Is it okay expect sibling to be included on every playdate?

[LilyTWilderness]

My DD has a very close friend and we are happy to arrange play dates at ours at our convenience. The other family feels their little brother is left out so include him along as his sister is mostly his playmate.
This complicates how we supervise, prepare meals and ultimately our day job as we work from home.
Is it rude say no to have siblings on playdates even if you have only 1 child?

Erm it isn’t rude but it makes their life a lot easier to have both of their kids for them I’m sure!

No, it's rude for them to send the brother too. Sounds like they just want some childcare, not that the son will be sad to be left at home. Aren't 3 a crowd anyway? (Assuming small children)

Do you mean the parents leave the younger sibling with you too, drop the two kids off and go? Wow, that's well cheeky! No not normal. You're inviting your daughters friend. Not the whole family. I do have some sympathy for them as my youngest goes to his friends more and for longer that my eldest gets invited to her friends, so she's home and gets bored. But I don't just drop her there too! It's good for them to have time apart. Even though it makes it trickier for me!

The other family wants to use you as childcare, it's nothing to do with the younger brother being left out.
Stick to your guns. Only the invited child, say to the other mum that it'll be a good opportunity for her to spend some one-on-one time with her younger child.
If she insists both or neither then it's neither.
Perhaps suggest she join you for outings in the holidays so the girls can play together but make it clear you are not providing childcare for her son.

No it’s not rude - just explain it to the other family kindly and make sure you let them come sometimes. I’d far rather know that it caused you an issue than for my child to get invited less.
I have often had siblings tag along to play dates at ours but we have lots of kids ourselves so they usually play with one of our younger ones and it works well. I think it wouldn’t work as easily if we only had one child. Plus maybe the older sibling would actually like some time without their sibling! It must be annoying to always have to share your friend… sounds a bit like they use you as childcare…

If you’ve never actually said anything then they’re taking your willingness to involve their DS in his sister’s playdates as an understanding that it’s fine. If it disrupts your plans then it’s not rude to say so and that the girls aren’t really interested in involving him in their games so it creates an extra childcare burden for you.

What they could be doing is arranging a play date for their other child at the same time, at their house or elsewhere.

They are the rude ones.

It's rude to invite yourself(or your kids by extention) anywhere

That was helpful, Thank you all! On the note of "invite yourself", I ended up having to feed the kids and their dad once before as they all decided to stay (and play)! We have been keeping a distance since, but mindful kids are missing out.

I would not be having little brother along too completely changed dynamic. They are being rude.

Not fair on the invited child to always have her brother tagging along and not be able to develop her friendships independently.

And brother should be developing his own friendships, not just hanging round with his sister and her friends.

”and their Dad”. … oh hell, no!! That’s sooo many kinds of wrong, and very much a cf example of the highest

Stick to your guns op!

I wouldn't dream of doing this! Much as it would be convenient at times!

We have a similar situation where one of DD's friend's sisters has significant SEN and gets very upset that her sister has friends and playdates and she doesn't as she doesn't have a lot of friends. Exacerbated by the fact that my DD is quite good about playing with her. We have had to navigate this carefully and luckily the friend's mum is understanding. So we do a combination - to be honest, they have DD more often as it's a lot easier with all three at their house than at ours. We sometimes have both children here. And then we sometimes aim to plan something with just DD and her friend and usually the mum tries to come up with an alternative plan for the sister.

In your case where it's just being used as childcare - hahahaha, I'd be saying, "We'd love to have Jenny over for a playdate on Tuesday. I can pick her up from school with DD. Just to clarify, I can't be looking after Petey as well and DD really is looking forward to some time with Jenny. Hope that's okay."

I don’t understand. How does it affect your day job? Presumably your daughter doesn’t have play dates when you WFH?

I don’t understand. How does it affect your day job? Presumably your daughter doesn’t have play dates when you WFH?

Why shouldn't she? If the girls are 10/11 they can manage with minimal supervision. If little bro is 4/5, that's a different matter.

When in the week are the play dates happening and how old are the kids?

That would annoy me. They’re effectively using you as a route to some childfree time. They could just as easily use the time to have 1:1 time with the little boy.

If it’s a play date where parents stay and no other childcare then I think you have to accept that the younger child will need to be included. But if it’s just so the younger child dosnt miss out, no I’d never do that.

We have had this quite a lot, there were times we could not avoid taking the younger child, which we ok’d first, but if we were able to let one of them have a play date on their own without siblings we absolutely would do this.

It's fine to just invite Jenny, but that doesn't mean your friend will be happy with it.

That's not a play date, it's childcare.

They are the ones being rude! Absolute piss take.

I didn’t do this with twins, let alone different ages.

It is NOT your job or responsibility to look after / invite the little brother. It is dead cheeky of them to make that assumption.

They're being rude and taking advantage of you.

Tell them no to younger sib coming over. It's disruptive to your work and home routine and it stops now. The father staying to eat your dinner, oh, hell no. What a leech.

You might have to stop the play dates altogether. This kind of nerviness isn't going to improve if you don't put your foot down.

I do feel bad for the older kid having to have the younger tag along all the time.

They are being CF! Each child has their own friends, they are just looking for childcare. Ok if he plays with them when at hers but to send him over to yours..I'm quite impressed with the cheekiness of it all. Have never had it happened so far with mine. I once took a younger sister as well but that was as a service to the mum who had an appointment and only once.