Help, too many birthday parties!!

[Gobbledigook]

I need help in the form of ideas if anyone can oblige!

DS1 has about 600 (slight exaggeration!) parties over Feb - April and I'm getting a bit stressed about the number of presents to buy and what to buy!

All the parties are for 4 yr olds - mostly boys and some girls.

Any ideas??? What would be ideal is something I can buy in bulk and everyone gets the same! Actually, no, any ideas would be great!

battery powered toothbrush? about £5 from supermarkets

Ooh, that's certainly different - do you think 4 yr olds would like that? Actually, mine would - would the parents think me a bit odd if I bought a toothbrush?! Personally I think it's a good present - better than a load of unwanted toys!

Books from thebookpeople.co.uk - bumper packs for not very much money at all.

marbles

I like the books idea but can't find anything suitable on there at the moment.

One of the boys is an only child and they are very affluent so he has everything - particularly struggling for him!

Clickits by Lego kits seem to have genuinely gone down really well with ds' female acquaintances...you can get rinkydink little packets to make bracelets, necklaces and hairclips and they are honestly quite pretty for GURL STUFF as ds would say. Not expensive either, look out for bogof type deals in Woolies and the co-op.
We tend to buy little Lego or Playmobil kits for the boys, as far as I know these have also gone down well.

Buy the super-rich little chap a couple of chickens from Oxfam

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red house books have a number of different books suitable for that age group. Teh cat in the hat books work out at £2.50 each and are very popular. The girls are starting to get into felicity wishes and angelina balerina at that age too.

Boots still has some stuff on half price at the moment and I did a big order from there last week for presents. Mostly suitable for older girls though - felicity wishes sets, betty boop and some Bratz.

The toys that the boys seem to like best (and which I bulk buy from Woolies) are power rangers and lego. The lego knights sets are £5.99 each with is around my normal party spend per child!

Marina- great idea about the chickens.
Who cares if the parents think you are bonkers?

Oh, you lot are fantastic - I'll look into all those as they sound fab!!

If only I had an imagination of my own.....

Soapbox - that website is fantastic!! I'm going get the Usborne phonetic books for party 'bag' presents for ds1's 4th party in April - you get 6 for £8 so just £1.30 each and I think they'd be suitable for the 4 yr olds and 2-3 yr olds coming and they are suitable for boys and girls!

You are a star!

Thank you!