question about 1st birthday..

[WildFlower]

I'm not sure how to ask this and wasn't sure where to put this...
how do I help things go along smoothly with gift opening at DD's 1st bday party? She is sensitive and gets upset easily if anything is taken from her. She LOVES to eat paper:giggle . I think she'l like opening gifts, but I am worried about the whole getting her stop what she's doing with one gift and open a new one..part. Also keeping her from sitting there eating paper , and instead OPEN the gift? I just want it to go at least 1/2 way smoothly and I am just not sure a good tactic to keep things rolling so to speak. She gets genuinely upset if you take something away she is interested in. The only thing I can think is do something like I saw my sister do with her son at his 1st party, the magic disappearing act of "THANK YOU!" then put the gift under the table or behind the couch and plop a new on in his lap to open. ...
Any suggestions?

[raining_kisses]

DS had no interest in opening the gifts, so I opened them and handed them to he and his dad to look at. He mostly just played with the paper. :shrug

[olive]

I wouldn't expect her to play along- I don't think it would be a problem for her to sit holding a gift and not open it, or even eat a little paper really. I'd sit her on my lap and open them for her, if she grabs at something she can have it whether it's the paper or the toy and I wouldn't try to take it off her to open the next present I'd just keep opening them myself and thank everyone on her behalf "oh she's going to love this thanks, how cute they always find the box so exciting at this age, etc etc".

[WildFlower]

thank you! I don't really think she will play along. This eases my mind, to just go along and open them for her. I didn't know if it was appropriate, but since it was suggested I don't expect anyone else is going to care..(well one person might, but she'll have to get over it (in-law)) I just want it to go as smoothly as possible for Dd, so she has fun and doesn't get upset or anything.

[raining_kisses]

maybe the in law who actually cares can have her present opened first, when your dd is most likely to "cooperate". You can take a video of her trying to open the present, then while she is playing with the paper/box from that one, you say "and to move things along I will just help her out with the rest of these."

[cro]

If there are a lot of gifts, you could just open a couple at the party (from the most important or most easily offended ppl) and then open the rest at home...and take pics of dd w/ each gift to send w/ thank you notes.

[Kiara.I]

People who have expectations about a 1-year-old opening gifts are kind of doomed to disappointment. :giggle

One thing you might try is to have one gift opened. Then do something else for a while. Then another gift opened. If you try to do "a gift opening" session, it's...well...probably not going to go well.

And honestly, the gift opening is for the people giving the gift, not the person receiving them. You can choose to just forego it. Most little kid parties I've been to, they don't open the gifts at the party at all. They are taken away and opened later.

[benica312]

We didn't open any of the gifts at J's birthday party. It would have been really insane. :giggle We opened them at home the next day I think.

[The Thinking Mama]

wejust haven't had 1st bday parties, but that's really not helpful! I second opening them yourself.

[sherry]

We had some older cousins (ages 5-7) that were more than happy to "help" a little one open the gifts - they made a game of crumpling wrapping paper for the one year old to play with (also a fun photo-op for the grandparents...)

[WildFlower]

so... I just "helped" dd open the presents. She was interested in tearing the paper at first, so that was fun ! Then I did move some of the opened gifts under the table to get her interested in the next thing we were opening. I had her sit on the table and everyone was gathered around it. Worked out pretty well. When she got really interested in some of her gifts and I knew she wouldn't take kindly to me taking them from her...I moved on and opened them for her, showed them to her and made sure to say" THANK YOU, she'll LOVE this!!! " to whoever gave it to her.