Who Knows Mommy Best

I have hosted enough baby showers to know exactly when the room changes. It is not the gift table and it is not the cake. It is the moment somebody reads out “what was her first word” and the mum-to-be’s own sister gets it wrong.

That is the whole appeal of the Who Knows Mommy Best baby shower game. It looks like a quiz and it plays like one, but what it actually does is separate the people who genuinely know her from the people who have been nodding along politely for eleven years.

So here is the full question bank I use, the free printable, and a version you can play on screen that keeps score and settles the tie for you.

How to play

The rules are almost insultingly simple, which is why the game works at any shower, at any size, with any crowd.

Before the party, the mum-to-be answers the questions herself. Her answers become the answer key, and nobody else sees them. At the shower, you read each question out, guests write down what they think she said, and then you reveal her real answer. A point for every guest who matched her. Most points at the end wins.

That is it. No props, no preparation beyond the answer key, and no reason for anyone to leave their seat.

The one thing I would push you on: get her answers in advance. Nearly every version of this game hands you a blank sheet and expects you to chase the mum-to-be down and hand-write her answers into it. It is the most annoying part of the whole thing, and it is why the game so often gets abandoned an hour before guests arrive. The tool on this page lets her fill hers in on a phone in about four minutes, and then prints the key already completed.

How many questions should you ask?

Ten to fifteen. I know that sounds low.

The temptation is to use every question you like, and then you are twenty-five questions deep, the trifle is going soft, and two people have quietly started a separate conversation. Ten good questions takes about fifteen minutes and ends while everyone still wishes there were more. That is the correct place to stop.

If your shower is large, cut to eight and make them the funny ones.

Ready-Made Printable

Editable Version

Who Knows Mommy Best questions

This is the part everyone actually comes for, so here is the whole bank. I have split it by type, because a good round mixes them. All easy questions and the game is boring. All obscure ones and everybody scores zero, which is somehow worse.

Swap “Mommy” for her actual name, or for Mama, Mum, or whatever your family says. It reads better and it stops the game sounding like a greetings card.

All about her

The bread and butter of the game. Safe, warm, and the ones her oldest friends should be sweeping.

• What is Mommy’s favourite ice cream flavour?
• What is Mommy’s favourite meal?
• What is Mommy’s favourite colour?
• What is Mommy’s coffee order?
• What is Mommy’s middle name?
• How old is Mommy?
• Where was Mommy born?
• What was Mommy’s first job?
• What is Mommy’s dream holiday?
• What is Mommy’s biggest fear?
• What is Mommy’s favourite season?
• What is Mommy’s go-to takeaway?
• What show could Mommy watch on repeat?
• What is Mommy’s hidden talent?
• How many siblings does Mommy have?
• What is Mommy’s star sign?
• What is Mommy’s favourite film?
• What is Mommy’s karaoke song?
• What is Mommy’s least favourite chore?
• What was the name of Mommy’s first pet?
• What is Mommy’s favourite way to relax?
• What is Mommy’s guilty pleasure snack?
• What is Mommy’s shoe size?
• What is Mommy’s favourite flower?
• Which app does Mommy use the most?
• What is Mommy’s favourite book?
• What is the last thing Mommy bought for the baby?
• What three words would Mommy use to describe herself?

The pregnancy

These separate the friends who have been checking in weekly from the ones who liked the announcement post and moved on. They also tend to produce the best answers, because she has been living this for months.

• What has been Mommy’s biggest craving?
• What food can Mommy suddenly not stand?
• When is Mommy’s due date?
• How much does Mommy think the baby will weigh?
• What was Mommy’s very first symptom?
• Who did Mommy tell first?
• How did Mommy find out she was pregnant?
• Which baby item is Mommy most excited about?
• What has been the hardest part of the pregnancy?
• What is Mommy most looking forward to?
• What is Mommy most nervous about?
• What time of day is the baby most active?
• What does Mommy miss most?
• How many weeks pregnant is Mommy right now?
• What has Mommy eaten the most of this pregnancy?
• What is Mommy’s favourite thing about being pregnant?
• How many names were on Mommy’s shortlist?
• What song has Mommy played to the bump?

When she was little

My favourite category, and the one that needs a small conspiracy. Text her mum a week early and get the real answers. Half the fun is watching the mum-to-be herself get corrected by her own mother in front of a room. These are the Who Knows Mommy Best trivia questions in the truest sense, because nobody can reason their way to them.

• What did Mommy want to be when she grew up?
• What was Mommy’s favourite subject at school?
• Where did Mommy grow up?
• What was Mommy’s childhood nickname?
• What was Mommy’s favourite toy?
• Is Mommy the oldest, youngest or middle child?
• What was Mommy’s first word?
• How much did Mommy weigh when she was born?
• What sport or hobby did Mommy do as a kid?
• What is Mommy’s worst childhood haircut story?
• What was Mommy like as a baby, according to her mum?
• What was Mommy’s first concert?

Funny Who Knows Mommy Best questions

Every round needs a few of these. They are the ones people repeat in the car on the way home, and they are the reason the game gets remembered rather than merely played. If you only have room for eight questions, make four of them Who Knows Mommy Best questions funny enough to get a reaction out of the back row.

A word of warning, because I have watched this go wrong. The who knows Mommy best funny questions should be funny about her habits, not about her body, her age, or how the baby was conceived. Her grandmother is in the room. Keep it to the first category.

• What is Mommy always losing?
• What is Mommy’s most annoying habit?
• What is the last thing Mommy googled?
• What would Mommy do with a free hour and no baby?
• What is Mommy genuinely terrible at?
• How long does Mommy really take to get ready?
• What is Mommy’s most-used emoji?
• What will Mommy definitely say in the delivery room?
• What is guaranteed to make Mommy cry?
• How many cups of tea or coffee does Mommy have a day?
• What habit will Mommy happily blame on the baby?
• What does Mommy do when nobody is watching?
• What is the one chore Mommy will absolutely delegate?
• What is Mommy secretly hoping nobody bought her?

Would she rather questions

This is a different mechanic and it deserves its own round. Instead of writing an answer from scratch, guests choose between two options, and they have to pick the one they think she would pick.

Would she rather questions are the great equaliser. Played as would she rather, Who Knows Mommy Best stays winnable for a guest who has only known her three years, because a fifty-fifty guess is always within reach. The open questions reward the people who really know her. Mixing the two is what stops one person running away with it by question four.

I would not build a whole game out of them, though. A Who Knows Mommy Best would she rather round of four or five, dropped into the middle, is exactly the right dose.

• Would Mommy rather have a night out or a night in?
• Would Mommy rather give up coffee or chocolate?
• Would Mommy rather have a lie-in or an early night?
• Would Mommy rather a beach holiday or a city break?
• Would Mommy rather cook or order in?
• Would Mommy rather never fold laundry again or never wash a dish again?
• Would Mommy rather do the night feeds or the nappy changes?
• Would Mommy rather be too hot or too cold?
• Would Mommy rather sweet or savoury?
• Would Mommy rather lose her phone or her keys?
• Would Mommy rather read a book or watch a film?
• Would Mommy rather have a big party or a quiet dinner?
• Would Mommy rather a bath or a shower?
• Would Mommy rather have a spotless house or a full fridge?
• Would Mommy rather get up early or stay up late?
• Would Mommy rather have a pram that folds itself or a bottle that washes itself?
• Would Mommy rather a quiet baby who never sleeps or a loud baby who sleeps through?
• Would Mommy rather do the school run every day or every bedtime?

Who Knows Mommy and Daddy Best

If the dad-to-be is at the shower, and more of them are these days, play the both-parents version.

The Who Knows Mommy and Daddy Best game works exactly the same way. The difference is that the questions alternate between them, so one is about her and the next is about him, and both of them fill in their own answers beforehand. Guests are no longer being tested on how well they know the mum-to-be. They are being tested on how well they know the couple, which is a harder and funnier thing to be tested on.

Who Knows Mommy and Daddy Best questions are just the questions above, redirected. What is Daddy’s coffee order. What was Daddy’s childhood nickname. What is Daddy most nervous about. The Who Knows Mommy and Daddy Best funny questions work especially well on him, because in my experience the dad-to-be has spent the entire pregnancy being asked how she is doing and nobody has asked him a single thing.

The tool has a toggle for this. Turn on “ask about both parents”, type in his name, and it alternates the questions and keeps one combined scoreboard. It will also produce the Who Knows Mommy and Daddy Best printable with both sets of answers on the key, if you would rather play it on paper. That printable Who Knows Mommy and Daddy Best sheet costs nothing, and the Who Knows Mommy and Daddy Best free printable is the same file whether you play on screen first or not.

One thing to keep straight, because people mix these up. This is not the game where you decide which parent is more likely to do something, like who will lose the dummy first or who will cry on the first day of school. That is a separate game with a separate question style, and it is a genuinely great one. It lives on the mommy or daddy baby shower game page.

The free printable

Some showers should not have a phone in the middle of them, and I have never once regretted having paper as a backup.

The free printable Who Knows Mommy Best game prints two sheets. The first is the guest sheet, with your chosen questions numbered and a line under each one to write on, which is the sheet you photocopy for everyone. The second is the answer key, and this is the part that is different. Because the mum-to-be has already typed her answers in, the key prints out already filled in. You are not chasing her round the kitchen with a pen an hour before her own shower.

Print the guest sheets in black and white on ordinary paper. There is no reason to spend money here. A sheet that everybody writes on and then throws away does not need to be beautiful.

The PDF, the template, and the printable questions

People search for this in about six different ways and then land somewhere that only offers one of them, so let me be plain about what you get.

Press print and the tool makes a Who Knows Mommy Best PDF with two pages. Page one is the questions, page two is her answers. That single file is both halves of the game, and it is the same Who Knows Mommy Best questions PDF whether you play on screen first or never start a round at all.

If you only want the Who Knows Mommy Best free printable, pick your questions and hit print without starting a game. You will get the Who Knows Mommy Best printable game and the completed key. That is the entire Who Knows Mommy Best free PDF, with no email address and no sign-up.

Some people want a Who Knows Mommy Best template instead, meaning they would rather change the questions than take mine as they are. You can. Add your own in the tool before you print, and the Who Knows Mommy Best game template becomes yours. Whether you think of the result as a Who Knows Mommy Best questions template, a Who Knows Mommy Best game printable, or a Who Knows Mommy Best questions printable, it is the same two pages coming out of the printer.

And if you want printable Who Knows Mommy Best questions with nothing filled in at all, that works too. Skip the answer key step, print the printable Who Knows Mommy Best game, and let her answer out loud on the day.

How to settle a tie

Two people will finish level. It happens more often than you would think, because the sister and the best friend usually both know her extremely well, and this is the exact moment the game normally dies in an awkward shrug.

So have a tie breaker ready and make it a number, because numbers cannot be argued with. How many hours was she in labour, or how many does she think it will be. How many baby outfits are already folded in the nursery. How many photos of the bump are on her phone. Closest guess wins, and there is no debate, because there is nothing to debate.

The scoring version of the tool does this automatically. If two guests tie, it produces a numeric tie breaker, takes both guesses, takes her real answer, and awards it to whoever was closest.

Playing it virtually

The game works over video call better than most shower games, because it needs nothing but voices and a scoreboard.

Share your screen, read the question out, and give everyone a beat to write their guess on whatever paper is nearest. Reveal her answer, ask for honest hands, and mark the scores. Of all the baby shower games, Who Knows Mommy Best is one of the very few that loses nothing in translation to a screen, and if half the guest list is in another country, this is the one I would build the shower around.

What this game is called

People search for this in a dozen ways and half of them arrive convinced they are looking for something else, so here is the whole family in one place.

Who Knows Mommy the Best, with a “the”, is the same game. The Who Knows Mommy the Best questions are the questions above, and the Who Knows Mommy the Best game plays identically. Who Knows Mommy To Be Best is the same again, and if you came looking for Who Knows Mommy To Be Best questions, you have found them. So is Who Knows Mom Best, which is simply what you get when the family says Mom rather than Mommy.

Then there is the how well family. How well do you know the mommy to be, how well do you know Mommy, how well do you know the mom to be, and the how well do you know mom quiz are all describing this exact format: she answers, they guess, closest wins.

Quiz, trivia, or game? Quiz is the most accurate word, since there are correct answers and a winner. Trivia is what people say when they want the obscure childhood ones. Game is what everybody actually says out loud on the day. If you came here for a Who Knows Mommy Best quiz, this is it, and whatever the Who Knows Mommy Best game questions were called on the page you came from, the format underneath does not change. It is the same Who Knows Mommy Best shower game either way.

The only one on that list that is genuinely a different game is Mommy or Daddy, linked above. Everything else is this.

More baby shower games

At a baby shower, Who Knows Mommy Best does one job very well, and you will want two or three others around it. Pair it with a quiet game and a loud one. The quiet games work while people eat, and the loud ones work when energy dips around the middle.

These are the ones I keep coming back to:

• Baby shower bingo, which plays itself while she opens the gifts
• Baby shower trivia, for the crowd who want to compete properly
• Baby shower word scramble and word search, the two to have on the table as people arrive
• The Price Is Right baby shower game, which is always funnier than it sounds
• Baby shower emoji game, the fastest one to explain
• Diaper raffle, which is less a game and more a very effective trick

And if you are still assembling the day itself, the baby shower checklist is the thing I wish somebody had handed me the first time I did this.

The honest truth about this game is that it is not really a test of memory. It is a room full of people, one at a time, saying out loud that they have been paying attention to her. That is worth fifteen minutes of anybody’s afternoon.

What is the Who Knows Mommy Best game?

It is a baby shower quiz about the mum-to-be. She answers a set of questions about herself in advance, guests try to guess what she said, and whoever matches her most often wins. It takes about fifteen minutes and everyone can play from their seat.

What are the best questions for Who Knows Mommy Best?

Mix three types. Easy ones that most guests will get, like her favourite meal or her coffee order. Harder ones that reward the people who really know her, like her first word or her childhood nickname. And a few funny ones, like what she is always losing, because those are the ones people remember. The full question bank on this page is sorted into exactly those groups.

How many questions should the game have?

Ten to fifteen. It is tempting to use more, but the game is best when it ends while people still want another round. If your shower is large, cut it to eight and pick the funniest ones.

Who fills in the answers?

The mum-to-be, before the party, and nobody else looks. Her answers become the answer key. If she has not had time, she can simply answer each one out loud as you go and the host marks the scores, which works perfectly well and needs no preparation at all.

Is there a free printable?

Yes. The tool prints a guest sheet with your chosen questions and a line to write on, plus the answer key. The key prints already filled in with her real answers, so you are not hand-writing them in the night before. Print it in black and white on plain paper.

What is the difference between Who Knows Mommy Best and Mommy or Daddy?

Different question style entirely. In this game there is one correct answer that only she knows, and guests try to match it. In Mommy or Daddy, guests choose which parent is more likely to do something, like who will change more nappies. They pair well together at the same shower, and I would play this one first.

Can you play the Who Knows Mommy and Daddy Best version?

Yes. Turn on the both-parents toggle and the questions alternate between them, so one is about her and the next is about him. Both parents fill in their own answers beforehand and the scoreboard stays combined. It is harder than the solo version, and the dad-to-be usually enjoys finally being asked something.

What are would she rather questions?

They are two-option questions, like whether she would rather give up coffee or chocolate, where guests pick the one they think she would pick. They keep newer friends in the game, because a fifty-fifty guess is always in reach, so I would always include a few among the open questions rather than a whole round of them.

What happens if two guests tie?

Ask a tie breaker with a number for an answer, like how many photos of the bump are on her phone, and give it to whoever guesses closest. Numbers cannot be argued with. The scoring version of the tool generates a tie breaker for you and settles it automatically.

Can you play it over video call?

Yes, and it is one of the best shower games for it. Share your screen, read each question out, let everyone write their guess, then reveal her answer. Nothing about the game depends on being in the same room.

What prize should the winner get?

Something small and slightly silly beats something expensive. A nice candle, a bar of good chocolate, a bottle of wine. The prize is a punchline, not a reward, and the real prize is getting to say you know her better than her own sister.