AIBU children's party numbers dilemma

[Whoreallyknowsthefuture]

Ds's birthday falls during the summer hols. This year he's allowed to invite 5 children for a birthday treat, so I asked him who'd like to invite. He initially picked the 5 children he invited last year( although last year he was allowed to invite more.)

I casually asked the parents of those 5 to see if they were going to be around during the holidays and mentioned the venue, but I also made it clear nothing has been confirmed yet.

Fast forward a few days and ds has changed his mind. He now wants to swap one of those children for another friend who came last year.

The problem is we live in a small village. The parent of the child being dropped will almost certainly realise as soon as they are not added to the WhatsApp group.

I have a tight budget this year and don't particularly want to spend an extra £20 just to avoid awkwardness

AIBU to just set up the WhatsApp group with the 5 Ds now wants to invite and leave it at that.

Or is it more reasonable to suck it up and invite all 6 and pay the extra

Suck it up and invite the 6! Kids are fickle at this age but also it’s not the child in questions fault your son wants to add someone else. As it’s the holidays while they have initially said yes I imagine at least one will drop out

Personally, I couldn’t risk hurting another child so I’d suck it up and pay the extra £20.

£20? I'd just spend it and invite them all, tight budget or not. The friendships are worth more.

Suck it up, shouldn’t have mentioned it until you were sure that’s who he would invite. Likely one will end up being unavailable.

Spend the extra £20

You can’t ditch one of the kids because your ds has changed his mind!!
What if he changes it again before the party, will you indulge that too?
If you absolutely can’t pay the extra, he’ll have to stay with his original list. He was happy enough with it last week 🤷🏻‍♀️

Maybe I’m mean, but I’d say to DS, sorry, all booked now, and we can’t uninvite people to parties!

Er you already invited them by casually asking. They will be expecting invite

Yabu. You inky ask availability of people being invited

You have to either invite all six or stick with the original five and tell DS that he can't change his mind this time (and maybe just have a playdate another day with the sixth child).

You cannot uninvite someone to a party, that's wildly unreasonable.

Invite 6, OP.

Of course you can’t ditch a child you’ve already verbally invited. It’s awful you’re even considering it!!

Your options are either tell DS he chose his 5, they’ve been invited and that’s that- it’s too late to change his mind or, and this would be my preferred option, suck it up and pay the £20 to invite all 6. £20 isn’t loads if money surely you could recoup most of that by doing a cheaper cake, 1 less present, cheaper party bags etc.

Invite the 6, one or more may reply no anyway. One less birthday present covers the cost (or cheaper cake)

Your son shouldn’t have had the option to swap - the decision is done now. So the option is either allow him to invite 6 or show him how to stick to his commitments.

Invite 6. Maybe one won’t be able to make it in the holidays anyway.

I would pay the extra and invite 6. Make sure that DS knows once invites have been issued, there's no changing his mind!

And if he changes his mind again?

You either need to invite the extra child or tell your DS that those original 5 are who is coming and that’s it.

Are you serious ?! You cannot uninvite a child !

FGS have 6.

I’d invite the original five. You asked him who he wanted to invite and he told you.

I would have no party at all rather than drop a child! It’s an outrageous suggestion.