Young kids parties without tea

[onetrickrockingpony]

Hi

My DD has her 4th birthday party next weekend. We attended one of her friends’ parties one yesterday. We’ve been to a lot of them recently…. Sometimes two in one weekend.

A party that runs 2-4pm will start often have a spread of cheese / ham sandwiches, some fruit, crisps, biscuits and then there’s cake at the end. It’s buffet style, provided in a pretty bag, or uncovered at the end, and without fail my daughter will skip the real stuff and go for the snack foods and fill up on fruit juice.

Every single time we go to one family dinner is ruined because she’s stuffed with nonsense food. She’d barely had lunch before the party started!

Would I be an utter Scrooge to just serve the cake at the end? Maybe I could balance it out with some nice fruit, crackers and cheese slices. So it’s not full on tea. And then everyone can go home.

Yesterday I overheard so many parents trying to negotiate with their child over saving something for later or not having more crisps because we were waiting for cake to come out. It is SO stressful. They don’t need it!

This makes no sense, it’s the end of the world because she has crisps and cake most Saturday afternoons at parties but then you allow her to have extra chocolate on the way home and a chocolate pastry the next day.
It seems like you think she’s still a 2 year old and you don’t want her to enjoy any treats with friends but rather only with you. That’s going to be a struggle pretty soon when she starts school and develops properly friendships. It’s quite a selfish view really, you want to decline parties with her peers so she doesn’t eat too much cake so you can give her chocolate the next morning?

The parties soon fade away when they move into year 1 into smaller activity based parties. In an otherwise balanced diet along with an active lifestyle it's fine even if its once a week, honestly. When you do the party food no need to have biscuits at all if you don't want to, the children will invariably find something to eat. Cucumber carrot & pepper strips, cherry tomatoes (cut in half), breadsticks, fruit- watermelon is always a huge winner, cheese/ham wraps, pitta pizza squares etc.

you don’t want her to enjoy any treats with friends but rather only with you

I'd reflect on this by what you've said. Also regarding the dinners, why can't she still sit with you all and have a smaller dinner? You can still spend time together?

You have to serve food at a party, every child and parent will be expecting it. You also need to unclench, a party once a week or so will not ruin an otherwise healthy diet. The parties will slow down. By year 1/2 most people are not inviting the whole class any more. DD had a party at a trampoline place this weekend. 90 minutes of exercise followed by a couple of slices of pizza a small slice of cake. It's not ideal but it's fine.

I think it’s fine not to do a whole ‘meal’ but I would probably give the parents a heads up so they can plan accordingly.

I find the best party meals are the ones at soft play and the like where they actually get pizza/chips/sausages etc. it’s not ‘healthy’ but they actually get filled up and aren’t on the prowl for something else an hour later.

Those are the ones my child eats the least at! It’s usually tepid, greasy and grim, not what they’re expecting from a party, cheapo gristle sausages etc. The most successful I’ve seen are as a pp suggested, bringing out the sandwiches, veg sticks, picnic eggs and fruit etc first, then layering on the biscuits, party rings and cupcakes once they’ve all had something vaguely sensible. But I don’t really mind if mine eats 10 Jaffa cakes at a party and all the party bag sweets on the way home, nor would I start her day with a pain au chocolat knowing she was having party food later. That part is madness.