Baby Pool Rules - How to Run One Fairly (Points, Prizes, Tiebreakers)

Everyone loves a baby pool right up to the moment the baby actually arrives. Then the arguing starts. Aunt Linda had the exact date but was a full pound off on weight. Your coworker nailed the weight but guessed the wrong week. Who actually won?

That question is settled before the birth, not after, and it is settled with rules. Here is a complete set you can copy, plus the reasoning behind each one so you can bend them to fit your family.

The one rule that matters most

Write the rules down and share them with the guesses. Not in your head, not "we'll figure it out later." Everyone who enters should be able to see how the winner gets decided.

This sounds bureaucratic for a party game, and it is the difference between a fun reveal and a group chat full of asterisks. When people know that weight is worth more than length, they think harder about their guess, and nobody feels cheated afterwards.

What to guess

A baby pool can ask as much or as little as you like. The standard set:

• Birth date - the headline question, always included
• Birth time - the classic tiebreaker
• Weight - the second-favorite, and the one people get wildly wrong
• Length - easy to guess, hard to guess well
• Sex - only if the parents are keeping it a surprise
• Hair color and eye color - fun, and genuinely unpredictable
• The name - for the brave, if the parents are keeping it secret

Pick five to eight categories. Fewer than five and the pool is over too fast; more than ten and people abandon the form halfway through.

How points work

Guessing games break when a single category decides everything. If the winner is just "closest date," then the person who was one day off on date but 800 grams off on weight beats someone who was nearly perfect on everything else. Points fix that.

The system we use, and recommend, awards points on a sliding scale: the closer you are, the more you score, with nothing for a wild miss.

Category	Max points	How it scores
The name	20	Exact match only
Sex	10	Exact match only
Weight	10	Sliding scale, within 500 g / ~1 lb
Length	5	Sliding scale, within 5 cm / ~2 in
Birth date	5	Sliding scale, within 7 days
Birth time	5	Sliding scale, within 2 hours
Hair color	5	Exact match only
Eye color	5	Exact match only

Sixty points if you are psychic. A few things worth noticing about the balance:

• The name is worth the most because it is the hardest. Guessing a name out of thin air deserves to win you the pool.
• Weight beats date. Counterintuitive, but a due date narrows the birthday to a two-week window for everybody, while weight is a genuinely open question. The harder guess should be worth more.
• Sliding scales beat exact matches on anything measured. Being one day off should score better than being six days off, and both should beat being a month off.
• Nothing outside the window. Guess a date three weeks out and you score zero on date. It keeps the scoreboard meaningful.

If you are running yours on paper, simplify: 5 points for the closest guess in each category, 3 for second closest, 1 for third. It is cruder but it counts up fast by hand.

Deadlines

Two deadlines, both non-negotiable:

1. Entries close before the baby can plausibly arrive. Set it at 36 weeks, or a month before the due date. Babies come early, and a pool that is still open when the contractions start is a pool somebody can cheat.
2. The parents don't play. They have ultrasound measurements, midwife estimates and a strong hunch. Let them be the referees instead, which is more fun anyway.

One more that saves arguments: no editing a guess once it is in. Half the entertainment is watching someone commit to "definitely a 10-pound boy on the 3rd" and then live with it.

Money, prizes and the awkward part

The most common question about baby pool rules is whether to charge an entry fee. You do not have to, and plenty of the best pools run on pure bragging rights. If you do want stakes, three approaches that work:

A small entry fee, winner takes the pot. Five or ten per person is normal. With a big group, split it: 70% to first place, 20% to second, 10% to third. More winners, more celebrating.

Entry fees become a gift. Collect the money, buy the parents something they actually need, and the winner gets a prize plus the credit. This is the version to use at work, where cash pools can feel like gambling and often bump into company policy.

No money at all. The winner gets a small trophy, a "called it" certificate, first babysitting rights, or the right to bring it up at every family gathering for the next twenty years. Honestly the last one has the best value.

Whichever you pick, say so up front. Nothing sours a celebration faster than someone discovering there was money involved after they lost.

How to settle a tie

With a points system, real ties are rare, but they happen. Decide the order in advance:

1. Closest on birth time. This is what time is for. Precise to the minute, so it almost always resolves it.
2. Closest on weight. If time was not asked, weight is the next most precise number.
3. Whoever entered first. Rewards commitment, and it is impossible to argue with.

Write your tiebreaker into the rules. A tie discovered on the day of the birth, with no plan, becomes the thing people remember about your pool.

The rules, ready to copy

Here is the short version to paste into your invite:

Our baby pool rules

1. Guess the date, time, weight, length, sex and name. Points per category, closest guess scores most.
2. Entries close on [date]. No edits after you submit.
3. Parents don't play, they judge.
4. Entry is [free / amount]. Winner gets [prize].
5. Ties go to closest birth time, then closest weight, then first entry.
6. Winner announced with the birth announcement.

Let something else do the counting

All of this is much easier when you are not the one doing arithmetic in a hospital waiting room. An online pool applies the point system automatically the moment you enter the real numbers, and the leaderboard sorts itself out. No spreadsheet, no disputes, no math while running on two hours of sleep.

Set up your baby pool in a couple of minutes, share the link, and let the rules do the work. If you want to see the whole flow first, here is how it works, and if you are still deciding what to ask your guests, we have 30 prediction questions ready to go.

Then all that is left is the fun part: waiting, guessing, and finding out which one of your relatives really knew all along.