Announcing… Baby On Board!

comments icon 55 comments

 Oh, BOY! {or girl!} You are literally about to burst with the secret of expecting… SUCH BIG NEWS! It seems ridiculously anticlimactic to just tell your closest peeps in casual conversation because… oh, I dunno… it’s only your whole world about to change!

So, honey, if you got the “BIG NEWS”, we’ve got an easy or extravagant idea amongst this compilation from the divas and our awesome readers {thx!} on how to announce you’ve got a…..

BABY ON BOARD!

Chrissy - Updated Pinterest Pics - AnnouncingBaby

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. To learn more about ’em, click here.

Doesn’t his face say it all?!

If you’re like so many of us who test every single time we’re “late”, there’s a good chance that you’re gonna know before Daddy does. So what better raw shock than the test itself?! Our very own diva, Kristen, suggests making a whole date night out of it! You can watch a movie like Babies (released 2010) or Father of the Bride 2, Knocked up, etc. and surprise your man with your baby proof decorated with this darling printable tag!

You can download yours for free here. Thanks, Kristen!

Okay, take a deep breath and dive in! There’s a perfect idea in here for every couple!

  • Plan to have family pictures (extended family works best) taken together. After the first couple takes, have the photographer say, “Okay, everybody, on the count of three say “Kari’s pregnant!!” Then they will take the picture just in time to capture the surprised reaction on everyone’s faces!
  • Take your husband out to dinner, but prearrange with the restaurant to have your waiter bring a gift to your table. The waiter can just explain that he was asked to deliver the gift while you act completely unaware… Then inside the gift can be a small baby stuffed animal with a printed collar announcing your due date or any significant baby item that will give the secret away! Or instead of a gift, you can have the waiter slip an envelope with a picture inside of you holding your positive pregnancy test towards the camera underneath his ticket when the bill comes.

  • Fill the living room or your bedroom with pink and blue helium balloons. Let the person you’re surprising find them on their own. Write “Girl?” and “Boy?” in marker on some of the balloons as well as “Coming [due date]” and “Congratulations”!
  • Mail a copy of some mini architectural blue prints with a poem about how you plan to remodel your household by 2 feet and expect it to be complete by [due date]. You can include a picture of your ultrasound… awww!

OR

  • Take a picture of your kids’ cute feet together or for a first child, of you & your husbands feet (cute socks could even be fun!) and add a caption or note that says, “Our family will be growing by “2 feet” this coming [due date month].
  • Write and mail a letter from the “baby” announcing her excitement to meet you on [due date] and all the great things she’s heard about each person you’re surprising!
  • Send out an humorous announcement with the “priceless” theme like this:

Caption says: Photo paper $5, Postage $0.44, Envelope $.05, the look on your face when you realize there are three of us in this photo… PRICELESS!! Arriving [due date].

I know!!! CUTE! Right?

  • Put one of your ultrasound photos near the front of a photo album and purposely show your surprisee something on the same page in the album.
  • Get a Rubbermaid or other storage container and put a “Congratulations, it’s a Boy/Girl!” helium mylar balloon inside so when they open it, the surprise message pops right out!
  • Stage a game of scrabble and spell out YOU, ME, BABY or a game of Pictionary and draw it out.
  • Make or order some customized fortune cookies with the fortune reading “You will become a daddy/grandma/etc. by [due date].
  • Hang an extra picture frame amongst your other pictures on the wall with an inserted paper that says “Reserved for Baby! [due date].
  • Make and give your husband an award certificate (even framed if you want!) that says, “You are hereby awarded this certificate of achievement for becoming a daddy [again]. The date awarded can be your due date.

MOST Suggested Idea: Make and have one of your other children wear a shirt that gives it away!  From “Proud big brother/sister as of [due date]” to “Now I gotta share mommy and daddy” it’s fun to  see how long it takes for people to catch on. Create your own any way you’d like!  For family farther away you can take a picture of your child to text or email.

  • Write a the same type of Big bro/sis message on the outside bum of your toddler’s diaper, then conveniently need your husband or other “surprisee” to take a turn on diaper duty.
  • Get a Hershey’s candy bar and cover up the “r” and the “ys” with stickers or paper.  Write the word OR where the “r” was, and now the candy bar reads “He OR she?”  Give the candy bar with a blue and pink balloon as your surprise!
  • Get a delicious chocolate cake or a box of donuts to share.  As your husband  (or everyone you’re surprising) takes a bite, just say, “I just thought it wouldn’t hurt for you to gain a few pounds with me since that’s my plan over the next 9 months!”
  • Tell your husband that you happened to see his horoscope that day and it was so accurate that you had to print it out (or write it down) for him.  Hand him the following “horoscope”:  Today you will find joy beyond your wildest expectations.  Be generous with hugs and kisses to those you love. Plan carefully for an upcoming change that involves 10 little fingers and 10 little toes that will look a lot like YOU!  Your lucky day is [due date].
  • Send out invitations for an upcoming birthday party!  Example: Who: Johnson Family, When: on or around [due date] Thrown by: Mommy & Daddy or Big Brothers/Sisters

HOTTEST New Idea: Host a Gender Revealing Party!This is a such a FUN idea if Mommy & Daddy want to be surprised along with the rest of the crew! You ask your doctor to seal the answer of boy or girl inside an envelope, which you then deliver to a bakery or to a trusted family member who can make a cake with either pink or blue filling depending on the answer! Then at the party, you are in just as much suspense (times 50!) as everyone else as you cut into the cake.  Check out this seriously AWESOME example from our fellow blogger, Martha,  over at solovelycreations!  She used a colored M&M inside cupcakes for the same effect!

She invited friends and family to come dressed for the “Team” they were rooting for. So fun!

Martha also created some darling decorations using a hand print stamp and some creativity.

You can see ALL of her party’s babylicious details here!

  • Fill a baby bottle with formula and attach a tag that says, “Baby’s breakfast for {due date}.” Either give it as a gift or just leave it out on the counter for your “surprisee” to find!
  • Slip the exciting news into your blog posts in one way or another… Say your new favorite word is one you recently heard from the 18th century – “infanticipation” [Get it!?] Then elaborate after they scroll down to see your ultrasound pictures and smiling faces of mommy/daddy. (My sister just used this on us!)
  • Invite the ones you want to surprise over for dinner. Once everyone is seated, say to your husband, “I think you left something in the oven.” Then he’ll get up and pull out a pan from the oven with a cinnamon roll on it and say, “Yep, we have a bun in the oven!”

  • Take a picture of yourself in a cute little apron next to the open oven with a bun in it. Have a caption for the picture that says, “We’ve got a bun in our oven! It should be done baking this fall!” Email the photo to friends and family then save or jot down all the fun email replies.
  • Deliver a box of gender colored and decorated treats to the unsuspecting person. Simply say, “I brought you some goodies!” then wait for the reaction!

(Photo courtesy of Tiffany D.)

  • Create a onsie or that says, “I’m the #1 baby” or “Grandchild #___” and give them as a gift or purposely leave them out on top of the laundry to be noticed.
  • Remember that classic idea from a Full House episode (like my fav. childhood show!) where Rebecca makes a special dinner where each food was “baby”? Baby potatoes, baby corn, baby back ribs, etc.  Ask if they taste a theme with dinner. 🙂
  • Tape a picture of your ultrasound to your belly covered by a paper with an adorable smiley face on it. Walk into the room without saying a word and wait for him to check it out!
  • Go to morphthing.com and “morph” your face with your husband’s face. Print out the picture and ask your in-laws (or whoever you’re surprising) who the picture reminds them of… Of course you’ll answer it’s an idea of what your baby might look like!
  • Use washable blue and pink markers to write Baby On Board across your belly.  To surprise your husband, you could just wait until he find the message at bedtime or for family – if you have another child – you could arrange to have him/her “accidentally” lift up your shirt.
  • Give them this darling book and say, “It’s time to brush up on your tickling skills! There’s gonna be lots of opportunity soon!”

  • Depending on how far along you are, use this page to look up about what size your little baby is at that moment (i.e. poppyseed for 3-4 weeks along or a green pea for 6 weeks along.) Place an item that size in the hands of the person you’re surprising and say, “It’s incredible how something this size can change our lives so much… this is how big our baby is right now!!”
  • Order some personalized M&Ms that say “Baby” or “Baby on Board” and simply put them into a candy bowl and set them on the table for surprisees to grab some!  See how long it takes before they really look at them and get the message!
  • If it happens to be near Halloween, have an X-ray shirt made.  Or use a skeleton costume and add your own baby skeleton on the belly.  Here’s a peek at an example of this memorable costume!

(If you’d like more info on how to get a shirt like this or even for twins, just leave a comment.)

  • If it’s near the Christmas holidays, wrap up some generic baby items like a bottle, a rattle, etc. and place them under the tree in one pile so you can hand them out all at once to each member of the family you want to surprise.
  • Create a poem to read to your family that gives it away. One reader did this at Christmas with a twist on a classic.   She wrote “T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house not creature was stirring, not even a mouse. All the stockings were hung by the chimney with care… one for [first child] and[second child], but mine was not there. [1st child] was first, wild and free. [2nd child] was next, sweet as could be. I’m warm in mom’s tummy – though she doesn’t show. Who will I be?? In June we will know!!”
  • Send out a Christmas card in the form of a mock newspaper. Have different sections including the home, sports, travel, and health sections. Cleverly include your “bout with nausea” and slow but consistent weight gain. Mention you’re expecting a hospital stay on or around [due date.]
  • Posting on FB is definitely the way to spread the word the fastest… and the ways to say it are endless!  Update your status cleverly like “I’m sure craving mustard and ice cream these days!” or “Can everyone save their coupons for Babies R Us for me?” or ask your husband in your status “How should we decorate the nursery?”  You’re sure to get a LOT of comments on that post!

Last, but certainly not least {cuz this is sooo dang cute!} is the animated video idea!  Create a video you can post to everyone all at once on Facebook and send via email. One example I’ve seen is a video of a family putting a bun in the oven and all turning to the camera to give an exaggerated wink. Ha!  This other beautiful example was done by a friend of the divas from the perspective of the big-sister-to-be.  It’s daaaarling!  Take a look:

Thank you to all our readers who contributed your great ideas! If you have an idea you’d like to share, feel free to leave it in the comments! We would L.O.V.E to hear it!

PS!! Dont miss out on preparation for the baby shower! We have you all set!!!

Kiirsten

 Headshot

I am a vivacious diva with a passion for life and my roles as a wife, a mother, and friend.

Learn more about Kiirsten
Free 7-day Program

One week to a better marriage.

Sign up now and get our 7 Days of Love Program absolutely free!

Husbands or Wives
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

You Might Also Like

diamond iconWe love your comments

We LOVE hearing from our readers! Thanks for leaving us some love!

Recent Comments

  1. With our first one to tell my parents I made a paper chain and drew the fruit size for each week of Pregnancy and labeled the week. On the last one I wrote, hooray! Happy birthday baby! My mom loved it! And it have have the other grandchildren an opportunity to understand how big baby was.
    To tell my sister, I told my three year old niece first and then she begins how she loves all her baby cousins even the one in aunty Megan’s tummy.

  2. When I get pregnant for the second time, I’m probably going to have morning sickness again (or I can always fake it for effect). After a bout of morning sickness, of course when my husband’s around noticing my sickness, I’m going to tell him “Honey, I think I need to go to the hospital…in about 9 months!” Then, I’m going to show him the positive pregnancy test and watch his face change from concern to excitement!

  3. We will be going to Paris for our 4 year wedding anniversary. Everyone will be expecting the infamous Eiffel Tower picture, and when we do we’ll be holding a sign announcing the big news! Nobody knows! We will also be going to Disneyland Paris so we’re hoping to get a picture with Mickey announcing the news as well!

  4. We announced our little boys pregnancy (first baby) with the “realizing there are three people in this photo… Priceless!” (Unfortunately, he was stillborn). For our second baby, we gave family four carnations, one from each member of our family; Mommy, Daddy, Jonathan and Baby! When we had our third, we announced it with a tee shirt for my two year old daughter that read “this little love big is going to be a big sister!” Then we also had a gender revealing party for our third. We didn’t know the gender, either and it was a moment we will never forget! We cut into our cake to reveal a pink cake! Audrey is now 1! 😉

  5. So many cute ideas. I actually emailed The Dating Divas with a picture of what we did for our pregnancy announcement. We had our announcement made up looking like the cover of US Weekly magazine. We had lots of positive feedback from it. We also did a fun gender reveal with our parents and siblings, with a gender reveal cake. Hubby and I didn’t know either, we just gave the sealed envelope to the baker, which made it so special for all of us to find out the gender together. And it’s always nice to have an excuse for cake 🙂

    1. Courtnay can you please tell me what you used to do the US weekly magazine announcement!? They are so cute and I have just seen a small handful of them. Your feedback would be GREATLY appreciated!

  6. We sent flowers to grandmas/ grandpa’s, aunt’s and uncles saying you passed with flying colors the first go round do we’ve decided to give you a new grandbaby/niece/nephew. For extended friends and family I found a picture of a road sign “Bumb Ahead” on google and changed my profile picture to it. Didn’t answer any “comments” for days and it drove everyone nuts lol 🙂

  7. My husband and I still have the teddy bears we got when we were born, so I am going to buy one for our baby, take a pic with all three together and label them Daddy’s Bear, Mommy’s Bear, and Baby’s Bear and mail the pic to family. Then for our FB announcement we will have a pic of us with random items with a sign that says, “Willing to trade or sale for cloth diapers.”

  8. While not having any kids yet, I’m hoping to find out around Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Then, the family would receive greeting cards in relation to what they will become. Grandma/Grandpa, Aunt/Uncle, etc. This would also work for me around August since husband and I both have birthdays/anniversaries in our families that month.

  9. My husband is a complete country guy, I found a onesie that reads “My Daddy’s truck is bigger and louder than your Daddy’s!”

  10. We created a family tree starting with baby going up 5 generations. We put the birthday of baby as the due date. It was so funny watching my MIL and mom… they both just looked at the picture like “oh, that’s nice” and “you’ve worked really hard on gathering this information.” I was like, “Keep looking.” Then the squeals and jumping started. 🙂 It was a lot of fun.

  11. My husband competes in Strongman competitions and I found a baby shirt that says “My dad is stronger than your dad.” I’m going to wrap it, tell him the best presents come in small packages, and let him open it! 🙂

  12. Love these ideas!! We used a couple of them when telling our parents. All turned out so great! Now we have found out we are expecting twins and I would love a skeleton shirt!! The link you posted previously takes me to a page that says “Not found”…Do you have an updated link?

  13. My dad is a photographer, with his studio in the back of his house, so my husband and I surprised my parents at their house and said “we just stopped by to see if you could get pictures of the three of us real quick.” My dad replied “Where’s Lola?” (our dog), but my mom came running from the back of the house squealing with excitement!

  14. I ate so much peanut butter when I was pregnant with my first that her nickname is “Peanut Butter”. So even before we decided to try for a second, we referred to the baby as “Jelly”. When I found out I was pregnant, I told my husband by changing the label on the jelly jar in the fridge to read “Ready or not Daddy, here I come” and waited for him to find it. His reaction was amazing and I wish that I had had a video camera at the time!

  15. Such great ideas!

    For my first, it was right before my husband’s birthday. So I took him to his favorite restaurant for an early bday dinner. His “present” was a baby book and a card that looked like it came from a child that said “happy birthday, daddy!” 🙂 so fun!

    For our second, it was right before Christmas, so we made family pictures for our parents and had our son wearing the “i’m the big brother shirt” we passed them out as the last gifts and just waited for the response. It was hilarious!

    My husband travels with his job, so my next idea (for whenever it will be) is to greet him at the airport wearing a shirt that says “baby on board” or “coming this (fill in the season)” 🙂

  16. Super cute ideas!! I announced this 2nd pregnancy by making my daughter a shirt that said “Big Sister” for her to wear when my parents video chatted with us, then posted a picture of it for the rest of our family and friends to see a week later.
    I’m terrible at keeping secrets, and couldn’t even wait for my huisband to get home that day, I called him as he was driving to work (totally lame, I know). I was just way too excited 🙂

  17. For my second I made personalized family picture calendars with everyone’s birthday’s marked. I added a baby sticker and marked my due date and then just let them figure it out as they looked through them 🙂
    For the current baby we found out right before Father’s Day so I gave my dad and my father-in-law a frame with three openings. One for each child and a picture of a bun in the oven and the due date.
    Such cute ideas! I am going to have to do something fun for the gender reveal – hopefully we’ll find out in less than a week!

  18. I wrapped the pregnancy test like a gift and gave it to my husband. I told him it was something he’s always wanted and it was really expensive.

    He started to protest about buying something expensive for no reason until he opened up the box and saw what it was. Then he got teary and all emotional. Hahaha!

  19. Kiirst! I love this! I almost started crying when I read the adorable picture for announcing a baby on board! (dang these pregnancy emotions! lol) I think I might need to get me one of those skeleton shirts, they are too fun! Way to go girl, this post turned out fabulous!

  20. Dang, GINA!!!! 🙂 Kiirst, you did such a great job putting all of these together! I thought I had heard of MOST of them…..but there are a bunch in here that are brand new to me! Hopefully we will be able to use one of these ideas soon. 🙂

  21. I would love to figure out that skeleton shirt, also! I already have a skeleton outfit for my son, the big brother. It would be perfect if we could all go as a skeleton family!

  22. Love these ideas! When my husband and I were expecting our daughter we revealed the gender by making a Build-a-bear for each set of our parents (baby’s grandparents). It was such a fun date to make those adorable bears dressed in pink, and such a fun gift to give! Now our little girl has a special stuffed animal to play with at each grandparents house!

  23. So cute! My favorite was the “Priceless” themed picture. I love the gender reveal party! With our next baby we don’t want to find out what it is, so it gave me lots of ideas on how to reveal the sex of the baby. 🙂

  24. We took pictures of our two girls holding the numbers of their birth order saying we were teaching them numbers and placements for the oldest (1st, 2nd). Then there was a pic of me holding #3 and a pukey look on my face and said this is baby #3! I put the pictures on in a slideshow using Smilebox, then sent the email to family first. Once I knew they had opened it, I posted it on my blog and, since I don’t have FB, my mom posted it on her FB page! It was a ton of fun and Smilebox allows people to leave comments so that was really neat reading all the comments as well!

    Here’s the link to the post if you’re interested:
    https://monosenlacasa.blogspot.com/2011/05/great-way-to-teach-kids-numbers-and.html

  25. These are such fun ideas! I love how my sister’s friend announced on her blog. She is a big fan of the game Mad Gab so decided to make up her own! It said: “Conga Rat Chew Lay Timmy. Eye Half Abe Abe Ian Might Homey!” Super cute. =]

  26. We revealed to our friends by getting everyone together for a game night of Taboo. I’d specially pulled a few cards together (baby, child), and for the last one (bundle), I said “J and I are expecting a blank of joy in October” One of my friends shouted out “Bundle!”, looked really confused, and then “oh…OH!”

    For my friend who missed the game night, I got together with her for dinner, and since she’s an avid reader, I asked what she had been reading lately. When she asked me the same question back, I replied with “What to Expect when Your Expecting”

    Such cute ideas here for the next time around 🙂