A one-year-old might enjoy the cardboard box more.
But I went to my grandson’s first birthday party last month. So what did he get out of it, apart from lots of presents, and the chance to cover his face with icing from the birthday cake? Well, he got to play with his cousins, and other children of similar ages (ranging from 2 months old up to about 6 years old), and with lots of attentive grownups. And it’s all part of the learning process: perhaps when he’s 3 or 4 he’ll realise that there’s an annual cycle here.
And the older children do know about birthdays, since they’ve been to their own, and to their cousins’ and friends’ parties – and they enjoy the presents being unwrapped, even though they understand that they don’t own the toys, because they like seeing the one-year-old happy. Social rituals are a shared experience, not just for the person nominally at the centre of the ritual.
I think Duplo is for kids a bit older – say about 2 years old – but my grandson does like some plain wooden blocks that we bought about 30 years ago, and recently found in the garage. At this stage he just likes knocking down towers that I build, but I think that he’s getting close to building little towers himself: just putting one block on another is a developmental achivement at his age!
I concur with the cardboard book idea. When you go into B&N, they do have their kids section sorted by age, so they’ll have a section for his age range. Animals are good, unless you know he’s a fan of cars or trains or birds or something. They also have touch books, where the picture of the bear has fur, the picture of the snake has scales, etc.
Frankly, getting the kid a book is a signal to the parents that you care about them enough to spend time trying to find something their kid would like. The kid would be just as happy with a rolled up ball of foil or a balloon.
I think you find many more first year birthday parties for the first children than you do for their younger brothers and sisters. New parents are new parents. They have [del]survived[/del] lived though a lot, both good and stressful. Learned a hell of a lot about something most people aren’t prepared for and this really is a milestone in a baby’s life. They are just turning from being a relatively helpless infant into a toddler. Most are starting to walk, and some are babbling in almost recognizable sounds.
For new parents, who have watched the almost daily progress in their child, it’s a way of inviting others to share their joy.
By the time the second one comes along, the newness isn’t the same, and fewer milestones are captured on video or camera. “Oh, walking now, how nice.”
Unless you are getting shaken down by invitations which come with preselected gift registries, a party for a one-year-old is just that.
All the parents I know aren’t expecting expensive presents, and I’d much rather have another board book than the equivalent $10 for the kids education.