ladies-only afternoon. There was a little girl (8 or 9) at my barbecue baby shower this past weekend and she was very well-behaved. Then again, it was an informal
event at home and not catered.
If the hostess and you (the honoree) set the expectation of a ladies event, there's no reason why people should have their feelings hurt should it not be appropriate to have children there.
But if you're in a park or someone's home, or in a situation where children would thrive, would it be harmful to the success of the event to have them there? Entirely up to you. :-)
My shower is being held at my house and I also happen to be a nanny to a 5- and almost 4-year-old. I would love to invite my boss and her mother to the shower because they know my family and I overall I like my boss however my mother and I have been trying to think of tactful ways to ask her to leave the kids at home. Her kids are seriously awful and if I didn't need the extra money before LO comes, I would quit in a heartbeat. When I say awful, I'm not exaggerating, her 4yo decided to be a finger painter and literally smeared his own shit all over the bathroom last week, her 5yo has picked up on her mother's body image issues and feels the need to tell me how fat I am on a regular basis and the two of them are overly affectionate which gets old really quick when they were just kicking and screaming over something ridiculous. And don't even get me started on her 11yo that thankfully is usually at school and not my problem. My reason for not wanting them there? I'd like to enjoy my shower and not feel like I'm at work and also it's at my house that I'd like to stay clean.
I'm of the opinion that there's not much for kids to do at a shower that's not specifically family oriented and boredom ends badly for poorly behaved children. There's no room to run and play and I can't trust them to sit in a room by themselves to watch a movie.
So trust me, I'm not judging anyone who says they don't want kids at their shower.
I cried a week ago because it was my last day off and I didn't want to go back. Don't get me wrong, I love children, I really do but I now I get why people say they hate kids. I didn't even know it was possible for something so little to be so evil and I've watched The Omen lol
This times 1000. I may or may not choose to bring my child along, however to assume I can't have fun with him there is so incredibly ignorant. Also mums can see right through that bs of a reason. I would likely decline an invite to a baby shower that comes with these stipulations and then side-eye the woman who is about to be a mum herself.
Also as for the "they all have dads/grandparents that could watch the kids", that's all well and good, but for example my husband works various shifts all days of the week (including saturday and Sundays) and my ILs are not personal babysitters available at my beck and call...so I wouldn't be so quick to assume childcare is a non-issue.
This whole thread reaks of entitlement. Good luck with mummyhood.
The only entitlement I see in this thread is the parents who think it is ok for their brats to misbehave in public/as guests. I also think it is a shame that American culture does not use the "it takes a village" approach as much as it should. The small town where I'm from, any adult could call any kid out for misbehaving. This belief that parents are entitled to raise brats was nonexistent. (Geez, I sound like I'm 90!)
Also, I think people need to stop getting all butthurt when people say they want the mom to enjoy time without their kids. Nobody thinks you dread being with your children and no one says you can't have fun with them, but I think you can agree that you are more relaxed when they are not around. You don't have to keep looking over your shoulder to make sure they aren't getting into anything they're not supposed to be, you don't have to look around before you say grown up words, you don't have to clean up after them. Geese Louise, people.
So, bottom line - don't expect that lining up childcare is easy for everyone.
ETA - should I decide to hire the unknown babysitter, I most certainly would NOT be enjoying myself more because my kid wasn't with me, because I would be super stressed out that I have left my kid with a stranger who could be smoking crack and making out with her boyfriend on my couch (or in my bed! Yuk!!!) while my kid cries with a dirty diaper for an hour.