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First birthdays are a major milestone, recognising the achievements not only of your baby but also of you as parents. Whether you choose a low-key party with just a few close friends and immediate family, or whether you want to throw open the doors and invite the whole antenatal group plus extended family, a birthday party requires some thought and planning. The best idea is to keep it simple, especially a first birthday party as this is probably the only one that you can control completely!

You may well have a range of ages attending your baby’s first party so some thought needs to be given to the basics:

Day and time – depending on your baby’s sleep times, mid to late morning is often a good time.

Venue – at home, meeting at a park or playground or a special place your baby enjoys.

Invitations – you can make them, buy them or print them from a website.

Decorations – whether or not you choose a theme, use something bright, bold and colourful like balloons, banners or streamers.

Games and activities – things like bubbles, playdough, pass the parcel or just cool music can work well.

Other children always find your toys interesting anyway, but you could hire something special from the local toy library.

Then there’s the food and drink… see ‘feeding your small crowd’. 

Onwards and upwards

As toddlers and pre-schoolers grow up their ideas of what they would like for their birthday party become more definite and will crystallise over the proceeding months. You may need to rein them in or gently suggest alternatives but most ideas can be worked with.

There are so many questions…venue, cake, entertainment, food, who to invite and so on. It’s best to start with where and when, as then you can crack the invitations and get the ball rolling.

If you don’t want to hold the party at home think about alternative venues. Some provide entertainment and others (like community houses or sports clubs) have rooms for hire. www.kidspot.co.nz have a birthday party directory to help you find everything from a venue to a bouncy castle, while www.treasures.co.nz and www.littlies.co.nz all have excellent pages on party planning and ideas.

It’s a good idea to keep it short - an hour and a half to two hours is plenty of time to celebrate and avoids over-tired toddlers and over-hyped kids. Depending on the venue, you may also like to keep it fairly small. It’s amazing how much space six three-year olds can take up when they race around!

If you have a theme then a few well-named games with suitably themed prizes go a long way. Easy themes are general ones like dinosaurs or fairies, as these lend themselves to simple games with a themed twist.

For example a Tyrannosaurus Treasure Hunt with plastic dinosaurs as the treasure, or a fairy wand prize in the Musical Fairy Throne game, usually known as musical chairs.

Written invitations are fun and your child can help with these. It also means your guest’s parents are much less likely to forget! Supermarkets and bookshops have a great range or you can find many party invitation ideas and templates on the Internet – see our links at the top of this page.

Once that’s done, now you can start a list… 

• Who’s coming to the party?
• Games to play and suitable prizes
• Decorations - everyone loves balloons, streamers and banners for a start.
• The knotty problem of party bags. Alternative ideas to $2 Shop plastic toys (also known as 'landfill') and lollies include a packet of seeds and a terracotta plant pot, notebook and pen, stickers or temporary tattoos, Lego men or nicely presented colouring sheets presented in a paper bag decorated by your child. For sleepover parties a small pillow can be an idea, or  try a ‘lucky dip’ of random wrapped tiny gifts.
• Charge up the camera and allocate someone to take photos and videos of the event.
• Food and drink, including napkins and disposable plates or lunchboxes - click here for food ideas
• The cake – home made or bought?

Endorsed by our New World Nutritionist  ||   Proudly Partnering with Parents Centre

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