How do you feel about dual birthday parties?

Kingston54 · July 2013

DD is one on Jan 6 and DS four on Dec 29. Just interested in hearing the pros and cons of doing a party together. Thanks for your thoughts!

Cherryblossoms07 · July 2013

I grew up having a dual birthday party with my brother. We had a small family birthday celebration on our individual birthdays but then had a friend party after school let out for the summer. As a child I was fine having a dual birthday party. My kids' birthdays are close together also and I may do something similar to what my mom did when my kids are older.

I have never been to a dual party, but one con that I can think of for guests is an "obligation" to get the other child a gift. Family won't be a problem, but it may be an issue for the four year old's friends. I don't ever remember getting gifts from my brother's friends or my friends getting my brother anything. However, we never sent out invites to a "dual party," we both gave out individual invites. Our situation was different though since our party wasn't a normal/formal party. My brother and I would invite a couple friends each and my parents would take us all to the amusement park that day. Gifting is going to be more of an issue with a normal party.

XCrissCrossX · July 2013

I think it's fine if your parties are family parties or parties where the people coming are actually your friends (DS has no friends, his birthday parties are an excuse for us to hang out with people we don't see often).

If you're going to invite non-related children who are friends with only one of your kids, I don't think it's a good idea because of the gifting issue. Also, I think having activities would be weird for the party-- would you have separate activities/ games for each kid and their friends? Or would you only have one set of activities (one pinata, for example).

molisar · July 2013

I think at that age a dual party would be fine. Do you hang out with the same groups with both DD and DS? I'd say since both likely don't have "different groups" where it might be weird with having to bring two gifts for guests, go for it!

KariB509 · July 2013

I personally wouldn't do that with my children and wouldn't have wanted that for myself. I was a twin though and always had to share a birthday. Anyway, I feel like if kids have different birthdays, then they should have their own day, that all theirs. That's my opinion. To each his own!

tracy41 · July 2013

Maybe at this age because I doubt they would care now. But as an early Jan bday myself I think the fact that their bdays will probably start getting lumped into Xmas by family and friends is cause to give them each their own special day when they're older. Just my thought.

wedsept · July 2013

I personally wouldn't want a joint birthday and wouldn't give it to my kids who are 3 weeks apart in their birthday dates. I think each child deserves their own special day once a year. But, that is just me.

kgs0505 · July 2013

Cherryblossoms07:

I grew up having a dual birthday party with my brother. We had a small family birthday celebration on our individual birthdays but then had a friend party after school let out for the summer. As a child I was fine having a dual birthday party. My kids' birthdays are close together also and I may do something similar to what my mom did when my kids are older.

I have never been to a dual party, but one con that I can think of for guests is an "obligation" to get the other child a gift. Family won't be a problem, but it may be an issue for the four year old's friends. I don't ever remember getting gifts from my brother's friends or my friends getting my brother anything. However, we never sent out invites to a "dual party," we both gave out individual invites. Our situation was different though since our party wasn't a normal/formal party. My brother and I would invite a couple friends each and my parents would take us all to the amusement park that day. Gifting is going to be more of an issue with a normal party.

Ugh! It posted before I added my thoughts! Anyway...

I am glad to see this because I've been thinking about this as well and how to handle it, especially with friends as they get older. Handing out individual invites sounds like a great solution! My son's b-day is 2 weeks before the twins b-day. I live about an hour away from any family, so I want to do something together once. Obviously we would do something on the day of for the individual. Too bad for the twins though, they have no choice but to share! I so don't want to do big parties every year though, it's too hard, and they don't need so many toys.

dairygirl19 · July 2013

I would do it and as a guest I wouldn't care at all. I'd actually prefer. I don't want to sit through two birthday parties in two weeks time either.

That said, I just can't get excited about birthday parties. I love my kids, I love a celebration, but when it comes to birthdays I'm very much in the buy a cake call it a day camp.

memali26 · July 2013

My mom had 5 kids, 2 with birthdays a month apart and the other 3 within a month of each other. She threw two big family parties a year and I don't remember ever caring that I had to share. The day of our actual birthday was all about us, and for specific birthdays she threw us an individual friend party. I think I can safely say all 5 of us came out without birthday scars

emberlee3 · July 2013

My sister and I share a birthday, and our brother's birthday is the next day. I remember sharing a lot of parties with my sister. Probably also shared a few with my brother. We always thought it was fun to share our birthdays (and still do).

erbear · July 2013

I did a separate 1st for DD2 but they did 2 and 4 together and plan to do dual parties until they ask for separate ones.

AimeeL85 · July 2013

That's what we'll be doing with my LOs for the foreseeable future - their birthdays are 12/31 and 12/28, so not only are they the same week but everyone is busy/exhausted with the holidays. We also don't live very close to family and friends so having them come out twice during that time isn't an option.

I don't really worry about it because my two brothers and I were all born in the same month and always had joint parties (I remember some separate ones when we were older) and I don't remember it bothering me.

I still want both kids to be able to have their own "themes" the same way I would do it if they were having separate parties, so I'm going to decorate part of the house as one theme and part of the house as the other. Even making separate invitations!

juliane2004 · July 2013

I've only done ONE dual birthday party. This was for DS' 1st and DD1's 2nd. We did this because we knew at the time that they were going to have the same invited people, since neither were in school or had their "own" friends.

I don't plan on doing a join birthday party again because they have started to get their own friends, and I don't want the parties to be as large as that dual one was. For example, the dual party we DID have in 2011 had about 70 people attend. For DD1's 4th birthday party this year, we are inviting 6 kids (to a jungle gym) and that's it. To invite as many as we did for the dual party would be too expensive.

For your kids who are 1 and 4, I would NOT do a dual party. They are, IMO, too far apart in age.

pitterpatter129 · July 2013

wedsept:
I personally wouldn't want a joint birthday and wouldn't give it to my kids who are 3 weeks apart in their birthday dates. I think each child deserves their own special day once a year. But, that is just me.

This is my thought as well.

How do you feel about dual birthday parties?

Re: How do you feel about dual birthday parties?

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