First Birthday Tips and Tricks
I heard the saying “the days are long but the years are short” before, but never experienced it until our son was born. The first 2 months seemed like the movie Groundhog Day… feeding every 2 hours, running around sterilizing bottles, changing diapers, loads upon loads of laundry, little sleep and lots of coffee…
After that things settled down a bit, but the days did not slow and before long it is time to plan the first birthday.
G’s birthday falls at the end of December, so we had to compete with already busy calendars around the holiday season. We sort of double dipped with our Christmas decorations and decided on a Forest Animal themed party.
Below are a few other hacks we learned:
- Have a great partner in crime: My wife and I worked together throughout and split responsibilities. She bought and set up all of the decorations while I picked up adult food (Sams Club) and beverages (beer and wine). During the party, I was mostly in the kitchen while she was chasing the baby, organizing the gifts and making sure everyone was having a nice time.
- Timing is key: Timing should not be taken lightly… especially with napping. We scheduled the party from 2- 4pm, so guest would not assume a full meal and the baby could get a nap in. We stuck to his daycare schedule and had him down at 10am and he slept until 1pm (he was getting over a double ear infection).
- Piece of Cake: Couple thoughts here.
- Smash cake: Everyone expects the first birthday to have a small cake that the birthday boy/girl gets to smash and eat on their own. We got a fancy little cake from a boutique bakery… In all reality a small cake from a chain grocer would have done just fine.
- Normal Cake: Cakes from Sam's Club are delicious, nice looking, and inexpensive.
- Food: The timing of the party was key so that guests knew we were not feeding them lunch. We did have very heavy appetizers and fun kids' snacks.
- Kids: My wife made really cool remade s’mores and purchased yogurt packs and juice boxes
- Adult: Grabbed a few bags of frozen apps from Sam’s Club. The meatballs, chicken and waffle bites, mini corn dogs and buffalo chicken bites all were winners and easy and fast to prepare.
- Adult Drinks: A few years ago we had a caterer who when asked “do you think one kind of beer and wine is enough” he replied, “you are paying for it, if they don’t like it, they don’t have to drink it". We purchased a case of white and a half case of red wine that we enjoy (figuring that with it being close to Christmas we would have plenty of parties to bring bottles as gifts) as well as a handful of microbrews.
- Thank you: We recorded all gifts in the same Google dock we used for invites so we have the names and addresses all in the same place.
Have any first birthday hacks? Share them below
Chris
