Play dates - anyone else's child never invited?

I don’t get this either op ,I have three kids and genuinely love having their friends over and do it often if my kids want. I don’t mind really if they invite back tbh and kids are happy to see them here .
I do think parents of multiple kids can be hugely busy with different activities at the weekend . Does your dc have siblings? The reason I ask (also I really don’t agree with this btw as I don’t see play-dates as childcare ) is that I think parents of multiple dcs can be well aware that a play date for someone with 1 child means hours of time “off” or a break which can be nice tbh 😂 and not for them the other way …. I’ve actually heard several parents of multiples comment on it so if they have siblings invite them too! It’s something that did occur once to my dh and I as a parents of an only dropped off and said they were going for brunch in town and we were like “oh yea you’re free now”…… But it was fleeting and we are more than happy to keep inviting as our dcs enjoy it .
I get thought that inviting a sibling might not work and you shouldn’t have to blah blah but could be nice. I actually do invite siblings but no one’s ever going to have my three over tbh 😂 But it can work well and gives the parents an actual break .
That’s just something I’ve come across and heard mentioned by other parents . I’d keep inviting people if your son enjoys it.

It's tricky, we used to do a lot of play dates in year 1 and 2 but now that dd is in year 3 we've done far fewer because she does different sports/activities every evening except Wednesday and needs some down time as well.

So it could be that people are just busy but I agree that after going to someone else's more than a couple of times it is time to reciprocate!!

It's not you OP- like pp I am also always the one inviting others for playdates. For a while I stopped and waited to be invited back to make it reciprocal, but it didn't happen and my DC got upset that playdates weren't happening. As per pp its also not just one mum in my case but many. I hate always having to be the one to arrange and host them but I'll do it for my DC's sake.

A dd had this, with a child who’d been for play dates many times, but hers was never invited back.
Eventually she was sufficiently annoyed to ask the other mother (politely enough) why.
She fully admitted that it was basically because she just couldn’t be arsed.

Not very often. I think some parents just can’t bring themselves to do play dates! I don’t really love doing them, dread them when they’re coming up, although it’s usually fine once the child is here. It’s the thought of it.

Thats said, I’m the person who does actually do them because my son loves them so much. So you have to just do it, don’t you?

I have to say I find other kids annoying so don't really do play dates. Happy to go to a park but having other dc in your home is just painful.

I have 2 DC. My son is 7 my daughter is 9. Neither of them are invited for play dates anywhere.

I live in a town centre and a couple of times if there's events in town people will want to park at my house and then all back to mine afterwards. Its never reciprocated.

When I feel like doing something with other mums and kids I'll post on social media saying does anyone fancy doing this. Sometimes they do sometimes they don't.

It's my son's birthday in half term and birthday parties are when they all tend to get together but the invites are a bit thin on the ground now and some people have told me they're not bothering anymore so I might make the next one the last one. Dd's best friend has asked if she can come over after the party. It will be the 3rd time we've hosted her and we've not had an invite to thiers.

I am ott with the hospitality though because I'm still fairly new to the area.

It's hard when your DC wants to go to others' houses, but an invite is never forthcoming, despite that DC having been to yours. My DS used to ask me to ask the parents if he could go to their house, but of course you can't do that and I had to gently explain that you can't invite yourself to other people's houses!

I get what others are saying, but you don't need an immaculate house for a child guest, they don't care.

It's the mess they make rather than tidying in advance that puts me off. I find kids expect to go in every room playing things like hide and seek, so every bed is messed up, every cupboard opened, not unusual to find skid marks in my en suite etc.

My DS rarely gets invited on playdate ls and I don't do much inviting now either. Also we're busy. Every spare minute is filled with clubs or seeing family so it's tricky to find time spare.

I hate having play dates in my house. I prefer to take them to the park in the spring and summer. It's definitely not a reflection of my child not liking his friends enough. I just don't have the motivation, time and energy to do it now.

Since my kids were born (oldest 10) playdates 9 times out of 19 happen at my house. My kids want to see their friends so I invite them to play/have dinner/sleep over regularly. There is rarely an invite back, and my children do notice this disparity. This is all different children aswell so not just the same mum not inviting back. I have found that people mainly just don't want the hassle and mess at their own house (but are happy for me to take all that on time and time again 🤷) it's annoying but I'll keep going because otherwise my 2 miss out, despite how thoughtless other parents can be.

I think people are just busy, I invited one child after two playdates at their home but honestly I have very little downtime and they are the only family that have invited us. We have done quite a few meetups at parks etc which I think people find easier because they don’t have to hide the laundry pile before someone comes around.

We are still pretty busy on weekends (out of the house or doing something that really needs to be done in the home but mostly out). People with multiple children will also be spending weekends juggling various parties, clubs, family etc.

It will depend on the family's circumstances.

They might not want people to see their house.
They might struggle to find downtime with their kid if they work so prioritise weekend time as family time.