A sprinkle is like a baby shower but smaller
A spinkle is smaller than a baby shower but just as sweet. Credit: Depositphotos / Ruth Black
Q. What is a “sprinkle”?
A. A sprinkle is like a baby shower, but smaller in scale and more intimate. It’s held for a second or subsequent child, when the mom (or parents) has already had a full-blown shower for the first baby. A sprinkle might be held, for instance, when many years have passed between children, or when a mother of boys has her first girl or vice versa, and needs items for the new gender. Usually only close friends and relatives are invited, and it’s tacitly understood that guests might bring smaller gifts like clothes and not big-ticket items like baby swings.
Linda DiProperzio, 42, of Syosset recently attended a sprinkle for her sister Jackie Kondyra, 36, of Levittown. It was much different from the baby shower the family had for Kondyra when her oldest child was born nine years ago. “When she had her baby shower, my mother invited everyone — aunts, cousins, friends, my mother’s friends,” DiProperzio says. The 50 guests attended the event in a catering hall. At that time Kondyra had no baby gear, and guests helped supply her with what new families need.
The sprinkle, however, was held at Kondyra’s mom’s house on a Friday evening with about a dozen guests — Kondyra’s second sister and Kondyra’s closest friends attended. Dinner was ordered in from a local restaurant, and the women played some baby shower games and had cake. “She got mainly clothes,” DiProperzio says. “Someone got her a baby monitor because her first one was so old and outdated.”
Kondyra, who also has a 6-year-old, says she appreciated the celebration of her baby-to-be, due in September. “Some of the friends I have now I didn’t know when I had my first child,” she says. This gave her a chance to share joy with them as well.
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
