Combining my kiddos birthdays??

[dillonandmarasmom]

DS and DD both have b-days in April--exactly 7 days apart. They will be 4 and 2. I would love to combine and have one big celebration, but I am a little curious if anyone else has ever done this.

They absolutely adore eachother. I truly think they would love the idea of both having gifts to open, friends to play with, attention showered on them...but, am I missing anything??
I am thinking also about how this affects family. We have some who will come from a distance, so it would be easier for them as well...

Anyone BTDT? Any advice...warnings...anything ?

TIA mucho!!

[LookMommy!]

Go for it, but be sure to make separate cakes!:

[kamilla626]

I think it can be done well - and more easily - as long as the kids understand that neither of them would be missing out.

Be sure that - for example - if the actual party falls on the older child's birthday, the little one needs to be reassured that his party isn't simply being skipped over, or minimized.

My sister has done this with her kids a couple times. Their b-days are a few weeks apart, but one year they just had too many recitals, ball games, karate tournaments, etc. filling up all their weekends. It went ok, but my neice whined quite a bit that the party was actually closer to her older brother's birthday, and hers had already passed. That says more about my neice's temperament than anything else - but maybe it's something to keep in mind.

[Kerrie]

We've done that a few times (my kids are 6 weeks apart). After struggling about what to do this year (thier b-days are in April and May) I've decided to do another joint party but they are picking out thier own decorations so we will have 2 'themes'. HTH!

[mmace]

My youngest two are five years and one day apart - my son's birthday is on April 3rd and my daughter April 4th. We do a combined family party - just grandparents, great-grandma, us, and close aunt and uncle. It works out great for us! This year they have chosen together to have rigatoni with meatballs, garlic bread, and tossed salad. My son wants a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, and my daughter wants an applesauce cake with cream cheese icing. Each will be sung too - they even keep track whose turn it is to be sung to first each year. We do not do "friends" birthday parties until they are in grade school, and then we don't do it every year, but we will always keep those seperate.

[dillonandmarasmom]

Thanks for your input, mamas!
I am thinking we'll have 2 cakes, but no real theme. Just a birthday extravaganza!

[Kerrie]

Just wanted to add that my kids are not 6 weeks apart - thier birthdays are! They are 22.5 mos apart. We will also have 2 cakes to match the themes they pick out.

[Fairy4tmama]

my kiddos birthdays are 2 1/2 weeks apart and we do a combined party with one cake but candles on each end. we also do a cake and singing after supper on their actual birthday but no presents. so far it works great but their still just 4 and 2

[~Nikki~]

Mine will be 2 and 4 in June, and we're combining their birthday parties. We will continue to do this until one of them shows interest in having a seperate party. We live a few hours away from most of the family members that will come, so it wouldn't be practical to have two parties, a weekend apart.

[sugarmoon]

Just a note from the other side:

My dh and his brother have birthdays only a day apart and my dh *never* got an un-shared birthday celebration. He *hated* it and has always been adamant that our kids would always get their own parties, no matter how close their birthdays fell.

I'm kind of a stickler for birthday parties on the actual day, myself. Not sure why, and maybe I'll change my feelings when my kids are older and schedules are trickier...

Just my 2c

[MommytoTwo]

We did it last year (DS turned 4 and DD turned 2) and we'll do it again this year. They each had their own cake they picked out but it was fun and it saved long distance people from having to come twice. This is the last year we'll do it because they will probably want to do their own thing. Their bdays are 6 weeks apart so I just picked a weekend 3 weeks from each one.


edited to add - we also did something special on their actual bdays.

[Periwinkle]

Oh at that age? Absolutely! Celebrating their own special days just with family (a special homemade cake, special balloons just for them, etc.) but one joint party makes A LOT of sense.

[TEAK's Mom]

My dds' birthdays are not close, but one of my sisters and I are three years and two days apart. What my parents did was have a cake or treat for each birthday on the day itself and we would open presents from the immediate family. Then, we would have a joint party for friends, extended family, etc. We always loved it because, by agreeing to share, we managed to get better venues and we had the freedom to only invite the people we really wanted. Actually, now that we live in different states, we miss having a joint birthday party.

mmace, one of my dds is April 4th, too!

[jake&zaxmom]

This year our boys will have "The First Annual ______________ (insert our last name) Brother Birthday Bash" Their birthdays are about 6 weeks apart. The older one will be 7 and the younger one will be 4. We will have generic decorations (solid color, non-themed streamers, balloons, hats, etc. I am baking a huge sheet cake that we will divide in half and each boy will choose how his half is to be decorated. I'm glad someone mentioned about singing "Happy Birthday" twice, I hadn't thought of that.

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by gus'smama

Just a note from the other side:

My dh and his brother have birthdays only a day apart and my dh *never* got an un-shared birthday celebration. He *hated* it and has always been adamant that our kids would always get their own parties, no matter how close their birthdays fell.

A slightly different cause for me, as a child my birthday was more or less ignored (that's how it felt anyway), due to it's proximity to Christmas, but my sister's was not. This was a HUGE source of conflict as a teenager between my and my (single) dad. To this day, birthday celebrations are HUGE to me, and DH every year has to be sure to make a big deal about it, and I will make sure the same holds true for our children.

At this age, it may not be a big deal, just be aware that it can cause hurt feelings down the road.

[jillmamma]

My sister and I are 1 year and 9 days apart, and had several birthday celebrations together. For us it made sense as we had a lot of the same friends anyway, and it never bothered either of us.

[woobysma]

I agree with others who said it really depends on the ages. My sister and I have birthdays 3 days apart and we had "joint" parties for many years, but when we got older and wanted friends at our parties, my parents did seperate celebrations.

As adults, we usually do one family dinner on whatever weekend falls closest to our b-days.

My boys' b-days are 4 days apart & we did a joint party last year (DS2 is only 2, so this is really a recent issue). The boys loved it because we got to do a "bigger" party & rented one of those inflatable bouncy houses for the yard. (guess who was the COOLEST mom that week )

[Dov'sMom]

Two of my sisters and I all have birthdays within the same week (same week as our grandmother, too). When we were little we always had joint birthday parties, and I think we all enjoyed them. Somewhere between 7 and 10 we started doing individual things, because the older we got the less overlap there was in our friends and interests, but at that age, it was great -- our grandparents all came in for our joint party, which wasn't always true for the other siblings whose birthdays were more spread out.

I say go for it.

[rubelin]

at 2 and 4 I would do it in a moment and did when my boys were 5 & 1. Their birthdays are 4 days apart and we'll probably continue to do a joint party for family parties as long as the boys agree. We also do something extra on their actual birthdays that make that day special, like going out to dinner and having a party at school for them.

[TabbyK]

Mine are also 22 1/2 months apart, with their birthdays being 6 weeks apart (June and Aug). What we've always done in the past was to have one big summer birthday bash so all the out of town people can come (and we pretty much avoid the whole picking a fave child by coming only on their birthday thing - except with MIL, but she's getting the hint!), then usually just a quiet immediate family celebration at home on the actual day. We use the birthday bash as an opportunity to present any joint present - like a sandbox or new swingset, etc.

This year is going to be a bit different, and I suspect it will set the tone for the future. We're still having the mid-summer bash as always, but the kids will be 3 & 5 and being in daycare actually have friends they'd like to celebrate with. So instead of the small family party on their birthdays, this will now migrate into the "friends" party at McDonald's or someplace, which we anticipated from the start. Really I think it's a "win-win" solution for us - the kids still get to celebrate their birthdays in their own way but I only really have to plan one big party!

K.