At what age do you stop throwing "big" birthday parties with all your friends?

bananers · April 2013

I totally get throwing a first birthday party and inviting all your friends and family. It's a big occasion. But after that, I would think the parties would be smaller, more family-focused affairs, or would start to be more kid-centric (inviting the friends from preschool, etc., as opposed to all the parents' friends).

Just curious what others' thoughts were on this and what etiquette says.

PHughes819 · April 2013

With my dd I did the big first birthday and then after that we did things like weekends away to the shore or as she got bigger we did places like Hershey park. We will still do something small with our immediate families with cake and ice cream. &nb

OldGlory · April 2013

We will likely keep all early birthdays just immediate family (with many pictures to share) so that the other family members who would insist on being there don't have to come and stress us out.

Kid-centric parties, may be about age 5 with a frie

burkems · April 2013

We don't invite friends to birthday parties at this point. We have plenty of family that gets invited. It ends up being 25 or so adults by the time we get everyone there. We do a meal and cake/ice cream. Big enough for me.

AlyssaJoy1210 · April 2013

I was just thinking about this! We did a really big 1st birthday party for my son. We had moved several states away, so some hadn't met my son yet and some hadn't seen us for awhile so we went all out. We have sinced moved back within a few hours of famil

rebaann · April 2013

I never intend to throw a big birthday party. The family we have on both sides is small and scattered, so I don't see the point in spending all the time and money on something like that.

rpalen29 · April 2013

I think its kind of ridiculous to have alot of people at a 1 year or 2 year olds birthday. I think it should be close family and friends only. Once they get into the age of actually making friends (not inviting everyone who is in their 2 year old class

MommaG123 · April 2013

We don't have any family around us so DD's first birthday party wasn't that big. Her second will probably be bigger because we are planning on doing it at my parents' house where all of my extended family lives within 15 minutes.

We still g

Ana0927 · April 2013

My DD had only close friends at her 1st and 2nd birthday party ( we have no family in the area) There were maybe 3 or 4 kids there.

She was in preschool for her 3rd birthday and she wanted her school friends there. We invited her

MrsJ723 · April 2013

Unfortunately we really don't have any family (DS has only 1 grandparent, MH is an only child, I have 1 sibling) so our friends are our family and we have invited close friends to each of DS's birthday parties. The first one was a little bit bigger tha

MomlovesEloise · April 2013

Just from personal experience, kids are easily freaked out by a lot of people when they're little. So we're kept both of DD's birthdays to close friends and family. We have been to several 2nd birthdays for DD's "frie

metzy144 · April 2013

Right now we are doing family parties at our home and invite some close friends and their kids. When the kids get into school, we will do a friend birthday party and maybe a small one with our immediate families. At least one with my family for sure, DH's

HoolahZinger · April 2013

Yes, it's customary for us to throw a big 1st birthday and then smaller ones. I think the next big birthday for DD could potentially be at 5 since she will have school friends then? I'm really just taking it one year at a time to see how it goes.

Cotton · April 2013

We've settled on this through trial and error, but I think Baptism, 1st Bday and First Communion are the biggest family parties. We invite our cousins' families and the whole bit. Other birthdays are just our parents, siblings and their families.

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Mommy2CB · April 2013

I'd like to continue doing "big" parties for our children.. I haven't really thought about NOT throwing a big party. We just invite family and friends.. but everyone is at the age where they are having kids, so it's kind of a lot of people. I don't mind h

MmW36 · April 2013

My parents stopped giving us "birthday parties" when I was about eleven (that wasn't a cut off age-- that's how old I was when they started doing this for ALL of us kids). They would take the birthday child out for a special dinner and to pick out pres

blush64 · April 2013

When I was growing up birthdays were family functions with aunts, uncles and cousins until we were about 10 or so. Then we would have friend birthdays but still invite cousins close in age.

For my kids we did family birthdays until they wer

Lolalipsy · April 2013

In our family it's usually just family for early birthdays.

luckylauren14 · April 2013

We had a big 1st birthday for DS and we had both family and our close friends come. But that's it. He didn't have a 2nd or 3rd birthday party (unless you count celebrating with Mommy and Daddy a party). We just took him somewhere fun and then had a sma

pnutg · April 2013

PHughes819:
With my dd I did the big first birthday and then after that we did things like weekends away to the shore or as she got

MaggieMooMom · April 2013

HoolahZinger:
Yes, it's customary for us to throw a big 1st birthday and then smaller ones. I think the next big birthday for

sugarmamma · April 2013

We had the big one at age one.

Now we have a family party for DD. this year we also had three little girls over for pizza, cake and play. She was thrilled.

We'll do a big friend party every few years. It's just too much money,

pelicanwaters · April 2013

My son will be 9 this year and we told him we'd not be doing a huge party (esp with new baby) and he was totally good with it. We told him he could choose one friend and we'd take them somewhere fun like the museum or aquarium or whatever as a day trip

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