Decisions Decisions.... Birthday Party Help!

NaplesWifey

DD's Birthday is March 19th, so I really need to get moving & make a decision about what to do for her party. Last year was her first year in pre-school (2 days/week) and we didn't invite any of her friends from there because she hadn't formed any super close friendships. Now she is in her second year with a lot of the same kids so she is asking to invite some of them to her Birthday. Problem is we have a lot of close friends with kids that we always invite, plus her cousins, so it will be A LOT of kids if we invite them all! We have a good yard for a party, but at parties we have had in the past, the kids are always going in & out of the house & it can get chaotic.

So I guess my questions are:

1. Is it rude to not invite her whole class to the party? (She goes 5 days & her class also has kids that go 2 or 3 days so it would be 16 kids total). She has only mentioned about 6 names that she really wants to come (and we have had playdates with some of them before).

2. If you don't think its rude not to have the whole class, what do you think about having a special "Birthday Playdate" one day after school (we get out at 12:30) with just the 5 or 6 girls she talks about a lot? Then do a separate party with our family & close friends that we usually have.

3. Or is 5 or 6 kids plus their parents not that many to add to an already fairly large party list? (14 kids that are 6 & under plus some older ones) 

I appreciate your thoughts!

 

 

rsd12

I would do option #2! And have done that ; ) this year my son invited 4 of his best buds over and we brought them to a bounce house. They loved it! but I have had his buds over after school on a nice day so they can spend a couple of hours outside playing together too. Then we had a family dinner/birthday cake on his actual birthday. Also on his birthday we allowed him to have a friend over too ; ) my middle son still has not bonded with anyone in preschool so we just have family parties for him, but I would offer him to invite a few friends over too.

UsedToBeGoldie

once we started doing class parties for DS1 we stopped doing family parties (ie- no friends of mine and their kids, etc).

last year we invited Griffin's whole class- and invited a few of my friends and their kids- but only the ones who had kids right at Griffin's age.... no younger/older (unless they were siblings of the ones his age).

and i'm glad most of my friends have done the same thing- b/c we have too many parties to go to as it is with just his school friends... it's almost every weekend from January until May.  It's crazy.

jerol

I agree with the last post...once DD started asking about inviting her friends to her party I stopped the "Family and close friends party".   Mostly because they were MY close friends....not hers.  I know she would rather celebrate with kids she sees all the time.

ArcticFox

I am kind of in the same situation, but I downright don't want to spend the $$ on a kid's party this year.  We are having a family party at home.

Is there any kind of rule at school about having a bday party with only some kids?  Are her friends mostly just girls?  Could you invite just the girls and do some kind of princess/spa type party?

jlw2505

I personaly never think that you need to invite the whole class to a party and it bothers me that schools have that policy in place but in regard to your situation,  I would either invite the 5-6 kids that your child is friends with to your one party or plan a separate small party for this group of kids.  One thing to keep in mind is that the chances of all 5-6 kids coming is slime.  I have never had all the kids say yes to a party.  I would plan that if you invite 5-6 - maybe 3 or 4 will actually be able to come.  For my kids - we do one party and invite friends of my kids (we only invited our friends that happened to have kids the same age one time - it was just too big) and then we do a small family dinner with the grandparents and aunts/uncles and cousins.  Most of hte cousins are out of town or not close in age at all so that helps.  We invite my one niece and nephew to the kids party.  We have had a few large parties but my kids enjoy the parties when we have around 10-15 kids max and even then, it can be overwhelming to them.,