If I hadn’t experienced pregnancy during a global pandemic, I’m not sure that I would have participated in a sex reveal. It always seemed like an odd concept to me- celebrating a baby’s genitalia, but alas, I wanted to be able to share the news with our family in a fun way.

We decided to do our reveal with silly string– a good idea in theory, but we got dud cans. It worked for us, but if you’re looking for a flashier, more exciting approach to your sex reveal here are some non-traditional ideas for you!

1. Special order M&Ms in the color of your choosing! This is a subtle way of sharing the news whether you’re putting them gumball machine or bagging them to send to friends and family. Plus, this way everyone gets a treat!
2. Utilize the season you’re in or upcoming holidays! If it’s snowy, dye some fun snowballs and throw them at each other. If you’re announcing around Halloween, carve a pumpkin creatively! There are many ways to use what’s going on around you to utilize in a meaningful way!
3. Get everyone involved with the present game- have everyone in your family participate to open up a box with a cute “boy” or “girl” outfit. We used to play this at my birthday parties growing up so I feel like this would be a very nostalgic way to share the news. To me, the present game is when you have a present wrapped in a bunch of wrapping paper and pass it around like musical chairs.
4. Cotton Candy! Maybe I’ve just gotten sucked into cotton candy Tik Tok, but I think it would be so fun to have someone pour the sugar in the machine and have a surprise color reveal! This would be more elaborate than your standard cake cutting and would really be different. All you would need is to either rent or buy a machine and the proper color of sugar (blue or pink is easiest to detect but they also have a bunch of other colors too). Also, how yummy!
5. Colored Sparklers! Now, I made this up, and if it’s not linked I’m sorry I gave you false hope in something different. However, I know that you can have colorful flamed birthday candles and fireworks exist, so this should too! I love sparklers and I think they should be used year-round and not just at the 4th of July celebrations, so I think this would be a fun way to announce! You could even take some cool pictures spelling out “Baby Boy” or “Baby Girl.” These bottle sparklers are the closest thing I could find to what I was picturing- let me know if you know of anything closer!

Let me know how you decided to announce your baby’s sex! I know that sex reveal and gender reveal are oftentimes utilized interchangeably, but it is important to note that gender is a social construct while sex is the genitalia you baby has. For us personally, it was a great way to share the news with our friends and family while we are quarantined and weren’t seeing a lot of people! Don’t feel like it’s something you have to do because everyone is doing it.

If you have any other out-of-the-box ideas, share them in the comments!

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