To not take child to party?

[Thirtygoesataname]

I have 3.5 year old boy girl twins. They go to nursery where all the children play together. A boy is having his 5th birthday and invited my daughter. I totally accept its his right to invite who he wants to his party. I also know my children are individuals and dont need to do everything together. However, they are still really young and wont really understand why one gets to go to softplay with children from nursery and not the other. They are also still at the stage of doing everything together and dont like to be apart for long. Im considering just declining the invite but I have always taken the view that if they get invited to a party they are going. I see so many parents sharing videos on social media of their children excited for their party then sitting there all sad because nobody turned up. It breaks my heart. Would I be unreasonable to decline this time to avoid hurting my little boy? There is no way my little girl wouldnt come back and talk about the party with the other children and being at softplay, nor should she have to. I appreciate this seems like a lot of fuss over nothing but I really dont know what to do for the best. There is no way I am going to message the other mum and ask if I can pay for my son to come, that just feels awkward and entitled.

Do you really believe that the nursery mum hasn’t noticed the twins being picked up by one parent. Or the list from the school that has matching surnames that isn’t a guarantee they are related but given you see one person picking up 2 kids it isn’t much of a leap.

Sorry im a bit confused here. The daughter im referring to is one of the twins. I dont have any other daughters.

It’s A 5yo party. IME they are drop and run leave!

Someone in DD’s friendship group does this, without asking. Their DD sibling then has a breakdown and spoils the party.
I don’t mind a sibling coming if it’s a public jump party for example as paying customers can walk in.
However with this child you have to prepare a party bag for it, serve her first or she’s goes absolutely nuclear, (there is no extra needs) she’s just a brat, mum practices gentle parenting and the elder sibling has to hand over her party bag if someone doesn’t have enough. The mother is extremely entitled and brings the sibling even to private parties in your own home and the mother also stays. Doesn’t even ask if it’s ok, it’s like she wants them to do everything together, all the time.
The elder sister is fighting for her freedom 😆

Not at nursery. School maybe.

I'd do this as it's probably a mistake. Just explain it's a childcare issue. If I was the mum running the party I wouldn't mind at all and probably think "oh shit I only invited one twin!"

They can breathe separately.

OP's child is 3.5
That's young to be left alone.

Nurseries/schools should never give out children's details to other parents with their surnames on, it would be a GDPR/safeguarding breach. First names only.

It's very feasible the other mother has never met OP or her children. At private nurseries you pick up and drop off at a time which suits you (between opening and closing time). Parents don't all wait outside together for the same 'pick up time' like in school nurseries/pre-schools. I assume OP's children go to a private nursery, as most term time settings have finished now, but I could be wrong.

Depends on the nursery. My kids went to a private nursery and you could collect any time. I think we paid til 5 but unless I had a work meeting I would pick up around 4.

When mine then attended a school nursery you all had to wait in a line to collect them. If you were at the front of the line you wouldn't necessarily see who is collecting at the back. If either parent has other children in the school they might collect them first before going to nursery or vice versa, so some parents might never see who picks up who.

I would just decline and take your twins on a day out. Presumably if this child is turning 5 they're about to leave nursery and won't be inviting your DC next year anyway so not a lasting friendship. Your twins have years of soft play parties ahead of them, this is hardly an "opportunity" . It's much easier for your twins to be separate people once they start school, I wouldn't be starting with the whole 'resilience' crap just yet.

Where is the party being held? If it's a softplay center could you pay for your other child to enter?

I wouldn't have had a clue! We all picked up at different times, so I would only have a tiny snapshot of a few parents. I was also picking up 2 for a couple of years, different ages, so even less aware of what else was happening.

Where would you see a list of names, sounds a bit worrying that you would see something with full names of children!?

OP, someone upthread said do what's easiest. I second that advice.

I have 3.5 year old boy girl twins.

Again, I have never seen anyone dropping kids that young and leaving.

It's terribly rude and not expected around here, until at least year 5 anyway,

Exactly this. Decline. It’s no biggie.

So? At what age does it stop? When the OP finally decides to separate them for activities, she’s going to have an awful time doing so.

Usually starts in year one depending on type of party, how well they know the others and the temperament of child. Ie around 6ish.

Again, as a twin mum, it stops when it’s easy to do so. Path of least resistance, etc. This kind of parenting approach on its own doesn’t lead to co-dependency. It just leads to more pleasant outcomes. Toddlers are hard enough. Two of them together does often double the difficulty. Sure she could put her foot down and take one but not the other and deal with the consequences. Or skip the party and deal with those consequences. Either way, it’s not going to cement their personalities forever.

Yeah, I think they are too young to understand why one of them is invited and not the other. It would be different if they were in different classes because you could say it's only for children who know each other but this would be with their joint friends.

I'm also a twin and think at 3.5 it's abominable that one has been invited but not the other, especially as they both play with birthday boy.

For parties I've always invited other twin as well, and let people know there's room for siblings if needed.

I didn’t suggest they gave out names, the person I was replying to did.

Again, not me that suggested names, I just responded to someone who said it.

Are you a single parent? If not surely the invited twin can go to the party and the twin who isn't invited can do something fun/exciting with their other parent?

ofcourse they do, but that doesnt mean that every experience has to be something to learn resilience from. esp at that age

The parents probably don't realise they are twins. I inadvertently invited one twin to my ds 4th birthday party. It was another mum friend who said to me, and so I think then invited the other twin. They're 15 now and ds is still close friends with this pair of twins.

I didn't do drop off often as I worked and it was their grandparents who did the nursery run, they were non identical and I just didn't clock they were twins. I had got DS to do a list of who he wanted to ask!