Kids birthdays are two days apart. Always have joint parties?

Augustmama1113

My kids will be turning 1 (girl) and 3 (boy) and their birthday's are two days apart. We have an extremely large family and would like to throw a big 1st  birthday for my daughter. Is it best to include my son's birthday as well? Would you have two separate themes? I don't always want to have joint parties as they get older, but I'm new at this

Any suggestions?

belladonna11307

Friends of ours just had their second...two days after their first's birthday.  My husband and I were talking about this and he said that his mom always had joint parties for him and his brother and their birthdays are two weeks apart.  I think, for me, if I did a big bash for my first's first birthday I'd want to do the same for my second and have a separate party for my first.  Most years I'd do a joint party until they start asking for their own.

Lizghannam

Our sons' birthdays are 11 days apart. I plan on throwing a big first party for my youngest, since I did for my oldest and then next year I'll just throw one party for both (two diff cakes to make them feel special ) Our families are big as well and it would be easiest for everyone to throw one big party. My mom threw one party for my brothers who were 18 days apart and I always thought that was so mean lol but now I get it!

 

 

notkateanymore

I personally would throw a big first birthday for your 2nd DC and then for a couple of years you might be able to have a joint party, but by 5 or 6, I doubt your DS is going to want to have any sort of party that shares a theme with his little sister.

Irishsapphire

I was talking to another mom this morning who told me that she had two kids with close birthdays, and she said that they alternate each year on when they celebrate with a birthday party for each child--one year they will have a birthday party with inviting friends over for one child and then the next year they will have a birthday party for the other child with inviting friends over for the other child.  

For my kids, there is one month difference.  We celebrated their 1st birthday parties more formally with inviting friends and having a photographer.  But we will just keep it simple and celebrate their birthdays with only the family for right now.  

And for years that I do not have a birthday party for my kids, I like to do either Halloween party, or this year I am doing a Valentine's Day party for a moms group that I am part of.  It is a party.  We can invite our friends to it.  We do a potluck, and the moms get to bring over fun dishes.  It is fun to celebrate a holiday.  It is just as fun as having a birthday party.

VOR

For the extended family, yes, I'd have a combined party.  BUT as the focus will probably be mostly on your DD, I might have a small immediate family only party ON your DSs actual b-day.  Just so that he doesn't feel ignored.

But moving forward- the "big extended family parties" are probably going to fall off anyhow and your kids are going to want to have parties w/ THEIR friends, not their siblings friends. 

I would recommend, though, to perhaps always approach these parties with 'small' in mind.  Put out an expectation early that friend parties will be just a FEW friends - not their entire class.  Make life a little easier on you that way!

RachieTK

My brother and my birthdays two months apart, and he is almost 3 years older. Our parents always had a family party in the middle. As we got older, we had the family party in August, and our own friends parties in July/sept. I don't feel cheated at all