Baby's first birthday party jitters

mushi

mushi

Registered User
Hi ladies, am sure many of you would have experienced this truly memorable and exciting day of celebrating your baby's first bday party that also gives nervous breakdowns in its preparation stage.....my baby's bday falls in the end of march and I am desperate to get started/.....am pretty new to HK ....so can you pls. share some ideas?

i also have a 4 year old son who would want some excitement too!!! incidently his bday is just 2 days before my baby's.

venue-- this is more or less booked
decorations -- where to get them?
return gifts -- where/what?
music -- ??
cake --?
entertainment --?

anything else??
pls. help!!
 
the most important thing to remember is this:

your baby will not remember it, it is more for YOUR pleasure and YOUR memories.

the rules for a small child's birthday:
1) keep it simple
2) if there are lots of babies... forget entertainment. clowns can be scary and a 1 year old won't be interested. bring some toys for the babies to play with and that's it. you may want some balloons or something for the babies to hold/play with, but remember that you have to be careful with balloons.
3) cake, you can get a beautiful cake for $500 made-to-order or you can bake your own for about $30. a 1 yr old won't care and older kids LOVE to help out, so your 4 year old could help out getting the cake ready.
4) if there are older kids, forget "paid" entertainment. go for things like:
dancing (dance & freeze game)
pinata
pass the parcel
musical chairs (if there are lots of adults, get them to play too!)
craft activities
5) the best music i can find for kids is PLAYSCHOOL from Australia. they have AWESOME kids music.
6) food: if you plan a mid-afternoon party then just snacks are needed. chips, veg & dip, fresh fruit, pretzels etc


of course, i understand that many like to go "crazy" for these birthdays, but personally, i try to remember it's about my kids not me.
 
It depends on what budget you have, but I really do think that first birthday parties are/should be pretty easy affairs. The thrill of being in a new place surrounded by lots of other people tends to be entertainment enough for the LOs, and the party is really to reward mummy for having survived the first year!

Decorations-For my LO's first, we brought along a travel cot which we filled with balls as a makeshift ball pool, a walking car and some small toys. That was enough actually!

Decorations- Complete Deelite and most cake shops do packages of first birthday balloons, but I know someone who blew up balloons herself and stuck them all over her flat, and they were happy with that.

Music- we couldn't hear the music that day over the noise of the babies, so don't worry!

We made our own cake but there are plenty of people on this forum with lots of experience with buying cakes!

Good luck and HAVE FUN!
 
Hi, my advice would just be to keep it relaxed and informal.

For my boys first birthday we did the following:
- venue: our apartment
- cake: I made it with help from my mother. At Park n Shop you can buy chocolate letters so I used them to spell out his name and "Happy 1st Birthday". I was going to buy a cake but ran out of time.
- decorations: I went with a pirate theme and bought cups, plates, napkins, table cloth and balloons in this theme from Complete Deelite.
- take-home gifts: I bought extra helium foil pirate balloons so each child could take one home. The good quality helium foil balloons last about 2 weeks and kids love to play with them.
- music: just whatever was on our Ipod!
- entertainment: having 12 of his baby friends and their parents over was entertainment enough for our little one.
- food: we had mini sausage rolls, quiches, chips, fairy bread and dips. Our party was mid afternoon so only snacks were needed.

Have fun!
 
Fairy Bread

It is basically white bread with a thick layer of butter and the thick layer of "100s and 1000s". "100s and 1000s" are the little round coloured candy sprinkles you buy at cake shops (I am sure they are called a different name here!).

I can't seem to paste a picture here but if you do a search on google images they have lots of images of it...

It's a staple food at all Australian children's parties. Most Aussies will have fond memories of fairy bread at their parties....I know I do!
 
i know what 100's and 1000's are...just had no idea what fairy bread was...

sounds kinda... gross... but i'm SURE my kids would LOVE IT!
thanks!
 
LOL... maybe i'll have to give it a try...

it would sound more yummy to me if you forego the butter and use chocolate spread instead...

(can't believe i just suggested foregoing butter! LOL!)
 
Oh, fairy bread is a must at kid's parties and they love it.

My LO just had his 1st birthday and it really is an event for the adults. We had some friends over with two other toddlers. I ordered a cake, which was more presentable than what I could whip up. Also had fresh fruit, finger food and adult drinks (aka red wine). It was a nice event and my little boy can look at the pictures and videos of his 1st birthday one day.

For toddlers, 'pin the tail on the donkey' is also a party favourite.
 
The texture of fairy bread is better than bread with choc spread because the 100s and 1000s are crunchy.

I agree with fingerscrossed that you have to have "adult drinks" on hand. That way the daddys and mummies can relax with a beer or wine while the babies play!
 
sherwes... i mean if you used chocolate spread instead of butter, then added the sprinkles... that sounds a little more tempting than with butter...

i may give it a try... it's my daughter's second birthday today and my son's 4th next week.
 
I agree with everyone else here... the 1st birthday party is more for the parents than it is for your little one. We just had people over to our place and had "finger food"... veggies, fruit, chips, beer, wine, etc. I made a teddy bear cake and cupcakes... cupcakes were the bigger hit and easier for everyone to eat. As for decorations, if you live around or have a bit of time to spare head over to Mega Box in Kowloon Tong - the store Spotlight has great birthday decorations... everything you could imagine.

Have fun!
Canucker
 
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