To think I've made a terrible mistake???

[stilltiredinthemorning]

My daughter is 4 in December. It is the first year she's really got excited/understood about her birthday and asked about a party/cake etc. I find hosting things at home REALLY stressful and horrendous so have booked a hall round the corner and a bouncy castle...

In a period of excitement (I have form for this kind of thing) I have invited not only everyone we know with young kids (about 15 kids) but also a further 10 children from her nursery and new pre-school. I don't know ANY of those children or their parents.

My parents in law are also coming and I find them difficult (they are difficult, but I also need to chill out a bit).

I am now totally panicking that it's going to be at least 25 children and is going to be really hard to manage... My husband and parents actually warned me not to do this as I get incredibly socially anxious and make everyone's life a misery by being stressed out and horrible. I did it anyway (problems with impulsively, whole different thread...)

I have actually cancelled parties in the past because I've been panicking so much, but obviously can't do that this time.

Is this a totally ridiculous number of children to cater for? Can I make it bearable?

As a tip for pass the parcel (apologies if someone else has suggested this somewhere), have two groups of 12/13 and two, or even better four parcels. That way everyone gets a layer quicker and it means the game finishes a bit sooner so they don't get bored.

OP don’t stress! It will be fine. People will chip in to help out and the kids will love it. If you can stretch to an entertainer then get one, but don’t worry too much. Maybe get a bubble machine, kids love that. Get lots of little sausages, sausage rolls, chicken bits, biscuits, cakes, some healthy stuff. It’ll all be ok, just see!

You're half way there with the bouncy castle anyway, it will fill in spare moments.

Make sure you have everything you need for active games - most involve music, so make a playlist/cd of music your daughter likes. Prizes for games if you're doing them. Lucky dip for everyone at the end. I'd have statues, Bumps, corners, Simon says. If you feel like the games aren't filling enough time, have a dancing competition.

Have food well organised. Either do individual plates pre played, or little boxes. A couple of sandwiches, crisps, box of raisins, little chocolate bar. Then do sweet things afterwards, perhaps fairy cakes. If time do some quieter games immediately post eating, like pin the tail on the donkey or pinyada?

You'll be fine. Let them play and have fun. Ask any friends/relatives/other mothers you've got to know quite well to help with games. Look at your daughter's face as she enjoys herself and pat yourself on the back, rather than panicking.

It’ll be fine. Bouncy castle, music on. Set up some tables with craft activities (or just pen and paper!), games and toys. When I did this I bought a load of temp tattoos online really cheap and got my dad sat at a table putting them on the kids - lots of time wasted with kids just queueing 😂
Then food (unplug the castle while you eat! Those things are NOISY!) then could you do a couple of games all together (I abhor traditional party games so I do stuff more like a PE lesson 😂). Then they all sit down and colour in a paper bag - then get a slice of cake and some Haribo in it.
It’s fine. It’s not too many! You got this 😀

Second the clipboard and pre-packed food boxes.

I would also take some reading books. Useful for calming anxious children and also at the end for the one or two parents who have dropped and run, but who will inevitably turn up late to collect.

25 kids for 10minutes doable...any longer & VODKA may be needed or earplugs or a safe room

You will be fine! Parties in my house are always huge, I just think two hours won't kill me!
As someone mentioned before piñatas are great for killing time, another one we have done is divide into groups, loads of rolls of loo paper and get them to do mummies on one of their team. Feck pass the arcel, always ends in tears. Pin the tail on the donkey is another good one.

You'll be fine, just keep telling yourself that! Plenty of adults available to sort out kids, just concentrate on preparing everything else...also a good excuse to not have to stand talking to everyone. Have drinks available for people to help themselves then that's over less thing for people to bother you with. Keep calm, deep breaths take a minute to compose yourself every now and again xx you can do this

My DD went to a really fab 4th birthday party in a hall. Lots of those long tables up round the edge - one had some craft on it (just pens, paper, some photocopied colouring sheets), one some Duplo for kids to build with, one with a load of playdough, cutters and rolling pins (nothing fancy, the mum said she'd picked most of it up from Home Bargains / Poundland) and then the last one had iced fairy cakes (the kind you can get for £1 a pack of 12 in Tesco) and some icing pens, hundreds and thousands, smarties etc so kids could decorate their own cupcake (one of the nans sat overseeing this, but mostly mums and dads trailed their own kids around anyway). Then there was a bouncy castle with music (playlist) at the end of the hall with a load of balloons for bopping sitting on the floor in front of it, the tables with downtime bits in the middle, and then plenty of food and tables to sit at whenever the kids got hungry / hot / needed a rest at the other end. Oh and one of the grandparents kept walking round the hall with a tray of tea and coffees (with a jug of milk and pot of sugar on the tray too) offering grownups a brew and a biscuit.

It was totally chilled out. Parents wrangled their own kids, everyone ate when they were hungry, it felt fun but not 'enforced fun', none of the kids had to sit through anything they didn't want to do games wise or whatever. It was the best party my DC have ever been to, they absolutely loved it, I loved the coffee and having somewhere to sit with one of my DD's mum's for a catch up.

The only point everything really stopped was to sing happy birthday and blow out the candles. Otherwise it was totally free roaming. There were a lot of kids but because they were all doing different things it didn't feel overwhelming for the kids or the parents. I've not been brave enough to do a big party for my DC yet but if I did it'd totally be like that.

Popping onto this thread in anticipation of my STB 5-year-old's party!

I like pass the parcel but we have over 25 kids. All the people saying to do two parcels, how do you time the music so that all the kids in both groups get a turn unwrapping? When you're down to the last few kids who still need a turn you'd need the parcel to land on them in both groups, no?

Otherwise we have bouncy castle and toddler toys (there will be a lot of toddlers) and I've suddenly remembered that I wanted to do some kind of craft but won't have any spare tables and don't really want the toddlers drawing on the floor of the hired hall... any crafty ideas that are non-messy? Or maybe we could just whip the tables away when we need them for the food.

Have a CD player playing kiddie music, next to a bubble machine. Several children will be there constantly, dancing in the bubbles.

Pass the parcel... Twp presents going opposite directions.

Yes but how do you make sure the parcel lands on the remaining two people at the same time when the music stops? Unless you have millions of extra layers?
So if Amy and Billy are both the last to open a layer, you might normally stop the music when it gets to Amy, but the parcel could be far away from Billy at that point. or do you just do a few extra layers so some people get two goes and then stop it on Billy and a random extra person next time?

pass the parcel - easy - send 4 parcels around at the same time in both directions.

£1 chocolate packs from Poundland are brilliant, or advent calendars for prizes.
We also did story time and read while they had food, well the CD read the story.

Husband is allowed to do fuck all because he is lazy is not a good way to live. Put him in charge of party games or food boxes. Get cross if he lazes around instead.

We used to have 30 kids over - a couple of hours - its full on but very doable. Tug of war was always popular - the dads loved it.

You need an indoor bouncy castle. Sorted.

Don’t worry about the parents OP - they’re not going to attend, having bought your DD a gift, dressed their kid up, to then stand around and make you uncomfortable, or talk about you.
Get busy in the kitchen with your ‘helpers’ and ask DH to sort the pass the parcel and musical statues etc. just enjoy it, everyone can sing happy birthday when you bring out the cake and ask someone to take photos/video of DD blowing out her candles.
Leave all the party bags by the door on a table and people will start to leave when you have (presumably on the invites) said the party is over. Done.
Don’t stress or your DD will pick up on it.

Modify Pass the Parcel into Pass the Beanbag/Teddy - when the children (4 at once is good) hold it when the music stops, they get up to get their prize from a box/bag.

The most popular quiet activity with my lot was a bulk buy of cheap fairy cakes and bowls of glace icing, sprinkles and whatnots, so they could decorate their own cakes (less stomped into the carpet as well).

Dancing is good, have a corner of pillows and cheap blankets for a fort to play or hide/rest in.

Bubbles are wonderful, but not all children have the ability to blow them at that age, which can upset them if you don't have a bubble machine to do the work for them.

It'll be fine. Have some drinks for the adults and a few nibbles to keep them relaxed and you'll get lots of help.