That first birthday is a truly special day in your child’s life. It’s a perfect opportunity to start some birthday traditions that you will return to every single year.
Traditions are a wonderful way of marking a special occasion and adding to memories each year.
Repeating these traditions create a sense of nostalgia and help make those birthday celebrations really stand out.
Plus birthday traditions can also make your life easier as a parent! When you know the key things you will be doing to make the birthday special ahead of time, then it removes at least some of the mental energy required for planning the occasion.
You may also enjoy these things to do before baby turns one and these beautiful first birthday quotes.
Birthday traditions
Here are 13 birthday traditions to start at age one and carry on every single year for all of your child’s birthdays.
Morning party
Why wait to get the party started?
Start their birthday with cake, either brought into their room as they wake up and singing happy birthday to them or in the kitchen. Make having cake in the morning part of your birthday traditions – even if it is only a small piece.
You could also deck out the kitchen or the door to their bedroom with birthday decorations to make it really special from the moment they wake up.
Special birthday headband
You could either make or buy a birthday headband and then they can wear it for every single birthday.
Try to make it stretchy or adjustable so that as they grow up they can continue to wear it every year.
Don’t forget to snap a photo of them wearing it too.
A personalised plate
Have a family birthday plate or personalised special plate that your child uses every year to eat their birthday meal or their birthday cake.
This could be a plate you make at a pottery cafe, where you get you decorate it with your child’s hand and/or footprints.
It’s a lovely keepsake and something you can then take out every year for their birthday.
Special birthday breakfast
Get the day off to the perfect start with a special birthday breakfast.
For baby this could be some blueberry pancakes. As they get older your child can choose what breakfast they would like.
Decorate their chair at the dining table
As part of a special birthday breakfast you could make it really special by decking out their dining chair with lots of colourful birthday decorations.
Add streamers and a happy birthday banner, or why not wrap the chair in birthday paper to make them really smile? They will love ripping the paper apart!
Record their growth
One annual tradition you will definitely not regret is recording their height.
Get a height chart to add to your home and make it an annual tradition that you measure how tall your child is.
Be sure to add the year to each height marking, and maybe if there is space on your height chart add a short note about your child’s year or commenting on their growth.
Snap a photo
Have a particular photo that you recreate every single year. It could be something simple like holding up birthday number balloons.
Alternatively it could be a family photo where you and your partner stand with your child in a particular pose or spot and you repeat that every single year.
Write a letter to your child
Put your thoughts, memories and feelings about your child’s past year into a letter. You could read it to them at their birthday party or keep it to yourself and present them with all of the letters when they reach 16.
This is almost a way of journaling your child’s years. Even something that feels so fresh in your memory now can become quite hazy as the years pass by, so writing down how you are feeling right now as your child turns one can be so valuable.
Record a birthday minute
Make a video of your little one where they are playing with their birthday balloons or where you are asking them about their special day and how it feels to turn one.
Make this a one-minute film. Now do the same thing every single year, so that when they turn 18 you have 18 minutes of footage showing how they have grown and how their personality has shone through over time.
This could become a video journal that you will all cherish forever.
Sign a new book
Gift your child with a new reading book and have every member of the family write a message in the front of the book.
Then repeat this every year and keep the books on a special bookshelf. Then your child will have a collection of books to look back on once they are grown up. These could become family treasure that are passed down through the generations.
Photo collage
Create a photo collage of all of the special moments from your baby’s first year. Have it printed on canvas or make it yourself by printing off your favourite pictures.
Then you can repeat the process every single year, and you could display the past collages at each birthday to look back on how much your little one has grown.
Favourite dinner
At age one your baby probably won’t be able to communicate with you about their dinner preferences. But you will have an idea of their favourite meals!
So start a birthday tradition where you cook their favourite meal for them. We still let our kids choose their birthday meal – it’s usually pizza – and they love having this say in what they eat. They also get to pick the dessert too.
A homemade cake
One of our favourite birthday traditions is that my mum will make my kids a cake with a theme of their choice.
Every year it changes – one year it was pink stars and another it was jungle animals. Take photos of the cake and treasure those part of your family memories.
Birthday banner
We have a fabric Happy Birthday banner that we hang for every family birthday.
Not only does this mean we aren’t using disposable birthday decorations, but also it’s lovely to have the same decoration out as it feels part of our family traditions when we celebrate.
Donate toys
One thing is certain for kid’s birthdays, it is going to mean you receive a lot of new stuff. This is lovely of course, but as kids grow up they become less interested in the toys they received when they were younger.
It can be nice to create a birthday tradition where you set aside some of your child’s toys they no longer play with and give those to charity. Doing this helps you by clearing out some unused stuff, and it also means you are setting a birthday tradition of giving. This can become a valuable lesson for your child as the grow.
