Organise things that aren't suitable, so they won't want to come?

Sorry it isn't anything I've ever experienced!

What about organising several small events on the trot, to break the expectation. So maybe on the birthday, people can drop in but only actively invite grandparents for the singing/cake bit.

I think you'll struggle with the christening though. It's not the best one to start at.

Why do you stop seeing your own aunts & uncles, just because your DC have aunts and uncles?
Surely it's just about having different events.

Actually we saw extended family at the home of the older generation. So have a tea party at grandparents', and they invited the great aunts.

A christening it’s (IMO) a family event, so I would not start with that one
kid's birthdays - those are easy, people are welcome to pop by, or you’ll see them at the weekend, but do the actual party for kids and their friends - think softplay or park party, make sure to sell it as “we’re inviting nursery / preschool kids” - don’t even invite them, if it comes out go with “he/she is having a soft play / park party with the preschool kids, we’ll see you at the weekend (or whenever)”

I think the christening is one to invite all of those people to, if you can possibly manage it.

Hiring a church or community hall (or perhaps using your own church hall for free if you're part of the church family) and making all the food yourself brings down the cost.

We tend to use our chapel (free), then cook one main course and one pudding for everyone (generous portions but budget meals), and birthday cake. That way, 30 people at the party is cheaper than taking 5 to as restaurant.

And then the children's birthdays could just be their own uncles/aunts/grandparents/etc, as long as you try to regularly visit the others to keep in touch with them.

Ask guests to bring food for an event like a christening.

Agree with others on christening - feels like a real extended family occasion. And realistically how many of your friends really want to come anyway

I would do birthdays as more focused on the child and their friends

Once the children start school then they start to have parties with their own friends and so larger family parties don't seem to be expected in my family.

However things like Christenings would be for the wider family.

Christenings - invite all, have tea/coffee and cake in church hall.

birthdays - immediate family only.

Weddings, christenings and funerals are big family events in my opinion, anything else it's up to you.
I'd hire a nice local hall for afterwards and ask people to bring a plate of food with them.

Agree with everyone else- yanbu but don’t start with the christening. Any wider family that you are close to should be invited to that. Just make the food cheaper like a buffet and ask the wider family if they can bring platters to share.

Birthdays should be immediate family and grandparents only on the day, and a kids party some other time (which includes your children’s cousins if your siblings also have young children). I think as the children get older you will find less occasions for wider family events so this problem will naturally go away.

My family did this completely naturally. If there is an opportunity to catch up with cousins at an aunts house on the way somewhere, they might call in. Otherwise we keep up with social media and the odd message.

My husband's family were weird about it, so I think you have put your finger on something. They expected us to treat his aunts and extended family as a priority - for example, giving them boxing day. I don't have time to see both of my parents and brother and sister and their families by then, and hadn't seen my own grandmother for more than a year at this point.

I had to be quite blunt about it and we agreed that the odd opportunity excepted, we would back each other by staying home with the kids while the other one would do the drive to visit relatives in their home. I have no intention of changing this as the kids get older.

Once they start school and nursery and have their own friends. Parties become about them then. As soon as they get their first invite to another child's party, stop inviting your friends to their events.

What events would this be for? Only time I ever saw my husbands large family was Christmas or weddings (now sadly funerals).
You don't need to invite anyone to birthdays - for our first child's first we invited the grandparents for lunch and that was it. Doubt they would have been interested attending anything with loads of other kids around.
Just make sure you visit, send pics etc. keep them in the loop.

Our sons christening was just immediate family so his own grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. My husband has 7 brothers and sisters plus their partners and kids and I have 2 sister plus partners and grandparents and godparents so we had over 40 people at the meal. To invite all of our own aunts/uncles/cousins would have been far too many people.

My husband's sister had a christening for her child recently and only invited grandparents and godparents because she couldn't afford to buy dinner for so many people. No one batted an eyelid.

Dh family are slightly annoying about this.

They expect us to continue prioritising seeing a group of the DC grandparents and elderly great aunts/uncles, plus a load of childfree aunts and uncles, for eg at christmas, when DC have a large group of younger cousins their own age whom they love seeing. The elderly lot also essentially ignore DC needs, there's a lot of obliviously inviting us on term holidays or inviting us over, insisting DC are brought but expecting them to wait to eat lunch until 3pm then offering completely unsuitable food for children (exotic/unusual, extremely low fat, no carb whatsoever).

We are fine to do events with both but only have so many hours in the day & DH elderly relatives don't seem to realise we have to reduce the frequency of events with them to accomodate things more suited to the younger crowd.

Jennyforeigner your DH family sound like my DH family. We are expected to attend things like birthday meals for all DH aunt, uncle, cousins. Not only "big" birthdays but uncle Patrick's 73rd birthday etc. Ive my own siblings to fit in! By contrast i see my own aunts/uncles far more rarely.

I think it happens when a chunk of people havent had children. My aunts & uncles are now busy with their own grandchildren, whereas DH cousins are all childfree, so his aunts/uncles have no grandchildren.

I understand, we're lucky that my husband's oldest niece is 33 so the precedent was set there long before our son came along.

We both have big extended families. We suck up the cost of christenings etc. This is a family event that everyone gets invited to, including our children's greataunts/greatuncles.

Birthdays are different and we wouldnt invite them to birthdays other than 16th, 18th, 21sts.

We are very lucky that we have such big and generous families. In your situation I'd pay up for a big do for the christening but scale back a bit on other things like birthdays.

I agree that the christening isn’t the right event to begin the new precedent. Definitely birthdays though. Just don’t extend the next birthday invitation to wider family members-a few may ask why, but you can say we’re keeping birthday celebrations smaller and leave it at that.

I understand your frustration though, we’ve had to make expensive travel plans this coming Thanksgiving (we’re in the US), because extended family refuse to travel ( no medical reasons, they just won’t). But us spending money is fine, apparently. 😂