Creating an open house policy

[Icecreamsoda99]

Seen this mentioned a lot by only child families. My DD is too young to really enjoy play dates yet but I want to have this for her growing up where her friends aways feel welcome in her home and want to hang out. How did you foster this environment, without coming across as desperate? I say desperate as met a woman down the road to me who has a child the same age and invited her around for a coffee sometime and she looked at me like I had two-heads!

Some people are just miseries. I have two DDs but they're teens now...I always had an open house when they were small. It only really gets going once they hit 6-7 ish though...at preschool and during reception, you'll find a lot of parents aren't comfortable with playdates with classmates. There's a fair amount of healthy paranoia about.

The best thing you can do is make friends with the parents of her classmates if you can....just on coffee terms and that's easier if you just chat to everyone you can at schoolgates.

I grew up in an open house, I wasn't an only child but sister is 10years older the me so moved out when I was 7and wasn't a play mate. My parents had a general 'I don't see why not 'policy with regard to my friends, so if we all wanted a sIeep over or picnic or a garden go play in all day the answer was pretty much always yes. It must have been quite a lot of effort on their part, we always had a house full! Loads of my friends ' parents just wouldn't tolerate it. My dc are 6&7and I want same for them,we have their friends over a couo!e of times a week at leastand tbh it's easy to exchange invitations with class Whatsapp groups and so on.

@fortunesFave - thank you, good advice as well as realising it takes a few years before playdates kick in!

@InDubiousBattle thank you! Another reason to wait a bit then for the WhatsApp groups