Celebrate!
Congratulations! Baby's first year has been about you two discovering all about each other. For you, redefining yourself as a Mummy, learning all about your baby and how best to nurture and care for your little one, and for baby, learning about all these strange new sounds, sights, tastes, smells, how to hold their little heads up, roll over, sit up and eventually stand and walk! You have both made it through the first year with many more parties ahead of you, but for this one, you get to choose how to celebrate this magical milestone.
There are so many beautiful things now available to decorate with, in so many colours and designs, it can be a little overwhelming! This is why it helps to go with a theme, and try as much as possible to stick to the theme, whether it is a specific colour e.g pink or blue or baby's favourite book characters or toy they prefer. Here are some examples below :
- Pink party
- Blue party
- Rainbow party
- Rubber Ducky party
- Teddy Bears Picnic party
- Fav Book character party (Peter Rabbit or any Beatrix Potter, Dr Seuss (Cat in the Hat, The Lorax), Winnie the Pooh, Hungry Caterpillar, Little Mermaid, Guess how much I love you? The Faraway Tree, Puss in Boots, etc.
- Fav T.V character party (In the Night Garden, Peppa Pig, Dora the Explorer or Go Diego, Mickey/Minnie Mouse, Thomas the Tank engine, Angelina Ballerina, Sesame Street (Elmo) etc.
- Wild Animal party/Jungle theme
- Farm Animal party, down on the farm
- Nursery Rhyme party or Fairy Tale party
Here are some lovely party photos as inspiration
How long the party goes for is totally up to you, it depends on how tired you are (believe me I know how tiring it is, especially if you are breastfeeding!!) your budget, and how much help you have.. If you have lots of relatives around you who want to help out, do let them, especially with the clean up at the end, and help with childminding of any little ones that are running around.. The more help you can enlist the better, especially if you have a big family, and a lot of children coming. Usually party's run for 2 hours, after that children can start to get tired and fretful, planning the party around baby's nap time would be a good idea too, you want them to be awake for at least part of it. It helps to have a back up person, stand by person to cover for you, for nappy changes or anything else that may arise. If you just want to keep it a small family gathering with the grandparents for the first party, that is totally understandable, everyone usually understands how tiring it is.. But even though baby won't remember, apart from photo's you will show them when they are older of course!, it is still nice to do something a bit special, it's not everyday you are 1!
Some of the nice things you can do are :-
Take as many photos as possible and collect them in a lovely photo album with acid free mounts or get them framed.
Get the guests at the party to sign a little book/the album/a bib/a plate with ceramic markers, maybe with a little message too, keeping little booties, or a little hairbrush can be lovely keepsakes later on that become family heirlooms.
Whatever you decide to do, have fun and make great memories!