Why a First Easter Is Worth Marking Properly
Your baby will sleep through most of their first Easter. That’s fine — this one isn’t really for them. It’s for you: your first spring as a family, the first photo in slightly-too-big bunny ears, the first tradition you get to invent from scratch. The trick is choosing rituals simple enough to repeat next year, when there’ll be a toddler underfoot instead of a newborn asleep on your chest.
So rather than another gift list, here’s a short set of traditions that actually work with a baby in the house — no chocolate, no pressure, nothing you’ll regret starting.
Begin With a Slow Morning
Easter with older children tends to start at six in the morning with a sugar rush. Easter with a baby can be the opposite: curtains open to the spring light, a long cuddle, breakfast in dressing gowns, a wound-up music box playing while the kettle boils. Decide now that Easter morning in your house begins gently, and you’ve set a tone your family can keep for a decade.
If relatives are visiting later, protect that first hour. The roast, the garden egg hunt for the cousins, the photos for grandparents — all of it can wait until after the quiet bit.
Build a Chocolate-Free Easter Basket
Babies can’t eat chocolate eggs, and you probably don’t need a cupboard full of them either. Fill a small basket with things that earn their keep instead: a muslin comforter for the pram, a hooded towel for bath time, a wooden toy they can actually grip. Everything gets used, nothing melts, and half of it will still be around next Easter.
If you’re a grandparent or friend looking for something to bring rather than a tradition to start, that’s a different job — our first Easter gift ideas guide covers what to buy and why.
Take One Photo You’ll Actually Frame
Skip the elaborate photoshoot. Pick one spot — the armchair by the window, a corner of the garden — and photograph your child there every Easter. The first picture is sweet on its own; by the fourth year you’ve got a series that shows them growing in the same frame, and it takes two minutes to keep going.
Phones make this easy to take and easy to lose, so print it. We’ve shared more ideas like this in our guide to capturing baby memories with everyday essentials.
Start an Easter Keepsake Box
This is the tradition we’d argue for hardest, because it’s the one that compounds. Choose a box that lasts and add one small thing to it each Easter: this year’s photo, a first bootie, next year a drawing, later a school Easter card. By the time your child leaves home, you’ve built something no shop could sell you.
It helps to start with a box worth keeping. At Ohhh Baby you can build your own baby gift box around a crib-shaped wooden keepsake box in pink, blue or neutral — Small (£32), Medium (£57) or Large (£80.50), contents included. You choose what goes inside from our categories, from teddies and muslin comforters to wooden toys, and the wooden pieces can be engraved with a name and date. That engraving is what quietly turns a plaything into a keepsake.
One idea we’re fond of: include a wooden wind-up music box and make it the official soundtrack of Easter morning. Wind it up every year while breakfast cooks. Small ritual, big memory.
Keep It Small Enough to Repeat
The traditions that survive are the ones with a low admission price. A slow morning costs nothing. One photo takes two minutes. One item into the keepsake box takes less. Your baby won’t remember this Easter — but if you keep these going, they’ll grow up assuming Easter has always sounded like a music box and always started with a cuddle. That assumption is the memory. Everything else is just lunch.