Birthday Party - Help!

[User141528]

Morning,
I’ve never thrown a kids birthday party before so I’m not sure of the “done” thing in these circumstances.
My LO is having a birthday party at a local soft play & I asked the nursery to give me a list of some children that they thought I should invite - it’s a private nursery and I don’t know any of the other parents except for some that I happen to see randomly at drop off / pick up but as it’s not timed it’s only ever been a friendly hello & that’s it. LO has been invited to 2 parties last year, both of whom are on the list to invite anyway. I said max of 10 as it’s clearly expensive per child and I don’t want to invite a whole preschool class although I’m now thinking perhaps I should have done a different type of party to avoid this..
The nursery wrote me a list of 8 children, all of whom I have sent invites to. On Friday one of the nursery workers asked me if “Child A” had been invited to the party, I said no they weren’t on the list you gave me. I asked why and I’ve been told that the other Mums clearly talk to one another in a group message and one has mentioned to the others etc so they’ve found out there’s a party (I am not a part of this group). One of these children is the one who’s not been invited - totally unintentional I’ve just followed the list given to me by the nursery.
The child’s mother has asked the nursery why her child was not invited to the party & now I don’t know what to do.
(FYI the nursery worker wasn’t trying to stir trouble she just mentioned and wanted to let me know in case I bumped into the other Mum when picking up / dropping off which does occasionally happen - she actually said to me “that’s life not everybody gets invited to everything” plus she’s really nice I get along with her well that’s why she’s told me)
Do I invite the child to the party because ultimately it wasn’t intentional to exclude them, they simply weren’t on the list I was given (LO only talks about 2 children in particular at the whole nursery anyway - not this child)
Do I stick with my invite list and just hope they accept that it wasn’t intentional and not everybody can be invited to everything? (Clearly we aren’t invited when they go out of a weekend all together - I feel sad for my LO that this is happening but nothing I can do about it & obviously until Friday I knew nothing about so ignorance really is bliss)
I can afford to invite the child, but I seem to have unknowingly created an issue and I really didn’t mean to - I’m actually really upset to think that these people are talking about me behind my back. I feel really awkward. I would never have thought to ask if LO had been invited to a party, nor am I obviously part of the “in” crowd so I’d never know anyway unless LO mentioned a party I guess... this has been bothering me since I found out and I need to decide what to do so I’m turning to the wisdom of the internet to ask what you’d do.

So let me have it, do I invite the child or not ?

Just ignore this.

Other mum is being damned cheeky to expect an invitation but unfortunately there are some parents who think all children should be invited to all parties regardless of how well they know the child. Certainly at nursery I wouldn't expect this.

Personally I would drop a note in to the other mum if you are unlikely to bump into her and let her know you asked for the names of children your DC played with and theirs wasn't on the list so it was not a deliberate slight. Put the onus back onto the nursery for creating this drama out of nothing.

So don't invite the child.

If you are likely to see her, tell her exactly the same thing. On this occasion your child and theirs have not been noticed as playing together and you wanted familiar companions for your child.

You are going to find this happens throughout your child's birthday party years. The other mum is going to get a name for herself as a CF if she continues to expect invites when none are received. It's not hard to realise that if they didn't get an invite, they aren't attending the party. The only occasion I would say that is different is if it becomes obvious that everyone out of a class has been invited but not your child. And then if you are feeling brave you ask if DC has mislaid their invite as you haven't seen it, accepting the answer if they aren't invited.

Nursery is far too early to start getting precious about birthday invitations.

Christ, the woman needs to grow up!

Just ignore.

Ignore it, it’s not a big deal, and this woman is nothing to you. And as you say, not everyone can go to every party. I expect your LO will have fun and that’s what it’s about, isn’t it

Possibly the other mum was just checking that her LO hadn’t done anything to upset yours? Anyway, the reason they’re not invited is that it’s not a whole class party. So YWBU to invite an extra now.

Ignore it. She is rude and cheeky.

@sleepymummy2019 I hadn’t thought about this perspective. Perhaps it is that. I do recognise the name of the child in question - not for any reason other than knowing some of the kids names. But LO has never spoken about them before at home in a good or a bad way. So definitely hasn’t upset LO or been excluded for any other reason than I didn’t know which children to invite and asked the nursery for their help.