Birthday Party Ideas for Your 1 Year Old

Tired of the boring ‘I’m 1!’ birthday paraphernalia out there? Want to have a birthday party theme of something other than teddy bears or jungle animals? It’s hard when your baby is only turning 1, they probably don’t have any favorite heroes or characters they adore. Here are a few ideas that I came up with when planning two 1 year old birthday parties:

Fish
There are plenty of cake pans out there either new or used in the shape of fish, or make cupcakes and put Swedish fish on top. Use goldfish as the party favor or bubbles. You can do a fishing game for older kids – get some inexpensive plastic fishing poles, a baby swimming pool and try to ‘hook’ some fish.


Underwater
Use the same cake pans as above for the fish theme, or an octopus, whale or seahorse. Use bubbles as favors or swim goggles. For an activity you can go to a local pool or use your own pool or sprinkler.


The Very Hungry Caterpillar (or any Eric Carle books for inspiration)
Make cupcakes and frost them green with one red one for the head and arrange on a table – you have a caterpillar cake! For party favors you can get butterfly nets or make butterfly cookies the kids can decorate. As an activity you can have the kids design their own butterfly or caterpillar and you can read the book out loud.

Additional Theme Ideas by Season

Spring
Flowers
Baseball

Summer
Beach
Red, White and Blue

Fall
Apple Harvest
Halloween

Winter
Sledding
Skating