The Very Best Ways to Do a Pregnancy Announcement to Family

We’ve all been there, mama! It’s time to announce the craziest crap of your life to the people that matter absolutely to most to you! Planning and pulling off your pregnancy announcement to family! And you thought adulting was stressful BEFORE you were going to have a BABY. Here’s the truth of it, you. We all went through it, and you’ll get through it too. Luckily, there are TONS AND TONS of resources to help you find fun pregnancy announcements for your family, including pregnancy announcements to parents, pregnancy announcement ideas for grandparents, and even ways to announce pregnancy at family dinner! Between the various options you have, which we’ll talk through together, I have no doubt you’ll find the perfect way to perform your pregnancy reveal without a hitch!

Pregnancy announcement to family

The long and short of it is this: birth announcements are stressful and scary. You have to decide how early you want to announce it, who you want to tell first, and how to make sure the information gets out in the order you want it to. Nothing is worse than telling someone lower down on the list and having your most important family finding out SECOND HAND. So be sure to be very strategic and incredibly clear about how and when you want to let others know. Related: Get your beautiful (and affordable!) pregnancy planner here!

Birth announcements

So what is a birth announcement? You can probably imagine, lady, but let’s be really clear. When a prospective mommy is prepared to share her truth with the world, she can do so in various ways. Some ladies choose to go with a formal pregnancy reveal, making it something like a graduation or marriage announcement.

Custom Puzzle Announcement Text

This ridiculously cute puzzle announcement is the perfect way to give a clever spin to something you’re sending by mail or an anonymous drop off. These announcements come in 12-, 30-, or 252-piece puzzles, which makes for an excellent variation of challenge to secure the reward! Don’t get too crazy, here. I think if you send everyone a 252-piece pregnancy announcement puzzle you might just get a lot of no-shows at your baby shower.

Custom Gold Foil Scratch Off Announcement Card

This beautiful and elegant scratch-off announcement card features multiple options in envelope colors to set the mood for a beautiful, hand-painted dove carrying a golden balloon. In true sweepstakes fashion, recipients are prompted to scratch off the gold foil with a coin in order to learn the secret message within!

Pop-up 3d Crib Announcement Card

This beautiful and inventive 3d pop-up announcement card is typically intended for the birth announcement, but you can absolutely use it to announce the pregnancy, too! This ridiculously clever little card is hand made and comes with an envelope wrapped in cellophane to protect the delicate construction. More often than not, folks choose to go with the funny pregnancy announcement ideas. This can happen in person or on social media. Typically, I’d recommend you get the information to your closest family in person, and then get creative with ways to announce pregnancy on social media only if and when all your nearest and dearest already know. Related: The BEST Pregnancy Nutrition Books

Pregnancy reveal ideas

At a very high level, here are a few pregnancy reveal ideas:

• Pregnancy announcement at family dinner–use props or objects to let your immediate family find the answer for themselves, using items such as custom t-shirts, printed mugs or dinnerware, or a dessert made to order that unveils the message naturally throughout the course of dinner.
• Announce pregnancy during a family activity–use props or custom printed objects to reveal without saying a word; it can be during a picnic or a family reunion or even a day out at the family’s favorite park or camp site.
• Pregnancy announcement during a family meeting–this is typically less creative and more straight-forward, since it’s hard to gather for a family meeting without it being pretty important to disclose the nature of the meeting in advance. You can still get creative by throwing a red herring to lead the family down their own (wrong) conclusions (“We’re really struggling in our marriage and we would like some advice” or “we have some serious news to share”).

Once you’ve sorted through the creative pregnancy announcement ideas in person and have pinned down how to tell your family that you’re pregnant, it’s time to also consider ways to announce pregnancy on social media. That’ll come later though, so let’s do one thing at a time!

Ways to announce pregnancy to family in person

Sometimes, mama, the hardest thing we can do is to start the difficult message in person. Once you get rolling, it’s easy to continue, but getting those first syllables out at the right time and the right place can be CRAZY TOUGH. That’s why I think we like to have clever little devices that start the conversation without our having to force it. Luckily, it makes for ridiculous amounts of fun, too! How you announce pregnancy to your family in person is definitely a very personal choice, but you have TONS of options. Related: What About Your Gender Reveal?!

Creative pregnancy announcements

Sometimes the creative baby announcement ideas are the hardest to pull off. More often than not, they’re also the most breathtaking and entertaining. When you think about it, there are few things as awesome as plotting out the moves that allow your dearest family members to work out a puzzle for THEMSELVES. The look they’ll get in their eyes the moment they know is absolutely PRICELESS. Try to have a camera ready!

Puzzle Picnic

Invite the family over for a picnic or a game night, and plant seeds all over the yard or game room. This could be letter by letter reveals that you don’t preface or explain at all. Give your family the chance to discover and drive the puzzle all by themselves. You can do this through DIY pregnancy announcement clues such as single letters written on the bottom of the paper plates and Solo cups, or by buying printed products like custom mugs or engraved silverware.

Pregnancy Reveal Hike

Take your family on a tour of your favorite mountain climb or nature trail. Blaze the trail in advance with a special color of ribbon, and plant pieces of the puzzle along the way. I LOVE the idea of using little collectible souvenirs that your family can share and keep. Custom message in a bird’s egg This is a great option because you can buy multiple of these adorable little eggs with a message inside of them. Get creative with how you divide the message and make sure to point your fellow travelers to the hidden clues if they’re likely to skirt right past. This could also be some custom printed items that are person to your family, or something more artistic and hand-crafted, such as wood-burned media or hand-carved art.

Bringing your pregnancy reveal together

Use one of these settings to bring your family on a journey that gives them pieces of the puzzle, either letter-by-letter, phonetically, or even using symbols that only your family will know and understand (maybe based on birth stories your parents always told). Take this journey with one partner’s family or both together if you have a small, close-knit group or wish to forge some additional relationships and bonds. One important thing to remember, mama, is to keep a close eye on how much your family is STRUGGLING. If they just aren’t getting it, there’s zero harm in helping them with the clues. Remember, you KNOW what all this stuff means, so it’s easy to take for granted that they should be able to figure it out. Related: First Trimester Survival Guide

Cute pregnancy announcements

If you’re not so interested in taking the time or effort to create an elaborate hunt or puzzle for your family, there are plenty of ways to give them the chance to find the answer for themselves without getting too crazy. Let’s be honest, not everyone has time to go blaze a trail in the mountains. If this sounds easier and more like you, consider what small cute hints you can give your family, maybe the moment you walk in the door for dinner at mom and dad’s or throughout the evening in slow layers.

Matching custom shirts

If you take the time to print a few custom clothing items and wear them as a family, they’ll all get the message piecemeal and in different orders, especially if you dress in layers. Whether dressed in clothes with separate and complete messages or something that works in concert, it will take a little time for them to find the message and that discovery moment will be worth all the tea in China!

Straight forward pregnancy announcements

If you don’t want to worry about making it a journey and just want to rip the band-aid off, consider these clever and adorable pregnancy announcement printed shirts designed to just drop the bomb the moment anyone bothers to actually stop and read what’s written on your chest. You can’t really ever go wrong with something cute that communicates the exciting news, especially if you double up with both daddy and mommy and even the extra little ones (if you’re so lucky as to be having a second or more).

Ways to announce pregnancy to family at dinner

Family dinner presents a very easy opportunity to plant your information. You can get really clever with it or just be cute and straight forward, just like the activities from before.

Before dinner pregnancy announcement

Consider the rituals your family observes around family dinner. Is everyone packed into the kitchen, helping bring everything together last minute? If so, seed the kitchen with bits and pieces of the message. Act as puzzled as everyone else when small hints begin to emerge–even blame your little brother or sister for causing mischief when everyone’s so hungry. Does the whole family settle in for a movie or a sport game while the last dishes bake? If so, accidentally change the channel to a computer input that has a secret message or a hinting background while all eyes are on the TV. Repeat this as many times as is necessary to get someone to clue in.

Pregnancy reveal during dinner

Probably the easiest and most diverse way to announce pregnancy is during dinner. Custom printed plates are one easy way to go. It requires everyone to finish their food before the messages begin to show up. This is great for slow reveal, since everyone eats at different pace. It is hard to pull off, though, because all your guests must be dished up in advance instead of selecting their own plate and helping themselves. So if you go this direction, definitely fill the table RESTAURANT style. It will add an air of formality but that will also create some dramatic tension unless this is always how you serve your family dinner. The other idea is to get that custom message at the bottom of the serving plates and trays INSTEAD. As food disappears, the message slowly materializes. It then becomes a game to keep eating or serving others until all the food is gone. Be sure the punchline is at the bottom of dessert, or the biggest serving tray. A casserole like cheesy potatoes (funeral potatoes) is a good way to go, as everyone eats WAY too much of them and there’s never enough leftovers. Another one I think is really fun is to keep the message on a bunch of little folded slips of paper in your pocket, and randomly start circulating them before and during dinner. Privately say someone else asked you to give them this paper (“Mom said you would need this” and “Bobby asked me to give this to you”, etc.). Just be sure the person you’re blaming can’t see or hear.  Eventually someone will be curious and start sharing, and then it’s just a question of how and when it all comes together.

After-the-fact pregnancy announcement

If you want to have a normal night and rock everyone’s world afterward, use some adorable little custom serving plates to dish up and divvy out the left-overs, or make some small send-home desserts that you make sure everyone gets. Related: Signs You Need to Call Your OBGYN Related: Podcast: All Things Pregnancy, from Red Raspberry Tea to Maneuvering Breech Babies

Birth announcement wording

Sometimes the hardest thing is figuring out how to word your puzzles or teasers. Not everyone has a knack for words, so here are a few ideas that you can use to help string your family along when you reveal your pregnancy.

• He and me plus my tummy makes THREE!
• With what’s cooking in my oven, one plus one isn’t 2 but 3!
• What was “he and me” in nine months will then be three.
• I have been catty and he can be bratty, but after what’s coming we’ll be mommy and a daddy!
• Never thought we’d procreate? Stop your fretting ’cause I’M REALLY LATE!

Fun ways to announce pregnancy to parents

One of the very best birth announcement ideas will definitely always be the pregnancy announcement to parents. This can also be the scariest, mama. I don’t know about you, but I have trouble deciding if revealing to my mom or his mom was worse, but it’s SOOO exciting and SOOO much fun. So when you’re considering how the baby announcement should go with mom and dad, definitely think about what’s most personal to them and what will get them the most excited. There are three things to consider with the delivery method of your message.

• How physically taxing is it? Do your parents have special health considerations?
• Wording, which you can mix and match to hit the parental target best.
• How OBVIOUS you have to get with them (love them all, but sometimes parents can be a little thick).

Clever ways to announce pregnancy to parents

Think about the different types of events you’re most likely to get both your parents involved and engaged in. A friend of mine can basically guarantee her in-laws will show up if it’s golf, water power sports, or cheesy green beans and potato casserole (funeral potatoes). Knowing that gives them huge clues into how to target the message and activity to the needs of their audience. It might be messages written on a golf balls, something hand-written on the inner-tubes or boogie boards for water sports, or small bits of laminated paper baked into the casserole (just be careful they aren’t so small as to get swallowed).

Pregnancy announcement ideas for grandparents

Considering your audience, be sure to make it simple and bring less technology into the equation. A good pregnancy reveal to grandparents is pretty straight forward and uncomplicated, so you can spend the majority of the time CELEBRATING. Pregnancy announcement ideas for grandparents can include a simple dessert and enough clues to fill the space of twenty minutes, or a cute little video they can watch without having to get TOO involved. After all, you want to make it progressively easier the more their health has degraded. Related: Doula vs. Midwife

Second pregnancy announcement

If this isn’t your first, it’s incredibly fun to involve your first child or children in the reveal process. You can get some really adorable printed outfits that will allow you to use your kiddo(s) as a piece of the puzzle or the punchline to it all.

Second birth announcement wording

Here are a few different options for how to word the announcement or puzzle for your second baby, including your first child or children in the message. I was Solo but now I’ll lead a squadron (star wars) If I don’t turn to the Dark Side then perhaps he/she will (star wars) Big brother-in-training / Big sister-in-training I’m with fetus (arrow pointing at mom’s belly) Thing 1 (Thing 2 pending) I’m being promoted to Big Brother/Sister Mom is making a minion for me I won’t need a plastic baby anymore, starting (due date)

Pregnancy announcements – Conclusions

As with all things pregnancy, this is probably a new and scary territory for you, mama. You’ll get used to all the new and insane things that come with pregnancy, and hopefully this small celebration will help fuel you for the weeks and months to come. Have faith in yourself and make sure you really do CELEBRATE this event with your closest family and friends. It’s an amazing journey and taking the time to have fun with your pregnancy announcement to family is a sure way to start this incredible and life-changing process! Happy baby-making, mama! Related: Top Questions Answered About Sex During Pregnancy Related: Best Stretch Mark Creams During Pregnancy