Don’t you remember how excited you used to be back when you were a kid, and you were finally able to say, “I’m five and a HALF!”, or “I’m seven and a HALF!”? I think for the under-10 set, reaching the point where you can add “half” to the end of your age always feels like a milestone- so why not celebrate it as such? Here are 5 ideas to celebrate your child's half birthday!
In our family, we recognize all of the kids half birthdays, as well as their actual birthdays- so yes, that means we celebrate 12 times a year! But a half-birthday doesn’t need to be a big production.
We certainly don’t buy any presents or go out to dinner; we just do a few small things to make the half-birthday child feel a little special! Here's how we like to make their day fun:
1. Wake Them Up By Singing “Happy Half Birthday”!
Right off the bat, you make the “half-er” feel excited that they've reached their milestone by remembering this is “their day” right when they wake up. It puts an instant smile on that sweet face!
2. Make Something a Special/Different for Breakfast
Whether it's something as simple as making pancakes instead of their usual cereal and toast for breakfast, or surprising them with a small powdered sugar donut snowman with sliced gumdrops for eyes, nose, and buttons- mixing up the regular breakfast routine makes the day feel special.
3. Allow Them To Choose the Dinner Menu
Half-birthdays don't change our family routine- there are still soccer practices to get to, and homework to accomplish. But I still need to prepare and serve dinner to the family, so an easy thing to do is to allow the half-er to help with the menu plan.
Now while my kids might really want to pick steak or grilled shrimp for dinner, they know that we don't have time to pull off a meal like that during the week. So I ask them to pick a favorite “weeknight” dish instead!
4. Celebrate with a Special Dessert
I don't normally do much baking during the week, but I do like to bake a special treat for a half-birthday. Not a whole elaborate birthday cake, but a simple sheet cake, a pan of brownies, or some molasses cookies are all great picks!
We like to pop a candle in whatever we are serving and sing to the half-birthday child too!
5. Allow Them to Stay Up a 1/2 hour Later
A little more snuggle time with Mom, maybe an extra book at bedtime, or even a little additional TV watching while the rest of the siblings keep a normal bedtime all go a long way into making the half-birthday child feel like this was truly a fun day!
Here are a few ideas from people who have taken the Half Birthday celebration to a bigger level:
I love this 1/2 birthday cake from AlexaMarieZurcher (link no longer working)!
And then there's the half-birthday celebration at school (we do this for our kids who have summer birthdays- they are NOT celebrating twice in the same year in the classroom!). Here's a sweet idea from Over the Big Moon.
So what do you think? Do you celebrate your children's half birthdays?
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Rachel says
YES, we DO celebrate half-birthdays!! I started it with 2 kids (because one half-birthday fell at a time to buy clearance items, so I would spend less on her birthday! And my boy’s 1/2 was at the end of May–I’d buy him something ‘summer’ for outside, usually something to share. BUT THEN– over the next 6 years we added 5 more kids!! And just like that we are celebrating 14 kids birthdays/halfs plus 2 parent bdays and I do fine myself going a little insane. My husband genuinely sang the wrong kid’s name last week (there are a few special days clustered together) and I may or may not have yelled at him. :-/ It’s also not practical to make 1/2 of a cake with that many people, so we do a whole cake now. I have told them it ends at age 13!
BUT I have a 2 year old born on August 31…There is no February 31…WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THAT??! (My husband rejoiced!) I knew I was going to be induced on August 31, and I spent the night leading up to that laying awake in bed counting how many days in the year don’t have a ‘half’ birthday (8 days) and wondering if t his child will be upset about it, lol.
Anonymous says
If this doesn’t endorse entitlement, then I don’t know what does….
unmowngrass says
Another reason I’ve heard of to go ahead with the half-birthday celebration is that it’s an extra defined point to add more responsibilities and/or privileges. So, bumping back a bedtime by 15 minutes (permanently), for example, or a small raise in pocket money, as well as giving them an additional chore or something that they need to be responsible for rather than having Mom do it (like washing their own hair when they have a bath?)