DS and I were recently invited to the 1st birthday party of one of the babies from our NCT group (we're not close friends with the parents but get on well and meet up as a group from time to time). Before attending I made the decision not to get involved with buying presents for every child whose party we were invited to, as there are likely to be so many that we'd end up spending a small fortune (DH was recently made redundant so we are on a tight budget, which meant we weren't able to spend much on our own DS's birthday). Instead we showed up with a card for the little boy. I emailed his mum the next day to thank her for inviting us, and her reply included a slightly passive-aggressive remark about how lovely it was that her son had so many presents to open the next day (we handed her the card at the party so she knew we hadn't brought one). I'm not normally tight when it comes to gifts but I generally restrict them to close friends. AIBU to think it's unnecessary to buy a present for every child's birthday party, or did I make a massive faux pas? DS is my first so I'm new to this!