Best friend not inviting my daughter to her daughters birthday party

DS has a LOT of friends, and remembers every acquaintance or sibling. He would happily name and invite >100 kids to a party; most of both classes, friends from activities, cousins, siblings of friends etc. He can't have a party for >100, so we limit it to top school friends and he runs out of space, having to make hard choices. As soon as one declines he knows who is next. Family get a separate party.

She probably loves your daughter, it's just the nature of parties this age that it's the school group first and tough choices on numbers. Arrange a fun birthday activity instead.

It’s perfectly normal tbh. Her daughter probably just wants her school friends at this party. Some of us prefer to compartmentalise our friends - I never mix the groups and hated the idea from a young age.

I would offer to take the friends daughter out to do something with your DD that is “special “ for her birthday and try to understand that the party is just a school thing.

YABU. At that age, it's usually just invite the class where everyone knows each other.

This.
I was the child who got on really well with my mum's best friend's daughter.
Both mums divorced, a year difference in age. Holidays together, days out. We genuinely got on together. When we weren't in a big group of each other's friends.
She would be invited to my party. She didn't know any of the other invitees who were my friends from school. I was always told "make sure J isn't left on her own"
I have no doubt that the same happened before her parties. By the time we got to 8 or 9, we still went on holiday together but I would utterly dread her birthday party. Because I didn't know anyone apart from her.

It's not a dripfeed @Mummybearto3bg it's what happens. It's normal.

No I have never known this, and ive done and been to a lot of parties. We all just invite everyone. They get on great and often make new friends. When I was a kid I was always invited to peoples parties and Mum invited them to mine, no one ever excluded close friends or their children. Seems nasty to me. We sometimes ended up with large numbers but it was more the merrier. And if a kid wanted to bring a siblings, that was fine too! We always massively over cater anyway. Maybe I just live in an extra friendly area? But excluding seems very mean to me.

My best friends and our kids are all super super close but we don’t expect invites to each child’s birthday parties, we do get that tends to be school friends.

Our children have so much quality time together and have grown up alongside each other in ways that far outweighs the school friendships, I honestly think that trumps over some hyped up birthday party for 30 school friends.

I can understand you feel hurt for your daughter but I’d just see this as quite a natural thing and treasure that your children are making memories beyond this party.

But they might just get along fine when you see each other (which is often but presumably you arrange this not the kids) does NOT mean they are best pals outside of this relationship. Don't force it, let them enjoy each others company when you're together and have other friends elsewhere.

My ds 18 has a similar friendship with my best mates son. They get on great, love hanging out together but are very different and have their own quite separate friendship groups.

So just to be clear, there's not an unwritten rule that means you always invite your besties daughter because they are also besties?
Of course there isn't. Does your friend and her daughter also say your dd is the birthday girls 'bestie'? Would they be friends without your friendship?

Are they in the same school year and are they in the same school?

If she just wants an easy party with 10 of her year 4 classmates then she might not want to invite a y3 who only knows her along. Even an 8 year old knows that it would upset the balance (tho they wouldn’t phrase it like that!).

This happens. You move from parties with cousins and parent’s friend’s kids to just school mates. It happens around age 6 upwards I think. Personally I think it’s a relief as they want to play with their best pals at the party and not their mother’s best mates child, you’d feel worse if they invited your daughter and she was pretty much ignored.

Does your daughter know the other girls?

Would she mix with them or would the birthday girl have to look after her the whole time?

It really is normal. My kids did the same and we just did something separate with their 'outside' friends

Could it be that the girls are good friends BUT since your dd doesn't know her school friends and she might feel in the middle to entertain both sets? Just like how one would feel hosting people who don't really know each other? I don't think the mum lied but more to save feelings? I would just be more unavailable and definitely not invite her dd. Use the same reason as her and then she will know how it feels.

I highly doubt the friends' DD knows the school friends that well

It's much harder to mix them as they get older. And it's not fair on the birthday girl to have to shadow the friend's DD so she's not left on her own

I like the idea of celebrating each birthday as a four - mums and daughters

The difference is your girl wants to invite said girl to her parties. The other girl, for whatever reason, doesn't.
It's a tad awkward clearly but just because they get on well when you meet up and spend time together it doesn't mean outside of your friend relationship they would, certainly not your friend's daughter.
Your friend feels awkward I wouldn't let her excuses spoil the great times you have together - you and your daughter would be the losers IMO.

Once they get to that age it's unusual to mix 'outside' friends with school friends.

It's no more than that

Its a bit off given how much they see eachother but once you invite one non school friend you have to invite everyone. For us, that would mean 15 more kids, most of which see eachother infrequently and are different ages and then you're just doing a full party, not a class party.

I don’t see the relevance of SEN here. We used to invite all kids to my children’s parties when they were younger. But at some point, it became much more difficult doing a mix of school friends and friends from out of school. It was then easier either to do two separate events or just one school event. It was absolutely nothing personal and everybody ended up doing the same.

Has your experience of your school kids not been like this?

Yes, but do you not see that you, as adults arrange all these things. That's not the same as the children genuinely being friends. They may play well and get along just fine when the families get together but that is entirely different than actually choosing to be friends. The other little girl will want her friends that she has chosen at her party, not people that come as a default because they are the child of her mums friend.
One of my closest friends when my children were growing up had a child the same age as mine. They went to the same school but didn't play together. They would rub along quite happily if we went to theirs or out for a day, even had a couple of sleepovers but they weren't really friends. They didn't go to each others birthdays and had completely separate friend groups in school.
You really need to try and separate your friendships from your daughters friendships.

Are people really so angry that a child is inviting who they want to their own birthday party?

Also the girls are 16 they now make their own arrangements to see each other .

Her daughter has invited her closest friends. You are her mums closest friend. See the difference?

My best friend and I had daughters1 month apart
At age 7 they started to get a bit shy around each others friends , they didn't know the same friends as they didn't attend the same school .
We started a tradition to do a joint mother and daughter day to celebrate both birthdays and us becoming mums and didn't attend each others parties . We did bowling , afternoon teas and now spa days .
It's carried on like that and they are both 16 .
This is something we talked about and agreed , maybe you could suggest it ?

It sounds like if you and the mum weren’t friends your daughters wouldn’t seek each other out. It’s great that they get on well, but that’s as far as it goes