1st Birthday in 3 weeks!!

[FloridaBorn]

I have procrastinated and waffled, hemmed and hawed, and I honestly don't know what to do for my daughter's first birthday party!  

Issues:

• It's been in the mid-90s during the day, so far too hot for an outdoor picnic at a park.
• My home is small and not entertaining-friendly.
• My MIL has offered to host but I find her a bit overbearing, and she and my mom have issues, too.  It'd be uncomfortable to have the party there.
• A friend of the family has offered to host, but on a Friday afternoon (?! baby's birthday falls on Saturday!) and that would be hard on my husband and other folks who are 8-5.
• It's kind of more for adults because I don't have any friends with children.

I'm tempted just to have everyone meet up at a local ice cream parlor!  Or maybe not have anything at all!!  But that wouldn't be fair to my baby.  

What should I do?

[coffeegirl]

Oh I don't think "it wouldn't be fair" to your baby if you had no party at all....She's only one, she doesn't know what birthdays OR parties are yet. :) I know a lot of people who skip the first birthday party, and I'll probably do the same thing, honestly. Or, we'll have some small, intimate family dinner or something.

My advice: If you really want to do something, make it be a celebration of your baby *for* the adults and just have fun. In this heat, the ice cream parlor sounds good to me. :)

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by coffeegirl 

Oh I don't think "it wouldn't be fair" to your baby if you had no party at all....She's only one, she doesn't know what birthdays OR parties are yet. :) I know a lot of people who skip the first birthday party, and I'll probably do the same thing, honestly. Or, we'll have some small, intimate family dinner or something.

My advice: If you really want to do something, make it be a celebration of your baby *for* the adults and just have fun. In this heat, the ice cream parlor sounds good to me. :)

I agree with this. I also considered having a 1st Bday party for my son ~it seems like most people do so I felt like maybe we should too~ but in the end we didn't. DH, DS and I spent a lovely day together and had a nice outing to the park and I made some banana bread as the "cake". Many families don't have Bday parties at all, and just let the child decide what special thing they want to do that day and make a family outing. I think this is what we're going to do in the future. If DS wants a party we can have one, but otherwise it was really special just to spend it with family.

And yeah, at one year your LO will not be aware it's her birthday and would never remember it anyway so definitely don't do it on her account (if you don't feel like it).

[katelove]

Could you do breakfast in the park before it got too hot? We used to do breakfast BBQ parties every year when I was younger and everyone loved them.

How many people would you be inviting? We settled on our house the day before J's 1st birthday so we had her party in our apartment. It was certainly not ideal but it was fine. We had lunch and I did most of the preparation the day before. We only had 8 people though, and no other children.

I also think the ice cream parlor sounds like fun. Or your favourite local cafe or restaurant.

I would have been sad if we hadn't done anything but, as PPs have said, it is about you not them for the first year so it can be pretty adult if you want it to be.