Planning a 1St Birthday Party

The fact is, your child will not remember whether you threw a huge party or did nothing. I would recommend having close family and friends over, keeping it relatively small. Children between 1 and 3 don't need any formal planned out activities. If the weather is nice, let them play outside with some beach balls, water guns, etc. They will have a blast (and sleep great that night).

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I did not want to go all out either. I had the party at my parents house and invited only a couple of children over. The party was mostly family. We grilled some food and made sure my son had some cake and icecream to smash up. The toys at the party were the ones my son got for his birthday. We just let the kids play. I really enjoyed this because it was no stress. I figure planning no activities besides presents and Cake was the best for his first birthday.

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Hi S.,
I think the best thing for kids so young is just to have several things available for them to do as they want to. For example, a table with crayons, balloons to play with, if you are outside, you can do bubbles, waterguns, just things that are put out that they can entertain themselves. I have 5 kids going on six and I used to do all their b-days separate and starting last year we decided to do one big blow-out every year to invite everyone and do it all at once so we were not constantly trying to figure out different themes, games, etc. I had over 60 people at my house last summer which seems like so much and it actually went very smoothly. We rented a moon bounce (which all ages love) had things all over for them to do, water balloons, water guns, chalk, and the kids were entertained and happy. The parents were able to eat and visit with each other and seemed to also have a good time. The hardest part of the party is when I brought out the pinatas because its not easy to have little kids line up, wait their turn, stay out of the way and so forth. With the little ones I have found that anything too structured seems to just cause stress for me and them and to just let them play and do things at their own speed works the best. I wish you luck with your party, do what you think will work best for you and the people you are inviting, it is supposed to be fun, try to remember that and not stress too much.

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I also recommend getting a second small cake. We did this and let her go to town! Made for some fun and really cute pictures!

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depending on what sort of money you want to spend, Gymboree and place like that do birthday parties, or you could just find a park with a good toddler play area. If that doesn't work, how about making a backyard water park? You can get one of the shallow baby pools and maybe one or two of the things that attach to hoses and spray like fountains. As long as they are supervised, the babies would have a blast!

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I definitely went all out for my daughters first birthday. I dont think that I should have did as much as I did, but it got everyone together that I havent seen for a while. I recommend going to celebrate express.com. They have really cute stuff, plus tips on how to decorate, recipes, checklists, and games to play. Good luck!

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What we did for our son's 1st birthday was just have over a couple friends (with and without kids), had cake and opened gifts. He really didn't understand what was going on. But it was nice just to have people over. And for his 2nd birthday we did more. We had a whole theme party. If you really want to do something, just keep it easy for you. Let the kids run around outside, play in the water and cook out. Hope that helps and you all have a great time.

For both my children's 1st Birthday, it was really simple. Just some family and a few friends, a cookout, water play and a cake. Everyone had a ball and it wasn't expensive. The next year we did a little more.

The first birthday is more about hte adults. I remember my son didn't really care it was his birthday. I made his second one specail. He understood what presents were and he udnerstood that was they day he was born. So cake and nice dinner with the family for the first. All else fails there is always Chuckie Cheese.

I had my son's 1st b-day party at The Little Gym. I'm not sure if you have one in your area or not but I was a ton of fun. Gavin attends classes there so it was an easy option for a party. It was a little expensive but they did everything!! They even loaded up everything in my car afterwards!

Good luck & enjoy!

I rented a small moon bounce for my sons first birthday. It was not as big as most but for smaller kids. He didn't like it but it was good to keep the kids occupied. They also played on the swingset and ran around the yard. I had a cookout and invited a lot of family and friends. Its hard to organize activities for kids under the age of 4 unless you play follow the leader or something with the 2 and 3 year olds but I wouldn't worry about doing too much they usually just want to run and play at that age anyway!! Relax and just enjoy the day!!!