Quick answer
Baby shower Family Feud is two teams guessing the most popular answers to survey questions like “name something a new parent never has enough of.” The part most hosts skip is the survey itself. Send five to eight questions to the guest list about two weeks out, tally the replies, and the answers on your board will be real, which is what makes the guessing fun.
Parenting forums are full of hosts with the questions written, begging strangers for answers to put on the board. That gets it backwards. The game is guessing what this crowd said, so survey your own guests and the board writes itself. This guide covers how to run that survey, how to tally it honestly, and how to play it in about 25 minutes (our estimate).
Not affiliated with the TV show. We borrow the format, not the name.
Why made-up answers fall flat
On the show, the host reads a question that was previously put to a group of 100 people, and the hidden answers are ranked by how many of them gave each one. Teams aren’t trying to be right. They’re trying to think like the room.
Invent the answers yourself and guests are reading your mind instead, and every reveal becomes an argument about whether “burp cloths” should beat “wipes.” With real replies, the tally settles it.
Your guests already know the answers. They just don’t know they wrote them.
Running the survey, start to finish
Two weeks out to party day
- Build a short form (14 days out). Google Forms is free and handles this well: one short-answer question per survey prompt. Put this line at the top: Answer with the first thing that comes to mind, one to three words.
- Send it to everyone invited. Including people who can’t come: more replies make a better board. Put the link in your RSVP reminder.
- Leave the guest of honour off the list. She gets to play cold, which is half the fun.
- Close it five days before the party. Allow an hour for the tally. You don’t want to be doing it the night before.
- Tally the replies (see the rules below), then make the board. Google can link the responses to a spreadsheet, so you can sort each question’s column alphabetically and count the repeats.
Guests who answered can still play: they’re guessing what everyone said, not what they said. Wording for the reminder is in what to put on a baby shower invitation.
How many replies you need
The number of replies sets how big your boards can be. The show only lists an answer if at least two people in the survey gave it. We use the same floor, since an answer only one person gave tells you nothing about the crowd. The table is our rule of thumb for sizing boards around that floor. The show doesn’t publish anything like it.
| Replies | Answers per board | Questions to use |
|---|---|---|
| Under 10 | Too thin for a board | Run the live survey below instead |
| 10 to 19 | 3 or 4 | 5, the ones that clustered best |
| 20 to 39 | 4 or 5 | 5 or 6 |
| 40 or more | 5 to 7, close to TV | 6 to 8 |
Send two or three more questions than you plan to use. Some will scatter, with every reply different, and those get cut.
Tallying without fudging
Four rules for an honest board
- Merge true synonyms only. “Nap,” “rest” and “sleep” are one answer. “Time” and “patience” are two.
- Drop anything with a single vote. That’s the show’s two-person floor, and it keeps the board about the crowd.
- Points equal votes. Each answer scores one point per person who gave it, the way the show does. If you’d like TV-style numbers, multiply by 100 and divide by the number of replies.
- Write the merges down. When someone shouts “Rest!” on the day, your note tells you whether it counts.
Here is a worked example of the arithmetic. The numbers are invented to show the method. They aren’t real survey data. Question: Name something a new parent never has enough of. Imagine 24 replies:
| Answer (after merging) | Votes | Scaled to 100 |
|---|---|---|
| Sleep (incl. nap, rest) | 9 | 38 |
| Coffee | 5 | 21 |
| Diapers | 4 | 17 |
| Hands | 2 | 8 |
| Wipes | 2 | 8 |
| Time, patience | 1 each | Dropped |
The visible answers add up to 92, not 100. That’s normal: the show’s totals often don’t add up to 100 for the same reason.
Questions that cluster, and questions that scatter
A good question gets lots of people giving the same few answers. A bad one gets twenty different replies, and no board.
Clusters well
- “Name something…” with a handful of obvious answers
- Shared experience: baby gear, night feeds, cravings
- Answers that fit in one to three words
- Gently funny, safe for a grandmother
Scatters or stings
- Numbers (“How many diapers a day?”), because the replies spread out
- Yes/no questions, which give you a two-answer board
- Facts about the mom-to-be (that’s a different game)
- Labour, bodies, or anything she’d rather not hear read aloud
Questions about the parents themselves belong in How Well Do You Know Mommy?, which suits them much better.
Eight survey questions to send
- Name something a new parent never has enough of.
- Name something people buy for a baby that the baby ignores.
- Name a food pregnant people famously crave.
- Name something you’d find at the bottom of a diaper bag.
- Name a reason a baby might be crying at 3am.
- Name a popular baby name from the last few years.
- Name something a dad-to-be is secretly nervous about.
- Name a song people sing to get a baby to sleep.
Playing it on the day
Split the room into two teams and seat each one together. The rounds work like the show’s, scaled down to a living room:
- Face-off. One player from each side, and the first to slap the table answers. Higher answer wins control.
- Play or pass. The team in control takes turns guessing the remaining answers.
- Three strikes. Three misses and the other team gets one try to steal the round’s points.
- Board. Poster board with sticky notes over each answer works fine. So do slides on the TV, revealed one at a time.
Our estimate is 20 to 25 minutes for five rounds. That’s a big chunk of the party, so look at how many games to plan before you add more. Feud makes a good closer because it ends with a winning team. Prize ideas are in baby shower game prizes.
No time for a survey? Run it live. Hand every guest a slip with three of the questions as they arrive. Collect the slips before gifts and tally them in the kitchen while presents are opened. You’ll get smaller boards, but the answers will be real, and you can play once the gifts are done.
Fast Money for the parents-to-be
Want a finale? On the show, two players answer the same five questions separately and try to reach 200 points combined. At a shower, send one parent out of the room, have the other answer five survey questions in 20 seconds, then bring the first one back to try. Set the goal at about half your scaled total and the room will be rooting for them.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use answers I found online?
You can, but you’re playing a different game. Teams end up guessing a stranger’s opinion instead of their own group’s. Even a 10-minute live survey at the party works better.
Does this work at a virtual shower?
Yes. Send the survey the same way, share a slide board on screen, and let each team’s captain unmute to answer. Setup tips are in virtual baby shower games.
How many people do you need to play?
At least six, so you can make two teams of three. It scales well past 30, since only two players are up at any time in each face-off.