A first birthday present that pays off two years later

What a first birthday is actually made of

The party is for the adults, and that is fine — it marks a year that was hard. The one-year-old naps through part of it, is handed around for the rest, and has their presents opened for them by somebody else.

The two things that survive the afternoon are the photographs and whatever the smash cake did to the floor. Nothing you buy is going to compete with the box it arrived in, so the useful question is not what they will like today. It is when the present you are choosing starts being used at all.

Sorted by when the present gets used

Every present at a first birthday sits somewhere on this scale, and most people buy from the first two rows without noticing there are four.

1. That afternoon

   The wrapping paper, the box the thing came in, and the cake. This is the part the one-year-old actually engages with, and no amount of money changes it. If you want to be the person whose present lands on the day, buy a box with a lid.

2. By the fall

   Clothes in the next size up, and toys aimed slightly ahead of where they are. These get used properly, for a few months, and then they are done. It is the most useful category and the shortest one.

3. At three, give or take

   Anything with a story in it. A book written for one child sits on a shelf for a while and then becomes the one they carry around, because that is the age the words start doing something. This is where a book made now actually gets spent.

4. Much later, or never

   The keepsake tier: the handprint, the savings account, the framed photograph. Worth something only if somebody keeps it, which is out of your hands the moment you hand it over.

What this is not, at one

We write for ages 3 to 8, and a one-year-old is under that range by two full years. Three things follow from it, and none of them are going to be a surprise later if you read them now.

• They can't follow 24 pages. At one, a book is a thing with edges. The story we write will be read to them long before it is read with them, and it lands properly somewhere around three.
• Paper does not survive teething. What arrives is a print-ready file, not a board book. If you print it now and hand it to a one-year-old, expect it to be chewed. Print a second copy later, or keep the file and print it when they are past that.
• It is not a present for the day itself. If the point is a wrapped thing that gets opened at the party, buy that as well. This is the one that gets handed over quietly and matters two years later.

Why one is the year worth fixing

There is an argument for buying it now rather than at three, and it is not sentimental. At one you probably have more photographs of this child than of any year that comes after, and no idea which of them you will want later. What you do not have is any record of what they were like, because at one they are not like anything yet — they are a set of specific, temporary details that will be gone by the spring.

The character in the book is drawn from two or three photographs you send us, so the version of them in the pictures is this year's. That is the part that cannot be bought back later, and it is the reason to order at one rather than waiting until the book can be read.

What to tell us when they can't tell you

You know more than you think. The word they say for the dog, the thing they do when music comes on, where they go the second nobody is watching, which adult they reach for. None of that is personality yet and all of it is specific, which is what a story needs.

If you are not the parent

First birthdays attract duplicates. Four people buy the same shape sorter because it is the top result, and the parents end up returning two of them. A book written for one child is the one category where that cannot happen, which is worth something if you are the fourth aunt to ask what they need.

You will need photographs, which means asking a parent, which means they will know. At one that costs you very little — the person the present is for is not the person you are surprising.

If the child is turning three or older, this is the wrong page: the birthday page covers the age where the book gets read the week it arrives, and what to send us so the story sounds like this year's version of them.

How ordering works

Three steps, and the first two are done before you close the tab — nothing to install, nothing to post.

• You pay $9.99 and tell us the child's name, age and whatever you want in the story on the payment page.
• You upload two or three photos of them on the page you land on straight after checkout — pick the files and you're done, no email to write. Prefer email? Send them to info@kater.jp from the address you paid with instead.
• The finished book comes back to the address you paid with as a print-ready PDF within 7 business days. If we miss that, you get a full refund without asking.

One thing worth knowing before you count backwards from a date: we're in Japan, so business days here are Japanese weekdays. Weekends and Japanese public holidays don't count, and they don't fall on the same days as yours. How the 7 days are counted is written out on the refund page. If your date is tight, email us before you pay and we'll tell you whether it fits.

Related pages

Worth reading first

• What changes between 3 and 8, and what to give at each step — Age by age from 3 to 8: what shifts, and where a picture book fits
• The first read, and the twenty that come after — What the first read is like, why the tenth matters more, and what to say if they ask who made it

Other occasions

• Birthday — What to tell us so the story sounds like this year's version of them
• Christmas — How the timing works with no carrier involved, and what to do when it's already late
• New sibling — When to give it, what belongs in the story, and what a book can't fix
• From grandparents — The three questions to ask the parents, and how to read it together from far away
• Baby shower — Who each present at a shower is actually for, and the one case we can't make anything for
• Mother's Day — What changes depending on who it's from, and how to count back from a date that moves
• Easter — What survives the week after Easter, and why the printing has to happen before Sunday
• All guides — what to look for before you buy any personalized book