Baby's First Birthday Party Ideas

Baby's first birthday, like baby's first Christmas, will be one of those precious memories that you will want to cherish forever. But, let's face it, birthday parties like any large celebration can be exhausting and overwhelming. There are lots of great ideas to make this easier and loads of fun for everyone, guests and hosts.

The first thing to remember is that this is going to be a short lived event, and not really something that has to be absolutely perfect. You're not up for the Nobel prize here, you are celebrating the first year of life of your newest family addition. A first birthday party doesn't have to be a grand ball event. Make the guest list relatively small. Include immediate family and friends as well as a people who have a relationship with your child. Try to include at least two or three other families with children around the same age, babies or toddlers.

Next, remember time constraints for young children. Babies don't have a very high tolerance for long affairs and large crowds and lots of noises or new stimuli. Even at a year old, babies are easily over stimulated. Try to make the atmosphere relaxed and laid back for everyone. The party should be planned at a reasonable hour to avoid large interruption in routine such as an hour or two before bath time or after nap time etc. Also include the time limits on the invitations so that guests will know about how long they are expected to attend. People don't like to leave too early because they fear they will appear rude, but also don't want to stay late and seem to overstay their visit. A set time gives everyone a good idea of how long the party will last. Make a schedule of events ahead of time. Create an itinerary and try to stick close to it. For instance plan on when refreshments will be served, when presents if any will be opened, and when games if any will be played and which ones in what order.

Remember to try and make all of the guests comfortable. For instance if inviting families with infant children, try to provide a quiet area in the house for them to place the baby if he or she sleeps such as a place for a carry play pen or move your play pen to a back room. Try to include refreshments appropriate for all age levels that will attend. If more children will be attending, include a small buffet of soft finger foods available throughout the party. If the party will be for adults too or continue after the babies have drifted off to lullaby land, provide for adult refreshments after the originally designated time for the babies. This means if there will be alcoholic beverages or adult style party games like cards etc. plan these events for after the baby's events. If older children will be attending, provide games for older children to amuse themselves while the parents attend to the babies. These could be the traditional party games like a piata or pin the tail on the donkey. Don't include games that will have choking hazards for smaller children that will be attending like bobbing apples or small board games.

Themes. Theme decoration can be fun and create a festive atmosphere. You can buy reasonable party packs at any outlet store with hats, cups, plates, bowls and even plastic silverware to match. Paper table cloths make for easy clean up. Bright, decorative banners are great for a festive atmosphere. Balloons are not recommended for young children's parties as these can be easily popped and create choking hazards. Likewise for paper whistle blowers and confetti. Also be careful when using hats that have elastic strings as these are easily pulled loose. Popular themes include Disney characters, rubber ducky's or teddy bears.Baby games. These are really fun for groups of toddlers. Baby races in a large open area can be fun. Pin the tail on the Donkey using stickers instead of pins are also fun. Traditional games from other cultures can add a bit of interest to even the adults in the family. A popular one is the Chinese fortune telling game. Using ordinary objects, you place baby in the middle of the floor on a quilt and lay the objects out in front of them. Take turns guessing which one the child will pick up first. The first thing the child picks up tells what they will be when they grow up. The traditional version uses a pen, a coin, an arrow and a piece of straw. You can use any fun or interesting safe object for the same fun purposes. Ball throwing contests. Use a soft ball and have baby throw towards a predefined goal. The child that gets the closest to the goal wins. Prizes can be grab bags of appropriate candy or any age appropriate toy.

Grab bags. Make everyone feel included by giving each invited guest a small grab bag of age appropriate candy, small toys, decorative straws, art supplies or other fun and interesting objects. Make sure everything is age appropriate and will not produce a choking hazard. Young children love things like kazoos and harmonicas, basically anything that makes noise and can be chewed on with little worry of choking. Always make up a few extra bags for the unexpected extra child guest that may arrive.

Presents. This is strictly a personal choice. Some parents feel that no one should bring presents. Others feel that presents should be opened after the guests leave so that none of the other children feel left out when baby opens them. Traditionally, baby opens the presents right before the cake so that everyone can see what they got. Whatever you prefer is fine for this, but please be kind and reciprocate with a nice short note of thanks to the givers after the party. This lets the guests know that the gifts were appreciated, especially if you registered for gifts at a department store.

Cake! Oh this is the best part! Traditionally, everyone gets a chocolate covered kid for their first birthday party. While this isn't always necessary, it is fun. Please be considerate of your guests. If you are going to have a lot of young children and a really big chocolate cake, let the parents know ahead of time so they can pack extra clothing and clean up supplies. You may even want to go so far as to provide large plastic bibs for guests or even strip them down to their diapers and let them go at it at the dinning room table, you know, over the linoleum floor that's easy to clean up. Of course there are always options to the chocolate cake. Instead of one big cake, you can provide individual cup cakes with nice fluffy icing for each child and a cake for the big kids and adults who won't make such a mess.

Other refreshments. Great additional refreshments can be included to the joy of all party goers. Drinks are a big deal. You can make party punch out of sprite or other non caffeine sodas and add little chunks of fruit for the kids to chew on afterwards. Ice cream floats are great crowd pleasers as well. Individual sized milk cartons for the kids are a good idea to go with the cake as well as individually packaged fruit drinks or juices. Finger foods should be available through out the party for finicky eaters and constant munchers alike. Trail mix made of soft granola and raisons is good for this, try to avoid anything with nuts as these are a choking hazard. Other great treats include pigs in a blanket, sugar cookies with pink or blue frosting you can add yourself at home, and soft fruits cut as you go like oranges and peaches or bananas. Chips are ok if your not particularly worried about being health conscious, but try to avoid things like nachos which have sharp edges. Dips are ever popular with all ages, but especially so for young children. Celery and cream cheese are good treats for teethers. Another great idea is to slice an orange in half and after the children have eaten the orange, use the hallowed out peel for an ice cream bowl. Animal crackers make a great appetizing whetting treat that can be distributed often and with little worry of spoiling little appetites.

Including family traditions is also wonderful for fond memories of baby's first birthday. Things like baby's first haircut, baby's first lace up shoes, hand me down objects like grandmas teddy bear or raggedy ann. doll which are given at this time are always welcome inclusions to this joyful celebration.

Above all, remember to take lots and lots of pictures, and get double prints! Place mementoes like an unused napkin with the date and event written on it, cards from gifts or pictures of this wonderful event in your scrap book for future posterity. Your child will enjoy looking at them when he or she is older and you will be grateful for the chance to immortalize this monument in both of your lives.