If you are expecting a baby any time this year it will be very special for you. It might be even more memorable, however, if your baby is due on Feb 29th!
Nothing in particular distinguishes Leap Year babies from others. They
look the same, act the same, grow up the same. Yet they belong to an exclusive
club of children whose unusual birthday does make them stand out from
the crowd.Sam Pope takes a look at what having a Leap Year baby is all
about!
Meet the expert
Having a baby on a date that only occurs once every four years can be
pretty daunting for prospective parents. With the help of Raenell Dawn
(herself a Leap Day baby!) of www.leapyearday.com, we answer your questions
about babies born on Feb 29th and show why they’re so special!
What do I call my baby?
Apart from their usual name, if your baby is born on February 29th,
their correct ‘title’ will be ‘Leap Day baby’, not ‘Leap Year baby’, as
anyone can be born in a Leap Year! Remember – it’s the day that makes them
special.
How do I work out my child’s age?
According to Raenell Dawn, it is incorrect to say that your eight-year-old child is two.
‘They are two Leap years old,’ she corrects. How do you answer your child
when they ask how old they are? If they really want to be eight or 12, instead
of (technically) two or three, then celebrate them being the age they want
to be. When they get older they will appreciate the opportunity to truthfully
say they are younger!
When should I celebrate my child’s birthday?
It’s not rocket science. When a Leap Year occurs, celebrate it on Feb 29th. For all other years you have a choice – 28th February or 1st March. Some people even have two birthdays! (Well, if the Queen can, why not?!)
Raenell Dawn has some top tips for celebrating a Leap Day child’s birthday. ’When it comes to celebrating at a birthday party, the frog is the big deal. So are leaping lizards. Getting the child items that reflect their ”Leapness” is always fun.’
How to explain Leap Year to your child?
At some point your child will want to know why they can’t celebrate their birthday on the same day every year. You could try getting away with explaining that they were born on Feb 29th, Leap Year Day (or Leap Day), and that this day just doesn’t occur every year. This might work while they’re still fairly young. However, as they get older and more curious, the explanation gets a bit technical. You could simply say that when the calendar was invented, an extra day was added every four years to keep all the seasons and the calendar in synch.
If your child is Paxman-like in their demands for more detailed answers, you could explain further by saying that the Earth completes its orbit around the sun in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 36 seconds. This is the length of the ‘solar’ year. The moon, on the other hand, finishes its phases in around 29.5 days. Therefore, 12 lunar months (a lunar year) total more than 354 days, 8 hours and 48 minutes. The discrepancy between the solar and lunar years is unavoidable but needs addressing to help harmonise the seasons and keep track of time. (Have I lost you yet?) Hopefully by this point they will have wandered into the kitchen in search of a chocolate biscuit.
Raenell Dawn has simplified it a bit more for us and has added a reason why your child should feel even more special! ‘Leap Year Day was added to the calendar when February was the last month of the year. When February was promoted to the second position of the calendar, it retained the responsibility of keeping the calendar in line with the universe. There’s a reason for that. We experience the seasons the same time every year… If we didn’t
have that extra day to keep the seasons lined up with the calendar, we would have a horrible time trying to maintain our crops. It’s because of that extra day, February 29, Leap Year Day, that the calendar is as perfect as it is.’
Leaping lizards!
Here are a couple of amazing facts about Leap Year Day!
Factoid 1 : Leap Year Day babies will never have a ‘Golden Birthday’ (when
your age matches the number of the day of the month you were born on)
as Leap Year Day babies would have to be 116 before they turn 29 on the
29th!
Factoid 2: Lisa Dulchik of Swindon was born on Feb 29th, 1984, and celebrated
her first birthday on Feb 29th, 1988. Her mother, Suzanne, was also a
Leap Year Day baby, born in 1956, so she officially celebrated her eighth
birthday in 1988. The odds of a mother and daughter sharing a Leap Year
Day birthday are two million to one!
Your Leap Year thoughts
Parents can vary in their reactions to having a potential Leap Day baby, as the responses we received from several babyworld members showed:
Give me a vindaloo!
Our baby girl is due on leap year day – as a result she has been called ”frog” all the way through pregnancy – even though we now have a name for her. The nursery is full of frog things already that people have bought for her – so I think she is stuck with the name!
We think it would be wonderful to have her birthday on Leap Year day - it’s such an unusual thing it has to make her even more special! (That and the fact that the comedy potential for winding up a 16-year-old and telling them they are in fact only 4 is too much to pass up on!). I was working for a few weeks out in Singapore when I was 31 weeks pregnant
and, apart from half the population of Singapore feeling my belly and predicting she is a girl, they all thought when I told them her due date that she would be a very lucky girl to be born on that day because it was a rare and good omen. Haven’t managed to trace down any background to that superstition though.
In any case we are planning on some big curries around the 28th!!
Life’s a (once-in-four-years)party
My baby is due on 3rd March. My first was four days early, so I’m dreading Feb 29th coming along, purely for the reason that, officially, he/she will have a birthday once every four years, and then, for the other three years in between, do we celebrate it on 28th Feb or 1st March? Seems weird that child could be 4 at 16!
Rosey 34+6
Que sera,sera
My name is Natalie and Stephen and I are expecting our first baby together
on the 25th or 26th of Feb. He wants me to go till the 29th for obvious
reasons, but it might be early as this is my fourth! The second and third
were both three days late, so who knows? We have called him Samuel already
and cannot wait to see his little face!
Nat x
Potentially a problem
Hiya! Am due on the 6th March if everything goes to plan lol! I would
rather she came before or after the 29th of Feb as it would save a lot
of problems. Mind you, if she did come on the 29th Feb I would have her
birthday on the 28th.
Hope that’s helped you.
Love Zoe n bump xxx
Why didn’t I think of that?!
I could have cut the cost of birthday presents by three quarters!
Debbieann
Many thanks to Raenell Dawn from www.leapyearday.com for her assistance
with this article.
By Sam Pope
Where to next?
- Have you named your Leap Year baby?!Visit our baby namer to
check out what names are hot right now and what your choice of name
means - Find out how to register your baby in:
- Find out what to do if you haven’t decided on a name yet
- Considering a Christening or baby naming ceremony? Learn more here
