To not want to give out bags of tat at birthday party?

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DS is having a party for his 5th birthday next week. 25 kids and I’ve just been adding party bag fillers to my Amazon basket, there is now £100 worth of the usual crap in my basket ready to purchase….surely I can get something better for £4 per kid?

im trying to avoid sweets as 3 of the kids attending are type1 diabetic so thought it would be easier to have non-edible party bag contents.

Waterbottle and sweets is a great gift

Multipacks of books seem like a great idea but often have a few dud books in there

Cannot help but I must say the book suggestion is such a good idea! I hate tat myself so giving away bags of tat is not what I'm about so I will definitely be doing this when we go down the party route!

Unfortunately this is my experience also 😂.

Cheap books tend to be chucked aside. We either seem to have them already (Julia Donaldson, Hairy Maclairy) or they're a bit crap. That said, nowadays (5+) a sticker book or a simple puzzle book is quite well-received.

"Non-tat" party gifts we've had that have been well-received have included a baking kit (one of the Dr Oetker ones, not the little boxed party favour ones which tend to be shoved aside), a kite, a small lego kit and a small metal car building kit. Also a scratch art pack and a foam football.

I dislike any party bag gift that is premised upon significant parental involvement/supervision. I've brought my kid to your party, which no doubt has been lovely but has taken up the whole morning. I've organised and wrapped a present and made small talk. I don't want to spend the rest of my day making slime, planting seeds or crafting a bird house.

Also my experience, though slightly younger than OP’s target demographic. I’ve never seen a more disappointed bunch of 4 year olds dismally staring at the book they received as a party ‘bag’, while their parents were enthusing over what a lovely idea it was. So depends who you want to cater for in terms of the ‘better’ gift - kid or parent.

You could do this, but why bother?

Just don't have party bags and go plant the seeds yourself. They'll probably get shoved somewhere and forgotten by a lot of people.

No-one remembers unless it is an absolutely super party bag and its really just a signal to send kids home and so they go home happy.

Books for £1 are a good shout. We stuck sweets to them.

If your happy spending the money I expect you can get little cuddly toys for that price, or a colouring/activity book.

if you want to spend less then personalised printed off colouring page / word search with the kids names on or something similar and pencil would be fine and cost hardly anything.

From around 4/5 up, kids become much more discerning about the books they want to read for pleasure.
I'd try to avoid giving a book as a present to a child of that age without knowing what they were interested in.

Cost aside, think of the environmental impact of all the plastic tat that ends up in landfill.

I stopped plastic tat party bags years ago and now just opt for either a book, or a Hobbycraft item to paint, or some sort of craft project, stick mosaics, paper craft, a book on how to crochet, crochet hook and yarn etc...

Not sure of the cost but I went to a party and the parent had personalised t shirts made for the kids with fabric colouring in pens. It went down a treat

Why not bother? Not many will go out of their way to go and buy seeds, but being given them would nudge (most) parents to engage with their kids and actively plant them. Being environmentally friendly/aware, is pretty important. Especially when it’s to benefit the world our kids will live in as adults. Wildflowers help bees, bees help the environment.

We did this for our 3yo’s birthday party bags and I still get told about via parents and kids who attended, what their seeds grew into. And this party happened almost a year ago!

I didn’t want to spend more than £2 per child for my DC’s last birthday (whole class party) and got really good quality sweet cones with personalised ribbons and stickers on to give out for that price. Previously we have done things like personalised iced biscuits in a pretty drawstring bag. I do like the idea of books (and places like The Works have some really good offers) but for a budget of £4 per child you should be able to get something really nice.

I really would prefer not to be 'nudged' to do particular activities with my children. Parties are for fun, not for virtue-signalling and ramming home particular messages.

If you feel this strongly about it, why not have some sort of outdoor forest skills/seed-planting party that focuses on environmental awareness? That would be more effective than handing out a few packets of seeds.

I know you've probably already had your party by now, but not adding sweets because some kids are type1 diabetic is not the way to go. I haven't read all the comments and replies, but i just want to throw this out there, type1 diabetics can eat everything you can eat including sweets and cakes so long as they have the insulin to match the carbs.
They only need to know the carbs per item. To include them in future, add the sweets, and add a note with the carbs per item, and the carbs per 100g of the cake. They will appreciate this massively.

Its type2 diabetics that have the restrictions on diet.

Depends a little on the theme of the party if you have one. I found a pack of 25 fabric superhero masks which went down great and some stickers and tattoos. I tried to avoid plastic. Also done books for the works in the past.

I got mini ceramic rockets and paint sets from Etsy for one birthday party, hate too much plastic crap.

To pp who asked if each child bringing a used book and taking home a different used book went down well… yes it did. The parents fully agreed. This was done at all of the kiddies birthday parties.

That was to Sellingbedtime

Unpopular opinion?? Party bags are a completely ridiculous tradition that put extra pressure on parents already paying for and organising food and fun for a whole gang of kids, maybe even taking care of all kids for the afternoon if it’s a drop off.

Birthday parties are brilliant! There is no need to spend time or money on individual presents for everyone attending. The idea of a little favour to say thank you for coming is lovely, like you would at a wedding I suppose, but really no need to provide a whole bag full of goodies. I especially hate the piles of plastic crap sold in supermarkets in the party aisles.

Some of the ideas by previous posters are great! A big bowl with seed packets and they can choose one to take home with their slice of cake.

I dislike any party bag gift that is premised upon significant parental involvement/supervision. I've brought my kid to your party, which no doubt has been lovely but has taken up the whole morning. I've organised and wrapped a present and made small talk. I don't want to spend the rest of my day making slime, planting seeds or crafting a bird house.

Me too. When my youngest were that age I had 4 kids, fulltime job and was disabled husband's carer. I did stuff with my kids but I did what we wanted to do not what someone else thought we should be doing. I didn't have the time or the energy to start crafts or gardening on top of the stuff we did anyway.

To be honest painting some pottery thing is just as much tat as anything else. If I think of all the parties my 4 went to and then think if they'd brought home a something to paint and keep where the hell would I keep them all, on top of the art stuff from school and stuff we actually chose to do.Between the 4 of them we also had a large collection of books and I can pretty confidently say the £1 was either something they had, something they weren't interested in or just more crap.

Plastic crap that can go in the bin next week and a bag of sweets was fine with me. A ball, a yoyo, or a small puzzle or sticker book with a bag of sweets and a piece of cake was fine.

@Iwasafool . I agree on the pottery, although it seems a popular idea on here. I don't want to have to supervise it being painted and then have to find a home in an already cluttered house for a breakable "craft" that will inevitably end up looking like a dog's dinner and nothing like the one on the box 😂. And then have to preserve it for ever more because my child wants to keep the fruits of their (my) labour.

Why not scrap kids' party bags altogether and give parents mini bottles of wine/chocolates as a thank you for bringing their kids?

You could even tie a little card on them: "Sorry for inflicting two hours of soft play hell and a lunch of discarded pizza crusts and leftover popcorn on you. Have a drink on us to make up for it. Remember to recycle this bottle and save the planet."

When my dc's were small I bought books and they were a great hit with the children. Another time I bought a colouring book with colouring pencils. Worked put around £2 or £3 per child.

You are not a gardener are you? 😄

All parents hate the tat!

Best ones we’ve had:

sweetie cones on their own

book (book bundles can be bought cheap) which also had popcorn in a cone bag

bubble wand on it own (they’re 60p from Asda, they just bought a whole box and the kids took one each on the way out)

Home bargains always have nice colouring or sticker books for about 69p and books for a pound.

I'd go book and bag of sweets.

Crafty type stuff is probably best