Table of Contents
- How To Throw A Successful Gender Reveal Party
- Fun Gender Reveal Themes
- Sporty Gender Reveal Ideas
- Gender Reveal Ideas For Foodies
- Pets Can Do A Gender Reveal, Too
- A Gender Reveal Through Seasons
- A Virtual Gender Reveal Party
- Musical Gender Reveal Ideas
- Gender Reveal Ideas For Artists
- Gender Reveal Ideas That Involve Older Siblings
- To Wrap Up…
Gender reveal ideas have come a long way from simply telling people, “We’re having a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” And it’s just as well, because where’s the fun in just saying the gender? Why not drum up the anticipation for the baby’s birth with an exquisitely planned pre-celebration that reveals the baby’s gender?
One thing that makes a gender reveal party perfect is the element of surprise. Without it, the event will turn out to be just another gathering among friends and family. See to it that your gender reveal party ticks certain boxes, such as the ones below.
How To Throw A Successful Gender Reveal Party
- Pick the right date. The sex of the baby can be accurately determined by an ultrasound at 18 to 21 weeks. Schedule the party around this time.
- Set up the surprise. Who will be the secret keeper (and, consequently, the party planner)? Ask your doctor to write your baby’s gender on a piece of paper and slip it into an envelope. Leave it for the eyes of only the party organizer.
- Finalize the theme. The trick is to find one that reflects the personality of the parents-to-be.
- Pin down suppliers. With a theme in place, it will be easy to find vendors who can supply you with invitations, decorations, food and drinks, music, and other items you may deem necessary.
- Send out invitations. Whether it’s a face-to-face party or a virtual one, make sure to invite all the people important to the parents-to-be.
- Prepare some games. At gender reveal parties, you don’t announce the baby’s gender right at the start. Let the anticipation build up with a few games.
- Be mindful of the impact your party will have on the environment and your neighbors. Stay away from ideas that involve fire, pyrotechnics, harming wildlife and plants, and disturbing the peace in your neighborhood.
Fun Gender Reveal Themes
Personal, enjoyable, and memorable—this is how your party theme must be. Shape the vibe and activities around the lifestyle of the baby’s family. This is how you create a gender reveal event that will make friends and family go, “Aw, I want a baby, too!”
Let the 40 ideas below inspire you to come up with a theme that characterizes the family the baby will be born into. Tweak the ideas so that they truly become unique. After all, each family has its own personality. Let it shine through a gender reveal party that is one for the books.
Sporty Gender Reveal Ideas
Darty McFly
Fill a water balloon with either blue or pink powder. Secure the balloon onto a dart board. Have the parents-to-be take turns throwing darts at the balloon to reveal the baby’s gender.
Dad-Ball
Ask a third participant to join the parents-to-be. Let them take dodgeball positions with dad in the middle and mom holding a gender reveal powder ball.
Mom and friend alternately try to hit dad with the ball. Once the powder ball explodes on dad, the gender of the baby will be revealed.
Grand Slam
Mom-to-be pitches a gender reveal powder baseball at dad-to-be. Dad is the batter. Watch him disappear in an explosion of blue or pink powder when he hits a home run.
Buzzer Beater
Fill a basket with blue or pink powder. Cover it with thin paper securely taped over the basket. Fix the basket on a tree or a pole. This will serve as the basketball hoop. Have the parents-to-be alternately shoot a gender reveal ball into the basket. They get three points when the ball lands in the powder and reveals the baby’s gender.
Hole-in-Fun
Perfect for golfer parents-to-be. You’ll need a gender reveal powder golf ball. As mom or dad putts the ball, the ball explodes into the color of their baby’s gender.
Gender Reveal Ideas For Foodies
The Cake Pop Game
Hand out cake pops to all the guests. Only one of the cake pops will be blue or pink under the frosting. The rest will be a chocolate brown. Have everyone bite into their cake pop at the same time. You’ll hear the squeal of “boy!” or “girl!” soon enough.
Under The Chocolate Dome
Prepare a chocolate dome filled with either pink or blue candies. Let the parents-to-be smash the dome with a mallet and watch the candies spill the secret.
It’s All In The Punch
In this case, the parents-to-be are already in the know. They’ll be revealing the gender to their guests.
Each guest picks their drink based on what they think the baby’s gender is: pink lemonade if they’re Team Girl, blue fruit punch if they’re Team Boy. When the parents-to-be come out holding one or the other drink, their big secret is revealed.
The Ice Cream Race
This gender reveal can also be a game. Begin it by preparing ice cream cones whose bottoms have been filled with the gender color. Cover the sprinkles with ice cream. Hand these out. Whoever gets to the bottom of their cone first and sees the color of the sprinkles wins.
A Tough Cookie
Ask a local bakery to make fortune cookies with the baby’s gender as the fortune. Serve the cookies when it’s time for the big reveal. For this gender reveal idea to be successful, make sure everyone eats their fortune cookie at the same time.
Pets Can Do A Gender Reveal, Too
Pup-Squeak
If the parents-to-be are already fur parents, let their dog participate. This is the ultimate gender reveal idea for animal lovers.
Write down the baby’s gender on a piece of paper, roll it up, and secure it to the dog’s collar. Let the pup deliver the good news to the parents.
Plate Reveal
Enlist the help of a pet dog’s love for peanut butter to pull off this gender reveal.
Use edible paint to print “girl” or “boy,” depending on the correct gender, on a plate. Then cover the word with a slice of bread slathered generously with peanut butter. Call the dog over to the plate. No need to prompt it; the dog will devour the bread, revealing the baby’s gender when it’s done with its snack.
Mouse Maze
Make a maze fit for a mouse. Create two exits; label one “boy” and the other, “girl.”
To make sure the mouse takes the exit of the correct gender, leave a trail of food on the path leading to the exit. Keep the trail as unobtrusive as possible to preserve the secret.
Leave the mouse to do the reveal.
Cat Bow
Any cat people here? Fix a blue or pink bow on the family cat and hide it in a separate room. Assemble everyone in the next room. Open a bag of cat food and call the cat over. When it slinks into the room, it’ll unwittingly reveal the baby’s gender.
Parroting
This is especially fun for parents-to-be who are bird enthusiasts. Train a friend’s parrot to say “boy” or “girl.” At the gender reveal party, bring out the parrot and let it announce the gender.
A Gender Reveal Through Seasons
Valentine’s Day: Let the Roses Speak
The dad-to-be will be in on this gender reveal.
Find a dozen roses in pink and blue to give to the mom-to-be: six in the color of the correct gender, five in the other color. Dad gets the tie-breaking rose. Hand out the rest to 11 friends. Have the friends walk up to mom one by one and hand her a rose each. Dad reveals the gender when he hands her his rose.
Fourth Of July: Confetti Corner
Host a Fourth of July party. When the fireworks (elsewhere) start, invite everyone outside. Have the parents-to-be release confetti in the gender color as the fireworks explode overhead. The excited screams will be drowned out by the fireworks but that’s okay. You’ll see the happiness in the faces.
Halloween: Pumpkin Bomb
Jack-o-Lantern would like a crack at this gender reveal idea thing.
Gut and carve a big pumpkin. Place a smoke bomb or a confetti canon in the gender color inside the pumpkin. At dusk, converge around the pumpkin and set off the bomb or canon.
Thanksgiving: It’s A Pie Thing
For dessert, make a special pie. Depending on the gender of the baby, use blueberry or strawberry filling. Let the parents-to-be do the first secret-revealing slice.
Christmas: Light The Tree
Without anyone around, string blue or pink fairy lights all around the branches of the Christmas tree. Make sure the lights are small enough to not be easily seen.
Invite the whole group to finish decorating the tree with ornaments. When the tree is all dressed up, have everyone stand around it as you plug in the lights. Watch the room turn blue or pink amid the excited screams.
A Virtual Gender Reveal Party
Podcasting: A Gender Reveal Idea In Real Time
Let the favorite podcaster of the parents-to-be do the honors during their livestream.
Have mom and dad, along with their friends and family, dial into a Zoom call and listen in right when the podcast starts. Use Zoom’s gallery view so everyone’s reaction can be seen. Remember to record the call.
A Virtual Party
Because of the nature of virtual parties, the parents-to-be will have to already know the gender of their baby prior to announcing it online.
About a week before the party, use Canva to create a poll—”Do you think we’re having a boy or a girl?” Send this out to all the invited guests. Also, create a custom Zoom background—pink for Team Girl and blue for Team Boy. Let the guests pick which background they want to use for the call.
At ground zero of the party, set up a fun backdrop where the parents-to-be will do their reveal.
Then, when the party starts, share the results of the poll to segue into the gender reveal. Ask everyone to shift to speaker view and pin the parents-to-be so the guests can get “front-row seats” to the announcement.
To do the reveal, the parents to be can use confetti canons to create bursts of color onscreen.
You’re On Video!
Make a video using an editing app to make it look professional. Send the video to friends and family in an email with the subject: The Great Reveal.
The video can feature just the parents-to-be speaking directly into the camera as they make the announcement. If there’s more time to make the video, you can also use a montage or a customized music video.
Put It All In A Website
With free web design tools available, make like a professional designer and create your own gender reveal website.
In it, narrate your journey so far—the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Drum up the anticipation. Place the gender reveal—either using a video or a still image—in the last section.
Quiz Night
Gather guests in a virtual call room and test their knowledge of the parents-to-be (and parenting in general) with fun trivia questions. Ask them about the parents-to-be, baby facts, movies featuring new parents, etc.
Then to wrap up (and get on with the gender reveal), focus on asking questions pointing more obviously toward the baby’s gender. Keep asking until the guests guess the correct gender.
Musical Gender Reveal Ideas
It’s All In The Wind
If the parents-to-be are classical music lovers and have a horn, trumpet, or maybe a bugle at home, you’ve found the perfect prop.
Put pink or blue confetti inside the tube of the horn or trumpet. It would be great if both mom and dad would have an instrument each to use at the same time. Have them simultaneously blow out a note. Watch the confetti fly out of the instruments, creating a musical gender reveal.
The Metal Way
It’s normally a waste to destroy a perfectly good guitar. But since this is a cool gender reveal idea, maybe make an exception this time.
Place blue or pink powder in an acoustic guitar through its sound hole. Have dad-to-be or mom-to-be play along to an appropriate rock song playing on the speakers. (“Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns n’ Roses comes to mind.) Right around the guitar riffs, have dad or mom smash the guitar against the floor or wall. A cloud or either blue or pink powder puffs up, revealing the gender.
Sing It!
If the parents-to-be are singers, have them sing a medley of songs that hint at the correct gender.
Is the baby a boy? Try these: “The Lazy Song” by Bruno Mars, “Boys” by Lizzo, and “My Boy” by Billie Eilish. If the baby’s a girl, try these: “Run The World (Girls)” by Beyoncé, “Girl On Fire” by Alicia Keys, and, the feminist anthem of all feminist anthems, “I’m Every Woman” by Whitney Houston.
The Ultimate Gender Reveal Playlist
If a live performance isn’t on the cards, how about making a playlist instead? Similar to the idea above, put together songs that represent the gender of the baby. Make it a public playlist. Then post the link to a group chat made up of family and friends. the group chat name? “Am I a boy or a girl?”
The Celebrity Shoutout
This may be a long shot. But if you pull this off, what a great memory it will create. Find a way to contact a singer the parents-to-be are fans of. See if the singer would agree to record a video of them saying the baby’s gender. Then send this video to family and friends (and the parents-to-be, if they’re not. inon the secret yet).
Gender Reveal Ideas For Artists
Knead The Clay
Hide a small ball of blue or pink clay, depending on the correct gender, inside a bigger ball of white clay. You can make your own clay using baking soda, cornstarch, and water. Make two balls of the white clay (with the secret colored balls inside) and hand one each to the parents-to-be.
Ask them to knead the clay to form a baby rattle. As they work, the colored clay will eventually work into the white clay, revealing the baby’s gender.
Pica-So This Is Our Baby’s Gender
Create a stencil that spells out the gender of the baby. Secure this against an oil canvas. Blindfold the parents-to-be and lead them to the canvas set-up. Hand them a paintbrush each and a can of paint. Guide them to paint the stencil with all their guests watching from behind the canvas.
When mom and dad are done, remove their blindfold and the stencil, and let them read what they painted. Turn the canvas around to let the guests in on the surprise.
Scratch It Off
Get customized scratch cards for the gender reveal party. Put the correct baby gender on only two cards. Have random words printed on the rest. Hand a card each to all the guests at the party. The parents-to-be get the cards with the gender.
Gender By Numbers
Order a huge (we’re thinking 4′ x 6′) paint-by-numbers image of a baby. Have the creator place the baby’s gender in the center of the image.
At the party, have everyone pitch in and color until the baby is completely colored and their gender is revealed.
Build Up Baby
Write the baby’s gender on a piece of paper. On top of it, build a castle using building blocks.
At the party, have each guest take one block off the castle until they’re down to the last blocks covering the paper. Have the parents-to-be do the honors of taking out those blocks to reveal their baby’s gender.
Gender Reveal Ideas That Involve Older Siblings
Soap Bubbles!
Make colored soap bubbles for the siblings; use the color corresponding to their baby sibling’s gender.
When it’s time for the reveal, have the kids simultaneously start blowing bubbles and watch as the baby’s gender is shown in a burst of soap and color. (Stay close to the siblings, especially if they’re still toddlers, to make sure no one ingests the soap solution.) Follow this hack to remove food color from skin.
Spell Check
If the baby is joining several older siblings, have t-shirts printed spelling out the baby’s gender. At the great reveal, line up the siblings with their backs to the guests. Have them turn around at the same time, spilling the secret of their baby sibling’s gender.
Alternatively, if the baby is a boy and he’s joining an older brother, let the brother wear a t-shirt that says, “Older brother” or “Brother #1.” Do the same for sisters.
Handprints On Fleek
Dip the siblings’ palms in blue or pink finger paint, depending on their baby sibling’s gender. Blindfolded, guide them to their mom, who’d also be blindfolded and wearing a plain white t-shirt. It’s best to set this up outside the house—partly to avoid handprints on furniture and partly because little kids benefit from being outside.
Have the kids leave their handprints on their mom’s belly. When they’re done, whip out everyone’s blindfold and see the big surprise.
A Messy Affair
Have you ever encountered a kid who doesn’t like to make a mess? On disposable pie pans, tint yogurt with food color in blue or pink. Then hide everything under a mound of whipped cream.
At the grand reveal, have the siblings play a kid-version of 20 Questions. Ask them anything about their family, from when they think Mom is giving birth to what their parents are naming the baby. Whoever gets a question wrong receives a pie on their face, inadvertently revealing the gender of their sibling.
It’s All In The Photo
Prior to the gender reveal, do a photo shoot of the siblings dressed as their favorite movie characters in the gender of their coming sibling. If it’s a girl, her siblings can dress as the female superheroes in Marvel or DC or as Disney princesses. If it’s a boy, his siblings can dress as Captain Jack Sparrow, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, or any male superhero.
Take photos of the kids in their costumes, print these out, and send them to family and friends with the caption, “When the baby grows up he/she will be…”
To Wrap Up…
All these gender reveal ideas point to just one thing: there is only one objective for a successful party: to announce to the world, in your own unique way, that you are having a boy or a girl. This event, along with the baby shower, creates an atmosphere of excited anticipation. So that when the baby is finally born, he or she arrives in a world full of love and fun.
I’m excited to see what theme you pick for your gender reveal party. Want to post it and tag Parent From Heart?
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