Worried about 3 year old being overwhelmed on his birthday ?

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Every birthday I’ve made the living room all fancy and DS loves it. This year I knew he would really understand it’s his birthday and thought he’d be excited on the morning. However, when I called him to come downstairs, he smiled and giggled then saw all the balloons, presents and started putting his hands over his ears and cried. He walked upstairs and refused to come down until Daddy picked him up. After 20 mins he got into the swing of things and began opening presents. I was a bit worried if I’m honest. Has anyone else experienced this before? He’s not normally overwhelmed at things, he is speech delayed but coming along.

All kids can be a bit overwhelmed over things like this. They're still very young and still learning, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Well, how many balloons and presents were there? Are we talking 3 presents or 30?

My DD birthday (and ours!), we put up the happy birthday banner on kitchen wall, a couple of balloons and around 2-3 presents on the table.

My son did this, this year turning 6. I’ve no worries about him generally getting overwhelmed I just think it was all our family and friends being there and the weight of expectation almost. It was a bit odd but not worried about him since so i think it was just a one off. If you’ve no concerns otherwise I wouldn’t worry

I think it's just how some 3 year olds are. I wouldn't read too much into this in isolation at this age.

My nearly 3yo got so overwhelmed with presents from his 2nd bday that we had no choice than to spread them out over a few days! He would open a couple and get so excited and burst into tears that we limited it to 2 a day. He had a bday party and got a lot so it lasted over week!