A baby's first Halloween is about forty minutes long
The baby will not remember it and cannot eat the candy. That leaves you free to do the small, good version — and be home before it is properly dark.
Here is the honest truth about a first Halloween: it is for you. The baby does not know what day it is, cannot have one thing out of the bowl, and would, given a vote, like to be in pajamas by half past six. None of that is a reason to skip it. It is a reason to make it short, warm and early, and to come home with exactly one good picture. I have done it this way with each grandbaby in turn, and the evening runs about like this.
Feed everybody first
Supper comes before the costume, and it is a real supper, eaten at the table. A fed baby is a cooperative baby. A fed parent is not standing in the kitchen at eight o'clock eating fun-size candy bars and calling it dinner.
Protect the afternoon nap the same way you would before a long drive. Everything that goes wrong on a first Halloween goes wrong because somebody was tired or hungry, and it is very often one of the adults.
Skip · the party that starts at seven
Dress them last, and dress them warm
A baby's costume is a warm hat and something soft. That is all it has to be. For the very little ones, a bunting — the kind that is really a wearable blanket shaped like a pumpkin or a peapod — keeps them warm and takes about a minute to put on.
Nothing over the face, nothing tied snugly at the neck. And one thing people forget: a thick, puffy costume should not go under car seat straps, because the harness cannot tighten properly over all that padding. If you are driving anywhere, bring the costume along and put it on when you get there.
Skip · anything that takes two people to fasten
Take it on the step, before you leave
Take the picture first, while the costume is straight and the baby is still pleased with the world. The front step is the place: last of the daylight, the pumpkin beside them, the door behind.
Then take it in the same spot every year. One photograph of a baby in a pumpkin hat is sweet. Ten of them, on the same step, with the same door and a taller child each time, is the thing somebody reads out at a wedding.
Get down to their height, tap the baby's face on the screen, take a dozen, and put the phone in your pocket for the rest of the night.
Skip · the photo shoot
Visit the people who would mind not seeing them
You are not trick-or-treating. You are paying calls. Pick the three doors where somebody would be genuinely sorry to miss the baby in a costume — the neighbors on either side, and the grandparents, if they are close enough. I am always one of the three, and I always have the porch light on early.
A soft carrier is better than a stroller for this. The baby stays warm against you, sees everything, and you have two hands for the older brother's bag.
Go home when the baby is finished, not when the route is. Some years that is the third house and some years it is the first.
Skip · the whole street
Let Halloween come to you
This is the best part, and nobody tells you. Go home, put the porch light on, and answer the door with the baby on your hip. The whole neighborhood walks past in costume, the baby gets to watch a parade from the warm side of the door, and every child who comes up the steps says hello to them.
Keep a second bowl beside the candy with things that are not food, for the very smallest callers and for the children who cannot have what is in the first one. A teal pumpkin on the step is the sign for that, and families with food allergies do look for it. I keep a list of what goes in the second bowl.
Skip · the candy, for the baby, entirely
The costume that actually gets worn
Bath, pajamas, one book, bed — at the usual time, or as near to it as you can manage. Tomorrow is an ordinary day, and the baby does not know it was a holiday.
If you buy one Halloween thing for a baby, I would make it the pajamas. The costume is worn for forty minutes. The pajamas are worn for the two weeks on either side, and they are in every sleepy picture you take that month.
For the book, I have thirteen I can vouch for, starting with the ones that are not scary in the least.
Skip · staying up for it
What you can skip entirely
The elaborate costume. The full trip around the block. The evening party. The matching family costume, if arranging it is making anyone short with anyone else. Anything with the year printed on it in glitter. There will be plenty of Halloweens when they have opinions, a route, and a pillowcase. This one only has to be gentle.
- The party that starts at bedtime
- A costume that needs two adults
- The whole street
- A photo shoot
- Candy, for the baby
- Staying up for it
One picture, three houses, home by dark.
Next year they will walk up the steps themselves and say something close to “trick or treat,” and it will be a different holiday. When you get there, I have written down everything I know about choosing a costume they can walk in.
The hat, the bunting and the pajamas are all things a good children's shop does well. There may be one closer than you think in our boutique directory.
Children's boutiques near you
Independent children's boutiques and toy stores across the country, city by city — the places that will let you feel the fleece before you buy the lamb.
