to never want to invite more than 2 or 3 children for a birthday?

[NoraRobertsismyguiltypleasure]

Having read numerous threads about parties for children I have decided to make it the law in my house that there is a maximum invite of 3 - my dd is 15 months, so not even an issue yet!
We will never go to a soft play, hire a hall or any sort of pay-for-each-child venture. Would that cut down on most of the issues?
Honestly, I'm scared about the whole etiquette once she goes to school.

Who on earth would remember months later who was or wasn't invited to whose party??

Kids, that's who!

Has your DC - or you as a child - never wanted to go to a party but not been invited? Well that feeling is much worse when they came to yours.

However, of course I appreciate that people can't always afford big parties, and I do think that it's fine to have small ones. What I was trying to say is that what you intend to do in four years' time, planned when your DD is 15 months old, might take a knock from your DC's hopes themselves.

My DC's started with big (never whole class) and became smaller. 2/3 can be awkward depending on child's friendship group. The reciprocation only becomes a problem when you split small friendship groups. If you want a max of 3 out of a group of 5 then you may have problems (generally from the mums more than child).

I invited my sons whole class last year.
They had just started school so I thought it would be a good opportunity to get to know the parents etc. So....20 x 4 year olds :)
They all behaved impeccably.

I'm glad it's not a unanimous iabu! I realise that it will of course depend to a certain extent on my child, but I certainly wouldn't ever do a whole class invite just because I don't want any child to feel left out. You're never going to have every single child inviting every other child, so I can't imagine any sensible parent would get their nose out of joint.
I'll just have to look forward to the whole minefield!

Supercosy you're arguing with the wrong person, love. I never said her said doing it would stop her being invited, that was someone else up there ^^

Do what suits you and your children. I used to have class parties for my son on his birthday and he was so hyped up at the thought of it that he hated the actual party! On the other hand he loved going to other friends parties. When your daughter is older I'm sure she'll let you know what she'd prefer.

I have four children and have done some big parties, some not so big. Last year I did a combined Halloween party for all four children, so had approx 60 kids in a church hall with a disco! It was fun and the children all enjoyed it but I would never invite children my children aren't friends with and I never expect invites in reciprocation. That's just crazy!

I found very small parties worked best at the younger age of 3 or 4 - I think my DD would have been overwhelmed with too many guests.

For 5 and 6 we did do the whole class, hire a hall and an entertainer thing and I don't think we had any problesm with it. Partly because we had a damn good entertainer - I have seen some dreadful ones.

After that we found, as someone else mentioned, that they tend to prefer a gender split and DD also had a better idea who she wanted there so we tended to have just the girls and sometimes only 7 or 8 of them.