Post written by Sherri Kruger. Follow me on Twitter.
Oh the pressure. I’m sure we all know someone who’s thrown a birthday bash that was the party to end all parties – for their one year old. Or the party that will go down in history as the best birthday party of all time - the guest of honor was 4.
Just the thought of trying to keep up with friends or families who choose to do this can, for me at least, leave you feeling overwhelmed, inadequate, stressed and broke.
If you are a party person and really and truly enjoy planning and hosting big elaborate parties – fantastic! Really. For the rest of us, with a little change in perspective there’s still hope.
I received an email from a “new fan” who wrote:
“I’m a mom of a 3 1/2 year old and a 7 month old and I’m already dreading the 2 parties that will be expected from us this year. Anyway, just looking for ideas about how to simplify these things, or abolish them altogether and not feel too guilty about it :)”
I suspect she’s not alone. Here are my thoughts on throwing parties for kids and keep them relatively stress free – starting with a clear picture of what your family values.
Remember what and who the party is for. The party is for your child. It’s not for the neighbors, or your aunts or even you. It’s for your child. Granted a one year old is not likely to remember the event, but the party should be to honor this milestone and celebrate it.
Keep it low key if that’s what you’re used to. We always celebrate birthdays with immediate family. We usually have a dinner or lunch, followed by cake and gifts. It’s perfect and always a great time without all the fuss.
Keep the menu simple. You need to consider who you’re preparing food for. A tray of fancy hors d’oeuvres is likely to be completely lost on kids. Consider simple no fuss finger food. Pitas and humus, a vegetable platter with dip, a fruit platter, chips, even peanut butter and jam sandwiches cut into fancy triangles can do the trick. Keep it simple and stick to what you’re comfortable with.
Go homemade. I’m not the best baker in the world and I’m not a top cake designer by any stretch of the imagination but I like to experiment and have fun. I always make my kids’ cakes. With a little creativity and a bit of time they come out not too bad. They aren’t perfect but they are made by me for my kids.
Have a few fun things to do. This doesn’t mean you need to rent a giant bouncy house or have a petting zoo set up in the front yard. If your kids are a little older, or they have cousins who are, have some activities planned out so they have something to keep them occupied.
- Hang some art paper on the fence and set the kids loose with finger paints
- Set up a water table and let them splash around and have fun
- Inside, set up an arts and crafts table and let them get creative
- Put in a movie and pop some popcorn
- Leave a bunch of old clothes out for them to play dress up and put on a play.
There’s a lot of things for kids to do without you needing to spend a lot of money or do a whole lot of planning.
The way I see it now is, and I haven’t always thought this way, if I’m feeling stressed about a party for my kids I’m doing something wrong. It should be a day dedicated to them. Making them feel special and celebrating their day. Invite those that have a special relationship with your kids and not the entire country side.
These are my ideas but as always our fabulous readers usually have better ideas.
So I turn it over to you guys, what tips or advice can you offer a “new fan” on hosting a stress free birthday party for her young kids?
Good advice and I think your point that if you’re feeling stressed about a party for your kids you’re doing something wrong is very true.
I think specifying a start and end time for the party helps, so you don’t get people overstaying their welcome or having your child get over-tired and not enjoying him/herself by the end of it (if they are quite young). Also, don’t feel like you have to have elaborate decorations or expensive party bags for each child to take home. The focus should be on the experience of the party itself, as a sharing of a special time with family and friends.
I have 3 boys-10, 6, and 3. I ask them in advance what they would like to do. Last year they each picked something really easy. The 10 year old wanted a sleepover. We talked about how many kids could have fun and decided 3 boys, would be a good number. They wanted pizza, popcorn, movies and videos games. All easy and cheap. The 6 year old with a summer b-day wanted a swim party. Our neighborhood lets you have a party. We chose a time when we knew it would be only a few people there. We swam for a hour, ate homemade cake, opened presents and swam for 30 more mins. Awesome! My 3 year old wanted to have his best buddy over and cook out. We hang out with that family a lot. Our regular get together turned into a party with a few streamers, balloons, and homemade cupcakes that the boys decorated at the kitchen table.
I think it is important to make sure you are planning what the kid wants, not what you think the kid’s friends parents expect.
My son will be 4 in July (in the Central Valley, CA – 95 to 100 degrees usually). We have a very small condo, no backyard. We had 3 kids and their parents over last year, but it was too crowded. Does anyone have similar issues, or solutions for these? The simple life is what I aim for, but sometimes I can’t find the target (ugh, that was a bad metaphor for an English teacher).
Such a great article. It’s so easy to go way overboard for a kid’s birthday party and get stressed out in the process. You’re right, if you’re stressed, you’re doing something wrong. Our child’s birthday’s coming up soon and I want it to be “all for him” and his enjoyment + a celebration that we made it this many years as parents! I asked him what type of party he wants. He didn’t say a character, he said a “Wheel party” for his love of car and truck wheels. :) Kids are simple and we should not ruin their day with over-stressing or showing off.
Noel, my son will be 4 in early July too! I don’t have that problem, but I’d suggest going to a park (picnic) or something of that nature for a spacious party. We plan on possibly doing that to enjoy his day too.
Thank you all for your comments and suggestions so far.
@T – You said it perfectly : “Kids are simple and we should not ruin their day with over-stressing or showing off.” At the end of the day your kids will think it’s cool they were able to run around with their friends, be silly and eat cake not that you spent X amount of money or spent the last 3 months stressing over every tiny detail. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
I completely agree when you say “starting with a clear picture of what your family values.” I have four kids 6 years and under. I’ve thrown one party and it was at the local pizza joint, when my oldest turned 4. It was a hit and very low key. My family and I value time spent together, just the six of us, so we usually just do something special together, whether it’s birthday cake for breakfast, going out to dinner at my child’s fave restaurant, or turning a business trip into a mini-family vacation of birthday celebration. Both my husband and I come from very large families that throw very large parties, I stress out big time just thinking about the possibility of planning any type of party big or small. So like you said, celebrating birthday’s is all about what ‘your family values’ My youngest turns 1 very soon, thanks for the reinforcements.
I’m one of those people that love to throw parties. It’s just what I like to do I love to cook and to entertain I look for excuses to have parties. With that said I’ll share some things I have found that make entertaining easier.
1. Don’t stress so much about how clean your house is it’s cleaner then you think and really no one is judging you on it (if they do why do you care what they think anyway). I have a friend who doesn’t like having people over because she thinks her house is too dirty. I’ve been there and it’s plenty clean but she won’t accept that.
2. Only invite who you REALLY want to be there. Close family and friends only. It’s a kids party not a gala event and don’t invite the whole class from school trust me you will regret it. Sometimes not everyone gets along, some will just leave their child without even checking that it’s okay and some of those will not come back on time, someone will be bad and will not listen to you, ect..
3. You don’t have to make all the food kids are easy buy frozen items you can just reheat (ex. frozen nuggets), buy pre-made food, places like Mc Donald’s, and Chick-fila both offer catering trays or you can pick up BBQ by the pound, have a friend cook, or offer limited food such as hot dogs and chips only.
4. Don’t bother with decorations most people and none the kids will notice. I usually only hang a banner that says Happy Birthday and I reuse it. I have never done gift bags my reasoning is why should I give people presents on someone else’s birthday.
5. Have the party anywhere but home. Parks are a great place they can be cheap or even free. They have jungle gyms in place and plenty of room to run around. There is little cleanup if you use paper products because you just throw it all away when done. I don’t however recommend places like Chucky Cheese and the like they tend to be very pricey and you get very little in return. The price usually only include things for the kids (food, tokens, ect) so then you still have to pay for the other adults as well (which can really raise the total). Some places make you buy their cake which is small and not very good. The only good thing about places like that is that there is an activity for the the kids already in place but you can have fun activities set up for the kids such as egg races, pin the tail on whatever, have them tell stories, have paper and crayons, board games, or cards to keep them busy. Water gun fights are always good too but have plenty of towels.
6. The most important thing is to find out what the birthday person wants. Most kids would rather have a great sleepover with 3 kids then a loud party full of people they don’t know. I can’t tell you how many kids parties I’ve been to where there are only 2 kids and 20 adults. Maybe just a day alone with you is all they need. Or a special dinner out at a their favorite restaurant. Not everyone needs or wants a big party every year.
Sorry for the long post but I had a lot to share LOL.
We have seven children so we came up with a pretty good plan right away. We have always celebrated certain birthdays in a big way and the rest are small family parties. They get big ones at 8 and 16 and 18. They have always been pretty happy with that. On the other hand they just love really big, show-offy parties of other people’s kids, so I hope they keep them going!
@ morgin1013 thank you so much for sharing! These are fantastic suggestions all of them! I love the idea of a birthday at a park. The kids can run around all they like and you don’t have a huge mess to clean up at home afterwards. Awesome!
@Roblynn that’s a great idea, choosing only a few big milestone birthday’s to go all out for. Love it.
Keep them coming guys these are all great and very helpful.
I recently celebrated my 2-yr-old’s party at home with just the family, two of her daycare teachers and their kids. My 5-yr-old was allowed to invite a friend which worked out fantastic. Here’s a blog post on the decorations, food, and my conscious decision to keep it simple.
http://gracehester.typepad.com/weblog/2010/03/giannas-second-birthday-celebration.html
My belief for when the child is aware of a celebratory event with friends and family, is to make the party itself lots of fun for the child, they will not look at expensive decor, and high-end food choices, or a fancy goodie bag. So save on those and spend on the fun factor within reason.
Another rule that I read once which I agreed is that a good number of kids to invite is the child’s age plus 2 so if the child is 3, that 5 kids (including your own) is a good number.
Hey there, I’m the new fan that Sherri wrote about. Thanks so much to everyone and Sherri for the variety of wonderful ideas. You are right Sherri, I think I was focusing too much on what others expected of me, rather than just figuring out what would be fun and special for my kids.
I really like Roblynn’s idea of the milestone parties too. Or, something else I’ve been thinking about was having each kid have a party every other year, so it would work out to one a year.
I have the same situation as Noel – small condo and hot weather. For my oldest’s first birthday we had too many people over and it was a sweaty stressful mess with an overload of presents we really didn’t want to add to the house. I think for my youngest’s first birthday in July, we may just escape up to Mammoth for a vacation and celebrate while we’re there. I’m just going to throw the extended family guilt out the window. There will be other birthdays :)
Thank you again for the helpful advice. It’s encouraging to know that I don’t have to be stuck in the bigger, better birthday grind!
Wonderful article and comment also! If your family values include yoga education (all about learning tools for stress management and much more, of course), you might consider searching your local area for a yoga parties. You can learn a bit about ours here on the Seacoast at http://www.childlightyoga.com.
I have 3 boys: 11, 9 & 6 and we had home parties until the kids were each 6 with just family and close friends. I usually would do a Sunday Brunch (bagels, etc.) and bake a cake. I loved having the parties at home because my children could nap if they had to and it was just more relaxed.
Now that they’re older and want school friends at their party, I find a party place (Long Island is full of them) but limit the number of kids and do it after school during that week because it’s cheaper. I go to the dollar store to make goody bags and bring my own cake. It probably ends up just slightly more expensive than a home party and it is very unstressful.
I also know that even if I live in an area where people can be competitive, in the end, NO ONE REALLY CARES! The kids have fun, then it’s over. I don’t drive a fancy car, ski every weekend or eat at the “hip” restaurants and you know what? I’m super content and sleep well every nite knowing I’m debt free!!
When my son turned 4, we invited every child in his preschool class. Most of them actually came…it was crazy, and very stressful. After that we decided on a reasonable limit for the number of friends who could come. When he turned 5, he invited 5 friends. When he was 6, he invited 6 friends, and so on. This made his parties very manageable, even enjoyable! He wasn’t overwhelmed with trying to spend time with so many different people, and we weren’t overwhelmed with trying to keep them all safe and happy. As he got older, he developed a smaller circle of close friends with whom he enjoyed going to the movies or going camping with for his birthdays.
Hi Chantel I’m glad you’re finding these suggestions helpful. I think the common theme is: It’s for the kids, they don’t care about big and flashy and do what’s right for you and your family. A celebration up at Mammoth sounds amazing. Have fun with it and create an experience you will all remember. :)
@Laura – brunch is a great idea, especially to incorporate naps and such. And good for you for being debt free and knowing what it takes to stay out of it :)
@Jane – I can’t even imagine inviting all the kids from pre-school to my home for a party. You are one brave woman :)
I like all of the ideas especially “keep it simple.”
For the past two years, I did not do the party favor bag. When did the party favor bag come in fashion? Why arrange and pay for everything for the party AND buy and prepare party favor bags… for the kids to break, lose, and forget? I’ve always thought the party, playing, and edible treats were good enough.
The following ideas came to me by way of an email but I thought they were too good not to share. So I asked Lisa if I could post them here and she agreed. So here are some of her ideas (oh and the camel dung idea … you’ll understand more in a minute … was a fabulous idea by a dear friend of hers :) Enjoy!
My husband and I have fun doing all of our parties at home. While we do two parties for each birthday—one for the friends and one for my awesome but huge Italian family—we still do it at home and make things fun…having one just does not work for us…but here are some ideas we have done to help your reader…tell her not to go to the darkside of having insane kid parties!! Whatever I can do to help, I am in!!
(1) 7 year old girl party – Fashion in Paris Theme…Made Chocolate Mousse Birthday Cake, decorated in red/white/blue streamers, made French flags, had the girls make fashion portfolio books by cutting out pics from magazines, we had them wear berets, downloaded French café music from itunes, made pommes frites and souccions (French fries and misspelled-in-french hot dogs—ok we took liberty on sausages),
(2) 5 year old boy party – Mad Science Theme – took glass vases we had and filled them with colored water (food coloring) and plopped in somedry ice for the bubbling over look of beakers and test tubes etc, downloaded pics to color from the internet that were of a science theme: chemistry, animals, space, etc…my husband made a cake in the shape of a beaker—
(3) These are the recent ones—we have done the princess theme, the sports theme, the Rock Star theme (here we took pics of the kids and printed them with our computer making them rock star photos using a blow-up guitar, sunglasses and a poster back-drop), superhero theme, pirate theme, sesame street theme, travel/tourist theme, etc…some standard themes others more creative…between buying garb to wear at the dollar store to support the theme, getting craft ideas from the internet, using my computer to create custom invites using pics from the free photo stock websites, decorating a themed cake, downloading themed music from itunes and playing activity games related to the theme…there are so many ways to make it at happen at home inexpensively…
(4) I also am not a fan of goody bags…so I try to have it be something they made that supports the theme that they can take home—like the fashion portfolio, or the rock star portrait, or a cardboard pirate sword they made, or their own elmo hat…kill two birds with one stone—it is two things, two things in one—it is the activity and the goody bag!! Now how much would you pay? ;)
(5) One that my daughter attended which was cool was an Ancient Egyptian theme—they used rolls of brown paper to cover the dining room walls with self-made ‘hieroglyphics’ done in simple black marker, crumpled brown paper into balls to play “how many camel dungs (yes, you read that right) can you throw into the basket”, had a pyramid cake, pharaoh costumes, pyramid making crafts and a treasure hunt throughout the house finding ancient Egyptian treasure…I hope my friend does not mind me sharing that…but it was awesome!!
thanks for including it…I emailed you since I could not post before…Hope it helped and thanks, again, for posting the article!!
Lisa
My 5-year old daughter’s birthday is mid-January so I always feel a little hard-pressed since we’ve just finished the holidays and we have to gear up and celebrate again(!) Plus, the weather is always an unknown. But I have found that the best parties for her have been when we’ve invited a small number of HER friends (not my friends with their kids, but the kids she actually wants!) to our house and keep it really simple — easy food, let the kids help decorate cake or cupcakes, and a few artsy activities. She has already told me that next year she wants to do a “Storyland Yoga” party, which I’m so excited for I may not even wait for her birthday. I think a 1/2 birthday in July might be the ticket!
we only have parties with friends every second year, the alternate year we have a family lunch instead.
To save any angst over cake decorating we do it as a kid actiivity. Bake a cake and ice it and then the kids decorate it with lollies (which they help choose). it always looks like a train wreck (but a least it i obvious it wasn’t MY fault!) – the kids have lots of fun and the party guests all seem to love a lolly encrusted cake.
also when kids are young dont organise too many party games – they would all prefer just to run around madly.
I love this post! My daughter’s 7th B-day party was last November and I tried to make it very low-key (b/c I had a very small budget for the party). We had it at the park and we set up a table under the pavillion (all free) and I made cupcakes, but let the girls decorate them. I had different colors of icing, m&m’s, sprinkles etc. They loved it. Then I had two easy crafts..one was making dog and cat puppets with paper sacks and the other was making an easy Christmas ornament. We also played “What am I?” I printed pictures of all kinds of animals and then we taped them on their backs and they had to go around and ask yes or no questions to figure out what they were. It was a nice, easy, inexpensive party and the girls spent a ton of time just playing on the playground together. I was also able to invite all the girls my daughter wanted to invite because I wasn’t paying per kids like I’ve done at the past at places like Build-A-Bear or Libby Lu. Thanks for the post..this is stressful for so many people. I love your comment that if we are stressed about it we are doing something wrong! So true.
We have also learned, after our first real year of birthday parties galore, our city has lots of inexpensive venues for parties. Sure, parks are great for summer babies; but for us winter folks, we have to be more creative. For example, our local YMCA offers inexpensive activities for parties – including chess and rock climbing.
By the time I spent money on party favors, activities and lunch for my son’s party at home, a rented venue would have been just as reasonable or more so. And there would have been a lot less stress and clean-up time in the process!
When it came time to celebrate our baby turning 1 last week, I was ready to not do anything, because I have been to so many 1st year birthdays where the mama is stressed, the baby is overwhelmed and the adults are standing around discussing world news. But I realized it was an important transition for us as parents and for our little guy.
So, we invited 3 other babies who we have spent this first year with, grand-ma and uncles, requested no gifts please and spent 2 hours in the park with cupcakes and champagne and a baby pit full of fun balls. You know, the kind you can jump into!
And it was delightful and simple and age appropriate and the perfect way to celebrate turning one.
Here are more great suggestions that were too good not to share. Joanna wrote to me to let me know how she successfully threw a party for her 4 year old only last week. I love her simple yet really fun suggestions so wanted to share them with you. Enjoy! :)
Having had Sofia’s 4th birthday last wednesday, with a small party, I
have a couple of comments on the subject.
Firstly, as we are living in Dubai we have also seen the extremes to
which people go to celebrate such things as children’s birthdays.
There is a pretty expansive (and expensive) offer of jungle playareas,
party zones with entertainers, children’s party services… you name
it, but I’ve never really identified either myself or Sofia with these
kind of places. It seems so over the top, noisy and small children
probably find it all overwhelming anyway.
So we opted for a simple party in the park with the friends that Sofia
decided she wanted to share her birthday with. (no influence from
parents)
We took some simple food, bubbles, balloons, and a few basic materials
for games, but not with any particular schedule in mind.
And you know what the kids played with the most? I’d collected up a
load of big plastic bottles and we took a ball, so that you could play
bottle skittles. Some of the kids loved seeing if they could knock
over a few bottles then stand them up neatly again, some of them loved
slamming the ball into the bottles with a football kick to see how
much they could make the bottles fly, then came the bottle
free-for-all where they just made up their own games.
So simple party, playing, eating, blowing out candles and opening
presents and at the end giving a little bag of simple things to take
home. And that was enough. They enjoyed it and Sofia was happy.
The elements that created the most stress for me were
1. Making the cakes (I had to make one for her nursery class in the
morning and one for the party) and
2. Remember all the things to take with us (disadvantage of being out
of home) and
3. That when it came to opening the presents, all the kids wanted to
open them and it all got a bit scrappy and over-excited. But you can
forgive them, they are 3 and 4 year olds.
The things that went into the ‘doggy bags’ were the biggest expense,
but again they were simple things like stickers, blow-out whistles,
plastic frogs.
The great thing about being in the park is that apart from general
rubbish collecting, there’s no floor sweeping or cleaning up to do
afterwards.
So all in all, I wouldn’t have done it any other way, because I think
I kept the stress to a minimum, and the kids enjoyed it. I think the
key is keeping the party appropriate to the child’s age and interests.
They should take part in the decisions about their day (once they are
old enough to) , after all, who’s party is it anyway?
Joanna
I agree with the notion of having the same number of guests as the child’s age. That keeps things simpler. My kids’ bdays are very close together (2 years and a week), so we have had joint birthdays many years. They each invited a handful of friends and we have great fun in the backyard. Here are some fun themes we enjoyed:
*Chef party with kids in aprons and homemade chef hats. They made mini pizzas and decorated cupcakes.
*Olympic theme with creative events that both girls and boys excel in. (ex carrying cotton ball on a spoon race or hoola hooping for girls, running race for boys)
*Hawaiian themed party
*Science party with cool experiments for school-aged kids.
I’d be in favor of abolishing the party bags! ;-)
Great ideas! Thanks for the post (and all the advice).
My daughter’s birthdays have always been tricky because we have a tiny house and it’s not a good time of year weather wise, so the yard or a park is out of the question. However, we are good friends with another family whose son’s birthday is a day apart, so we’ve done a few joint parties. This year we decided to split the cost of a kid’s gym day. It was really stress free – I baked cupcakes, she bought balloons and some little wristbands as party favors (also so we could tell which kids were ours). The kids had cupcakes, opened presents, then spent an hour or so playing on trampolines, trapezes, jumping in ball pits etc… then the parents showed up and took them all home. We were amazed at how smoothly everything went, and how little work we had to do! :) I think that really, what kids seem to want in a party is to play with their friends and have some sweets. If that happens – then you’ve done well!
I think I am in the minority of being a mum who loves to plan and host huge birthday parties for my older daughter. She absolutely loves it, and we are both party mad. It’s important though to stick to what is a party for your child. Last year we hosted 16 children at a local park and their families. It was a morning tea picnic party and there were entertainers/face painters. All of that was great, but I also had ordered a fancy princess castle cake as a surprise. The surprise was that my daughter didn’t much care about the cake. That was some money I could have saved and this year she asked me not to order another cake, but to make on instead because apparently mine taste better anyway.
I am one who really enjoys putting on parties, but recently, I think the stress is getting to me! I have three children ages 8, 5, and 1. My biggest problem is how to change the way I’ve been doing things for 8 years without the kids feeling let down. We’ve always had about 30 people at our parties because we invite close friends and lots of family. I’m thinking about alternating their parties every 3 years and letting them take a friend to the movies with us (or something like that) on the off years, even though that means that my 1 year old will get fewer parties than my other 2. And, I’m thinking about just having my 8 year old invite close friends to his party this year (no parents,) but I’m afraid that my family might feel left out. (Plus my son could care less if my bff comes with her kids, but I don’t know how to break that to her either.) I really don’t feel like spending more money or time on a seprate family party. I might just invite family to go eat with us on another day, but I know I can’t afford to pay for them.
my daughter will be celebrating her 2nd b-day by october 21st and like most moms here, i really don’t want it to be stressful but still want it to be enjoyable and memorable. besides we’re moving to a bigger house so an expensive party’s a big no no. we had other things to take care. my husband and I planned to just take her to her fave resto and then buy her the cute bike we saw at the mall but i want her to enjoy it with friends and relatives too.so thank you so much guys for sharing your helpful tips…i now had a great low cost b-day party idea for her now. :)
That’s fantastic! I’m glad you found some inspiration here. Keep it simple and have fun that’s what it’s all about. :)
Thank you for this :) I was totally going at my child’s first birthday the wrong way. I was getting caught up in all the stuff and treats and that I forgot the real meaning behind the birthday. so thank you :D I will now make my own cake and tone down the decor.
At the end of the day as long as she has family and friends there it will be a wonderful day.
nice ideas to your kids parties.
After seeing the faces of those kids, whatever stress you may have will disappear. It’s priceless to see the happy faces of the kids having fun you’ve prepared.