I didn’t see this topic recently, although I imagine it’s bounced around here before. Parents, I’m curious how old your kid(s) were when you took them out trick or treating the first time. How did it go? Any tips or tricks for making it a good experience for the little ones?
My son is too young this year. He’s 18 months. I’m thinking next year or the one after might be his first time out. I love Halloween, and I’m looking forward to the first time I get to be the cool dad and take him around in costume.
I took mine the first time it came around after they were born. They’re just so cute in their little costumes as babies. It had nothing to do with the fact that I got all the candy because they couldn’t eat it yet and indeed, didn’t even know it existed. Nothing! I’d definitely take an 18-month old, and give him most (okay, some) of the candy.
As in walking door to door? When they can walk door to door. So 18 months, 16 months, and 16 months for the 3 of them. And of course when they were too young to walk on their first Halloweens, we carried them to few selected neighbors to show off how cute they were.
Let’s see…my son was born in January, so he was 9 months old, and my daughter was born in February, so she was 8 months old. Of course, there was no real independent trick-or-treating, but we were out there walking with the neighborhood, the wee ones getting ooh’ed and aah’ed over.
I love Halloween. I figure people see enough rude asshole kids, and seeing a cute baby in costume who’s not begging for candy spreads a little joy.
And I may or may not have been Treated to a couple of beers on the way.
My son…well…the plan was for him to go out, and he talked about it for weeks and was so looking forward to it. But the night of, he suddenly developed a paralyzing fear of his lion costume. Nothing would get him into it, despite how much he’d loved it the day before. We had to scrap our going out plans and stay in. He was crushed on November 1st when his courage returned, only to find that Trick or Treating isn’t something you can just put off until tomorrow night. :smack:
*ETA: I realize she looks much younger than 20 months…she was born super early, so her adjusted age was more like 14 months at that Halloween.
When they’re old enough to see Halloweeny-scary stuff and not scream or have nightmares. Depends on the kid.
I started with mine when he was around 2. Put on cute costume, took pictures, carried him around the block, and done. Every year the trick-or-treating time and area was expanded until he was taking two hours and covering major areas of real estate. MAN what a candy haul!
By the way, that wasn’t planned or anything…but the bigger the kids get, the more stamina they have for that kind of thing. Eventually they get tired and kind of implode. (Or, in the case of my kid, run into a cactus. Last year ever as a ghost.)
We started when Sam was 2 1/2. We pulled him around in a wagon, because our neighborhood is hilly. Instead of saying “Trick-or-treat” he’d hold out his candy receptacle and say “Put it in the bucket.”
The next Halloween he went dressed as Buzz Lightyear. He had the trick-or-treat exchange down pat, but after the candy transaction was finished he’d pull off his mask and assure the homeowner that “It’s really Sam.”
My husband took our daughter around last year when she was seven months. This year we’re absolutely doing it again. I have a lion costume for her and have taught her to say “rarrrrr!” It will be the cutest thing ever.
We took him last year, at 13 months. We wanted to dress him as his best friend, our orange tiger cat (being hugged to death here), but we couldn’t find a suitable costume, and I didn’t want to spend too much money making one, so we figured a tiger was close enough. This year, he wants to be a turtle. We would have taken him around at 6 weeks, but at the time, I was only getting 2-3 hours of sleep, so we called it an early night.
I’m loving mini-Pirate, and Zombie Pumpkin is just ridiculously cute. What’s in his bowl there? A severed body part, or a burrito, or what?
Hilarious! That was actually what I thought it was, but I was like, “Nah, too implausible.” Why I thought a burrito would be more likely, I have no idea.
My daughter was about 21 months the first time we took her. She just went to three or four houses. The year after, she went to five or six houses. We will probably do a few more houses this year.
Like others, the first Halloween after they started walking. That didn’t stop us from dressing them up in silly costumes before then. We live in a fairly big apartment building so it wasn’t a big deal.
