Should I postpone birthdays?

[beamused]

Dd will be 3 and ds will be 1 next month. I haven't bought anything yet (could order tonight) but I'm paranoid about the person delivering it/packing it getting germs, dd won't understand why no one (grandparents & cousin) will come. H thinks it'll be a nice distraction but agrees that ordering anything is risky and it's not essential (but what kind of birthday would that be when we could postpone it). What would you do?

I'd order something and celebrate. A 3yr old can easily be told in age appropriate terms why people can't visit right now. I'd never be able to just not celebrate my child's Birthday and you can always still have a family get together after this is all over. You can't actually change the date of their Birthday unfortunately.

The risk of the virus being passed from ordering goods online is negligible.

I’d order and celebrate. If you leave whatever you order in the sun, UV will disinfect and the virus doesn’t live long on most surfaces, you can look up how long you need to leave it for and then clean it well.

You can postpone celebrations with their family members, but you can’t really postpone their actual birthdays.

You absolutely can postpone their birthdays! And in your shoes I would. I’d plan a lovely party with family and friends once this is over. At their ages they’ll not know the difference. It will feel weird but will always be a part of their history - the year their birthdays were later than they should be!

We just celebrated my children's birthdays, one was 16, and one was 14. We made cake and then family members FaceTimed/Skyped in and we all sang happy birthday. I made each of them a special birthday on the day,and we spent some time playing video games and sharing some laughs. (I got balloons for my 16 year old and I put up the Christmas tree for my 14 year old) think a little outside the box,spend some time with your little ones and really make it special. I would get a present for the 3 year old,the one year old won't understand anyway,so you can postpone that one if you need to x

I would order online and celebrate their birthdays on the actual days. I agree with your dh that it will be a distraction.
Of course you can do a party later, but at 3, your dd really won't have any expectations about grandparents etc.
You can make party hats, plan games, bake a cake etc. for you and DH to play with her
It will be a much more interesting memory to record for your children- the year we celebrated your birthday during lockdown.
If you are anxious about deliveries just take sensible precautions.
Go for it!

I think spending the whole day knowing it's your child's birthday but pretending it isn't, would be weird and potentially quite upsetting. It would mess with my head and there's enough going on outside the family doing that. Keeping life normal within abnormal circumstances is important I think.

Celebrate lockdown style. Set stood precedent for future years! Birthdays are about having a nice time with your family right now - maybe you can have cake, facetime grandparents and get a couple of simple presents and set a trend for all future birthdays!

I'd do a big celebration with lots of decorations, balloons and presents and a special cake to make up for the fact there will be nobody else there. At their age they'll love that and you can use the decorations twice.
Chance of virus in deliveries is negligible and you can wipe everything down anyway