Quantity of food/snack for a kid party

[HerdySheep]

Hi everyone, thanks for reading this, and I hope you can help me out here.

First time arranging my kid's 4-year-old birthday party with friends , and I am really just confused and unsure how much food and drinks I should get. I have a bad track record of under-preparing the amount of food for family things, but still I don't want to haul too much food so I would appreciate it if you guys could help me here.

So far, 12 kids' parents said they are coming...the party is from 3-5pm at the local hall.

Current plan

Get a 16-serving cake. (Scrapped the idea of getting a larger customised cake. Just a smaller ready-made store one and some cake topper)

then my mind kind of got stuck there. We've been to other parties where I noted there were pom bear crisps and party ring biscuits and sometimes sausage rolls. Drink-wise, everyone else's party seems to stock well up on fruitshoots.

So I am thinking 16 packets of crisps just for the kid.
at least 16 bottles of fruitshoots or more (as they keep for a while)
Biscuits...? do i provide alternative other sweet treats...? How much should i be looking at?

Then adults in similar sizes but with various flavours.
But drinks for adults...? Sausage rolls?

Please help me out here!!!

For my kids parties I bought the cardboard snack boxes and basically made them a packed lunch each. Sandwich, crisps, mini yoghurt, pot of cut up fruit, and mini cake or bag of mini party tings.
Put their name on the box and they can take home what they don’t eat.

Most kids parties have an expectation of a "meal". I say "meal" becuase although it's technically a meal or at least a sort of picky meal, we all know mostly they don't eat it!

But assuming you want to do that, I'd aim for some of those mini sausage rolls and sausages, some bowls of fruit, the packets of crisps and biscuits etc. I would not normally expect ot have to feed the adults although I always think a kettle/urn with tea/coffee and some biscuits is appreciated.

We always used to do plates of sandwiches, biscuits, bowls of crisps etc along the middle of a long table and let them help themselves onto plates, I didn't like the packed lunch system as mine were fussy and invariably got things they didn't like such as ham sandwiches, also it's sociable for them to sit and help themselves / pass things from serving dishes instead of being behind a lunch box.

If it helps, 6 kids ( and a few adults) ate a whole watermelon at our last kids party. And 6 pizzas. 2 large bowls popcorn. Pretzels. Birthday cake.

Do you have access to the kitchen? For water and coffees/teas.

I would not do fruit shoots. Just cups and pitchers of squash. They will all drink probably 2. It’s a pain to open the bottles to refill. Just cups and squash. Parents will refill as their children need them.

I also wouldn’t personally waste money on Pom bears. These aren’t 2 year olds who have never had a crisp before. Crisps, wotsits, quavers in sharing bowls for them to help themselves.

Sausage rolls are fine, but not everyone will eat them. Pizza cooked at home and cut into tiny slices and served cold. Ham or cheese sandwiches are good, but bit of a faff.

I personally would also offer something fresh like cucumber sticks or carrot sticks or baby tomatoes. Maybe not everyone eats these but mine always did. Or strawberries.

Party rings and chocolate fingers. I tend to put these out towards the end though so they don’t just all get eaten before the actual food.

If you have access to the kitchen, coffee and tea for grownups. Don’t forget milk and sugar. Couple packets of biscuits for grownups.

There are a couple of options here:

1. do individual party boxes for each kid, you can buy the cardboard happy meal style boxes. Only really works if you’re reasonable confident you know how many kids will show and even 5hen prepare for a couple of extras who didn't RSVP. Half a sandwich (keep it simple by making cheese or jam), packet of crisps, chocolate mini roll, little baggy with cucumber rounds and halved cherry tomatoes, satsuma or couple of melon wedges or baggy or blueberries/strawberries, yoghurt or jelly pot.

2. platter with basically the same stuff as above but you let them pick their own choices, you can put out a few options so cheese sandwiches and jam sandwiches, mini rolls and Mr Kipling cakes etc

The kids aren’t really all that interested in eating, it’s a disruption to the play and they’ll have just enough to fuel up for the next round.

Drinks, they pick up and put down all over the place, so if you’re buying bottles buy lots, you’ll need spares. Otherwise if you have access to drinking water on tap take a big jug and make up squash, write their names on paper cups and just keep topping them up. Take a roll of kitchen towel for the cup that gets knocked over.

other things to pack:
cake knife
napkins
bin bags
duck tape for securing paper tablecloths to table
pack of anti-bac wipes
pack of plasters

I did pretty much the same food for every party.
Garlic bread
Watermelon
Vegemite scrolls
Biscuits in the shape of the number of the birthday
Popcorn
Birthday cake
Water and fizzy water

https://www.kidspot.com.au/kitchen/recipes/quick-vegemite-cheese-scrolls-recipe/86f3shuw

https://www.nigella.com/recipes/butter-cut-out-cookies

I love a snack box or bag as then they just bring it home and there’s no queuing or mess. I usually do an afternoon party so no real meal which helps. I did a fruit shoot, meat snack, cheese snack (string cheese or similar), crisps, wee chocolate (Freddo or similar) and usually some sort of sweet - my son loves skittles so just the mini packs of them. Throw in a satsuma to make it healthy. I do cupcakes and hand them round and end the party with nothing really to clean up and no need for plates and such.

Where I live, the children are all absolutely ravenous about 45 minutes into the 2-hour party, so I don't recognise the 'they won't eat it anyway' kids that seem to exist elsewhere on Mumsnet. Also, out of a party of 15 children, approximately one of them will eat a jam sandwich. I reckon: 24 cheese sandwiches, cut into quarters, some bowls of crisps or mini cheddars, some strawberries, cocktail sausages, and mini chocolate chip muffins.

At my DCs' nursery, they feed them tea at about 3:30pm, so his friends would definitely all be hungry at your party time.

I’m on second child now and will definitely be doing big jug of squash and big jug of water from now on. So much cheaper and less plastic. (Although you have to store the jigs afterwards of course).

We just did a party for 12 kids aged 7. We did 3 extra large Margherita pizzas, baguette slices (plain), carrot and cucumber sticks, 3 share bags of crisps, fruit platter, haribo treat bags, mini bags of cookies/ biscuits and cake. Jugs of squash. Hardly anything left over.

For DD last party 16 4-5 year olds we did

1 x platter of cheese sandwiches quartered using wholemeal bread and half and half bread.

Mini cucumber and carrot sticks

Cherry tomatoes sliced

30 mini sausage rolls halved

4 cheese and tomato pizzas - sliced in to tiny quarters.

A large bowl of both quavers and wotsits.

3 large punnets of chocolate dipped strawberries.

Set up a a jelly and ice cream station.

Each child was given a bowl of of raspberry jelly and they could then choose their own ice cream topping for it - from vanilla, chocolate, raspberry ripple and strawberry ice cream with a flake, wafer, sauce and sprinkles. They had to sit on the 'special ice cream' chairs to eat it- this saved the mess of cake being discarded and trampled on the floor.

I made a tray bake cake with vanilla butter cream and sprinkles to slices and put in the party bag with a book for each child and a mini pot of bubbles.

For drinks I labelled paper cups with each child's name and did squash or sparkling squash - using a few bottles of sparkling water.

It was made clear on the invitations that adults were welcome to stay, but the food was only being provided for the children invited to the party and not adults or siblings.

Adults were offered tea or coffee.

If you do go with fruit shoots (I understand the benefit of the sports cap bottles in terms of spillages) go with equal quantities of the little water bottles. At 4 a lot still drink only water. For sandwiches cut the crusts off and cut them into eighths rather than quarters, they get eaten better. Unless you have allergies or specific dietary requirements to consider ham or cheese is all you need. Cocktail sausages are always a hit. If you have any allergy kids Original Pom bears are usually vegan and gluten free. Water melon fingers and strawberries are the most popular fruit. Carrot and cucumber sticks most popular veg.

Forgive me, OP, but if 12 children are coming so far and your DC makes 13, is a cake for 16 cutting things a bit fine?

Even if you get no more RSVPs, is there a chance that some siblings will show up? I am very sympathetic to CoL and less so to uninvited guests, but some families are really screwed for childcare now. It seems a shame to make young children, who bear no fault, watch others eat birthday cake. Can you spring for a larger cake?

For the rest I would favour quantity over quality: pitchers of dilute squash and water, frozen pizzas and/or discount shop sausage rolls, maybe sandwich fingers, discount shop snack foods and some cheap fresh fruit. I like sharing platters because I think the children do.

Tea, coffee, water and cheap biscuits for the parents.

I hope you can enjoy the day.

you need a bigger cake as a starting point

Big jugs of squash, fruit shoots are a waste of money. Plates of simple sandwiches - cheese, ham, tuna and egg or jam? Few bowls of crisps, little picky bits like sausage rolls, sausages, chicken nuggets, cold pizza if you fancy it, party rings and bourbon biscuits on plates. Little cupcakes always go down well!

Hi Thank you! everyone for responding and all the experiences shared.

Yes, we don't have access to the kitchen, nor do I have those thermos for coffee and tea. :(

Her party and all the other parties we attended locally are always all in the same venue (i guess because the bargain price for a hall with a bouncy castle for 2 hours at 200 quids 😅)

Initially, when posted, I was just going off memory of what I remembered seeing a lot amid the chaos of chatting to other parents and kids screaming...

Always fruitshoots or supermarket brands bottled squash. and always pombears. it really stuck in my mind.

So thanks for reminding me, yes, there were fruits and veg sticks I now remembered.

1. A cucumber or 2, thinking getting the pre chopped carrots from the supermarket to save work. I could add a pot of humus to it.
2. a box of grapes, melons, maybe strawberries and other berries since they are in season now.
3. Sandwiches...note for myself to make around 20 cheese and 20 jam ones.
4. few bag of other flavour crisp and just decant into a bowl so everyone can eat it.
5. Some still water for kids.
6. the drinks for adults as there is no kitchen - I had picked up a few bottles of Shloer and will bring those 2 litres water and sparkling water. with cups.

Also about Size of the Cake... after a quick browse, I am leaning towards getting a rainbow cake from ASDA as it serves 20.

Originally, the preorder cake I had in mind was from Waitrose, which serves 26-28, which is frankly too big imo even if feeding an unexpected turn up.

So also browsed around and see Waitrose got a 4 yo cake serves 18-20. So, alternatively, I might get that. (as i had ordered some cake topper so we don't have to be locked in getting a special shaped cake)

I was thinking also getting a small box of cupcakes in normal and gluten free as option.

@HerdySheep just watch out for grapes as they can be a choking hazard, especially if they’re trying to swallow them while bouncing on their seat and gesticulating wildly about how excited they are and you really don’t want to give yourself the job of halving a million grapes just before the party.

Thanks, noted, I am going for bag of easy peelers, berries and melons then. Scraping the cherry tomato as well since my own kid and husband don't eat it...

If you are only doing Fruit Shoots you might need to think about more than just one each - some kids will get very thirsty between running about and stuffing themselves on crisps and sausage rolls.

A pack of the little sports cap 330ml water bottles might be a wise addition (assuming no access to taps and cups and stuff at the venue) and are about £2 for 6.

Sounds great, OP. I had not realised you would be doing this without access to the kitchen.

Plan snacks like 1-2 small items per child (16 crisps, 16 biscuits), and 1 drink each (18–20 Fruit Shoots to be safe). For adults, offer tea/coffee, a few soft drinks, mini sausage rolls, and maybe a small biscuit tray.