Do you want to make sure the men will arrive AND stay at a baby shower? Make it a baby shower beer theme and you'll be just about sure they'll stay – and you'll probably have to drag them home!
This is a couple’s shower with a difference: the women can go all girly in one room and the men can chill out and not have to be part of the baby shower girliness in another. Specify this in the invitation, please! This is a baby shower for the daddy-to-be, you could say.
Specify that in order to get to the baby shower beer party, the daddies need to bring two things: a pack of diapers (cloth or disposable in medium size) and a six-pack. You'll provide the snacks, entertainment, and any extra beer that might be needed.
Give the guys a room of their own, away from any girly giggling and gossip. If your baby shower is happening during the World Series, Superbowl, or any other sports finals, then you're in luck. The entertainment doesn't need to be more than a big TV to keep the men happy, a ref full of chilled beer, and a buffet table set with snacks.
If the baby shower is set outside, give the men a cordoned-off area of their own with prominent signs saying “No Girls Allowed,” kind of like their boys clubhouses when they were kids. You could outfit it with card tables for poker or blackjack if it's their kind of thing. Have a hot grill handy nearby with a cooler filled with steaks, ribs, and sausages along with a selection of barbecue sauces, a pot of beans simmering and potatoes and rolls on the food table.
You could have other types of food available as well. Pizza, Buffalo Wings, and a cheezy potato casserole or baked potato skins with all the toppings would all be welcome to the guys. Desserts aren't really necessary since men don't normally have a sweet tooth, but there has not been a man alive that would refuse a chewy, fudgy, chocolate brownie.
You could also have a twist on their favorite root beer floats when they were kids be showing them how to make adult beer floats. Use a dark Irish or Canadian beer for this. Half-fill a float glass with a very chilled dark beer. Drop in two scoops of their choice of exceptional vanilla ice cream or dark chocolate ice cream. Slather the vanilla ice cream with a spoonful of orange blossom honey and the dark chocolate ice cream with a fudge sauce. Top it off with more beer and garnish with a gingersnap. Serve with a spoon and have some straws ready if requested.
Men do appreciate favors, too. Just remember that jellybeans in
a baby bottle would seem rather odd. Great guy favors would be their
own beer stein with their name etched on them, a coupon for a pizza
dinner or home-delivered snack, or season passes to a favorite sport.
You could even hand out monogrammed baseball caps in the colors
of the mommy-to-be's baby shower (unless, of course, it's pink).