How do you handle birthday parties?

la79al · April 2012

DD1 is turning 4 next month and I am not sure how to handle her birthday party. She is in preschool now and has mentioned inviting at least some of the kids from preschool but she is the last in the class to have a birthday (out of 7 kids) and none of the other kids have had parties that with classmates. I am not close with any of the other parents so I'll probably send some cupcakes into school and call it a day. She has also mentioned inviting a few kids from church but they all have older siblings that would have to come along and that is more than my sanity can handle so I'm thinking more cupcakes for church. The only other kids she has mentioned are a little boy from the neighborhood that she plays with occassionally and my friends daughter that she plays with about once a week. Last year we had a family party at the house and then a playdate at the park with my friend and her DD and that worked out really well. I'm wondering though if DD is at the age where I should invite at least one other kid and have little games or something. But then my concern is that if I have her friend here, the grandparents, etc will all be sitting around twiddling their thumbs and watching the kids play together rather than interacting with DD. Would cupcakes for preschool, cupcakes for church, family party and playdate with friend (with games?) be too much? We'll just take some extra cupcakes to the neighborhood kid and my brother might bring his son to the family party so there might be an extra kid at the party anyhow.

jlw2505 · April 2012

For family we just do dinner and have a cake. We have done friends parties since the girls were 2 and I don't invite people based on who invited my kids - I invite the kids that my girls are friends with. When both were at daycare, we typically included siblings as the kids pretty much all knew each other but as they get older, we have kept it to just the invited child and its never been an issue. I limited the number of kids based on where the party is but love it to be 10-12 max. My ILs have always come to the party but I make sure they know that is their choice (my parents live out of town). I ask my kids who they want to invite and work with them on the list. Younger DD had all daycare kids this year and older DD has always had a mix from daycare, ECFE classes and her PreK class - this year is the 1st that it will be mostly PreK kids plus 1 child from swim class that she has been friends with since she was 1 at daycare and his sibling who is my younger DD's age.

AZ123 · April 2012

We're doing a party. We've invited his neighborhood friends and 5 friends from school. We're doing a drop-off party for the parents that want to leave their kids. The party is on our backyard for 2 hours .We'll have pizza and cake and a playtime on the playstructure and that's it. Pretty simple. For family, we're doing an outing to the zoo.

To me, it is almost easier to just dedicate 2 hours on a saturday to do it all at once.

mavs_girl07 · April 2012

DD's best friend recently turned 4 and she kind of had a similar issue. What she did was this: cupcakes to school, small party with family only, then on a seperate day she had a mini "girls day out" with DD and her other best friend. The 3 of them went to Sweet & Sassy, got their fingernails painted and their hair done, and got all dressed up like little butterflies. Then they went to get ice cream. They all had a blast.

Could something like that work? Take cupcakes to school, party with family, then maybe a small outing with a couple of close friends to Build-a-Bear or to one of those pottery-painting places? Just an idea...I know it worked out well for our friends. GL!

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