To not do food at a 6 yr old birthday party?

[yellowgecko]

I’m organising a village hall party on a Saturday, 2pm-4pm. The plan is to do a kids disco, and put out bowls of sweets and crisps, do the cake towards the end and give everyone a party bag on leaving.
I think we’ll end up with around 25 kids. I’m just fed up of going to parties and seeing all the food waste!

AIBU - yes you need to do a buffet / proper food
YANBU - snacks are fine, no one will starve

I think the issue is more the ones not specifying on the invite. It should say food/buffet provided or refreshments provided. May give people an idea esp if there isn't a cafe, or they eat first than suddenly a huge buffet appears when they've already eaten af home (through it not saying on the bloody invite)!

NRTFT.
You've already got sweets, crisps and cake so do some hotdogs, they are really easy. Minimal fuss and mess

Food waste is because of rubbish served- cucumbers and carrots . Seriously who goes to a party to eat that? It’s the side dish of every restaurant and in school, kids are sick of it.
I have been to tons of parties and have never seen fruit platters and pizza go to waste.
Cheese sandwiches are always a hit too, wraps, and pasta is also a good one.
most kids will have a snack or small nibble at that time so you should provide something.

Definitely don't put sweets out. Choking hazard for one, plus you don't want a load of hyper kids being silly and the parents definitely won't thank you for their kids "snacking" on sweets.

If put out some stuff like cut up veg sticks, crackers, cheese, fruit, but definitely mention on the invite that snacks will be provided so people don't expect a meal. The vast majority of the time, parents will do a meal even if it's at a weird time, so we plan the rest of DDs meals for the day around that expectation (e.g. very light lunch).

If they're not going to have a regimented "sit down" time you'd need to provide some other sit down activities so they can have breaks.

Dd put out platters of fruit, crisps and hummus at dgs birthday party.
The dc enjoyed it. They all ate when they wanted.
There was very little waste.

Just be clear on the invitations (snacks could mean anything, so say crisps and sweets). It wouldn't have bothered me, but I would have made sure that DS ate a proper lunch before going, instead of something light in anticipation of the party.

with my three i attended and hosted numerous birthday parties its pretty customary to serve some food, as kids get very hungry, i can think of only1-2 parties where no food but (plenty of) snacks were served. I think it's fine, but its worth mentioning this in the birthday invite message

I’ve never been to a kids party without some kind of food - not just snacks.
For no waste/to keep it simple, I’d at least put on pizza / veg sticks / snacks / fruit and cake. No kid turns down pizza! 😂

As long as there's a decent selection crisps, crackers, sweets, fruit platter, cookies should be fine. Plus cake.

No one's going to miss a cold sausage roll, samosa or cocktail sausage.

I’m doing a similar time party for my 6 year old. The soft play only allows booking between 2-4pm. I’m going to say to people that there will be snacks, but no main meal.

Im going to do a fruit platter, crisps, biscuits and a tray bake. Then we will have cake about 3.30pm, so they won’t go hungry. Just not having a main meal.

we were at a party with lunch at the weekend and the kids didn’t touch the sandwiches.

Could you just put out food that's already packaged? I'm thinking small multipack bags of crisps, babybels, frubes, mini rolls, a fruit bowl with apple, bananas etc. You could offer for the parents to take away anything which doesn't get used if there's too much. It's the sort of stuff which will keep unlike sandwiches etc.

I think it's fine but make it clear to parents so they don't miss lunch thinking there will something for them to eat at the party.

I think it can regulate a lot of the more hyper kids. They get to sit down and have a bit of a reset before charging off again.

I have done parties at our house with no actual meal before, we had sausage rolls for morning tea etc and we served the cake, but I made this very clear on the invite. I think it's fine. By 2pm kids will have had some kind of lunch anyway.

I went to a childs birthday party a week ago which was a 2-4 one. There was food - some sandwiches, chopped up fruit, vege and some cakes etc. After all of the running around they did eat the majority of it.

I think 2-4pm just running around is a long time. Party food usually calms things down. We did a hall party when dd was 4 and 5 and did food boxes. They sit and eat and then do cake singing and a few games and party bag and home.

Yes, true, I didn't think of that.

Encourage the parents to eat too. Problem solved.

Food waste is normal at young children's parties isn't it? Yeah, I'd do some food and drinks, it's half the fun imo. I like the idea of food bags though, the children would probably like that.

Am not an expert at parties, but is a disco just for 2 hours long enough? Will go by in a flash, not much time to do the cake and candles - unless that's the idea, get them all out quick and back to peace, ha!

Sweets are sweets, not ‘snacks’

Some of them may have had lunch at 12

I would do a ‘birthday tea’ - cheese sandwiches / little sausages / mini cheddars / grapes/ slices of pizza followed by cake.

Have them all sit down together, put picnic rugs on the floor for an inside picnic if not enough tables and chairs.

Definitely not bowls of help yourself sweets for 6 yos.

If you are not doing food, you better tell people, as you will end up with a hall of hungry 6 year olds acting up out of hunger. I think it’s fine unless it’s over a lunch hour but a lot of people would deliberately feed their kids a light lunch or snack expecting food at the party.
other than that a great option is to do a lunch box for each kid, half a sandwich, drink, packet of mini cheddars and a penguin or somethigunlike that. I always think that’s a great option when people do that.

I'd just buy the correct number of named food bags/boxes and make up a small picnic - 2 squares of a jam or cheese sandwich, small packet crisps or crackers, raisins or apple slices, a biscuit or cake slice, juice box, a napkin and a party hat.

That way, the kids can leave what they don't want in the box and take it home if they wish or it's easily disposed of.

I like the eating part of kid's parties because chewing is quieter than screaming 😁

I have many happy memories of birthday parties both as a child and for my own children. One thing that sticks in my mind is the time spent sitting around a table together sharing food. It enabled the children to interact in a way that they can't do when they're running around at 90mph. Daring each other to eat the party rings before they'd had the sandwiches was a treat only allowed at birthday parties. Children running around helping themselves to snacks, dropping food which gets ground into the floor sounds like a nightmare!
Isn't it part of the joy of a party being allowed to eat fun foods at a time you wouldn't normally be eating - or is that no longer an attraction now that kids seem to snack all day every day!

Food at a party is ridiculous? REALLY?
Peak MN. 😬
You’d be ostracised in my part of Scotland if you didn’t provide food! It’s basic hosting FGS!

OP, feed your guests. Anything else is downright rude.

Agreed on party rings, what a classic! I didn't even realise they still did them until dc1's first party. They even do mini bags now, so they'd be great for party bags too.

All the fruit/melon & veg sticks will please the party food police, but can be finished by parents I suppose! 😂