grateful for your thoughts :-)

[Boblina]

Hello everyone, my DS1 will be 4 in a couple of weeks and I just don't know what to do. Should we have a party at ours (usual), hire a soft play area or something. We have always had a party but this year he mentioned a couple of time that he would like to invite some of his nursery friends. I am not sure what to do. What do other people do. I suppose we could have children eary afternoon then adults later. Still it's a lot. It is usually 5 children which equals 7 adults plus our two and us two. This year he would like to invite another 4 children which would add a least another 4 adults and then possibly brothers or sisters. He has been quite young until now so I have not done games or anything and the weather has been lovely so they have usually been out in our postage stamp garden but this year with so many children our garden would be too small. Any thoughts? Should we organise games, is so what? My DS does not usually like joining in this kind of thing not even with his friends. What do other people do?

Similar position - DD1 is 4 this weekend. We're ditching the our-friends-plus-their-kids type party we've had before and are inviting the friends she wants from pre-school plus my friends' kids (who are legitimately her friends now) (and I've said to my friends that they can drop their kids with us for the party and pick them up at the end - something they've all jumped at!).

We are having the party from 2-4 and I'm doing a few party games but based around music (bumps/statues/best dancer etc etc), lots of balloons. We're praying for good weather as we may have 15 or so kids (reduced from 25 as we didn't encourage siblings if possible ). Having a few 'organised' bits like decorating their party bags, and having two pass the parcels and snacky food (cocktail sausages, crisps, cucumber sticks etc).

We're going to get a few choice toys out (building bricks/cars/dolls/tea sets etc) out to cater for any who are less inclined to do party things!

I'll let you know how it goes if you like! :) Wish me luck :o

We are going to a soft play area with ds3, who will be 5, and seven of his friends. Everything is organised for you and, from experience, it doesn't work out any more expensive at the end of the day.I have 2 teenagers so they run things will help out.

Hubba hope your DD1 has a lovely birthday celebration. Fingers crossed for good weather for you. Looks likely. :-) What about grandparents and other adults who want to come?
Might look into soft play area, but I think our local one only lets up to 5 year olds go which makes it a bit difficult as 2 children will be older. Might look into it.
What do another people do?

We had a party for DS's 3rd (he's not yet 4) as we'll probably move this year and therefore unlikely to have bigger do again. I'm involved with local toddler group, so we hired the church hall we use for that and used their toys (with group's agreement). Had about 18 children - didn't mean to, but it just spiraled! All kids had either one or two parents with them though, no way I'd try to do it without as we were really focusing on DS and baby DD. Was good to do, but I was knackered afterwards! I'd say if you do this that having a start time AND an end time works well - we did from 2-4pm, I think.

Mine are older now (7 & 9), but we've done soft-play/in-door activity places (whatever your call all those places with loads of slides and indoor play structures) parties since there were 4. SOOOOOO much easier. Really, all that you got to do is turn up and bring the cake, and not a lot more, unless the kids invited are more high maintenance. No getting the house ready for a party, and no cleaning up afterwards. Worth every penny, IMO.

Hey boblina, feeding back to you - we are utterly exhausted but have a very happy four year old and a tip of a house! :o. Most of the parents left their kids with us, so there was me and my DH, two good friends (who I could boss around to help) and two other mothers who sat and enjoyed themselves in the sun. The others left us to it, which was good, so we had 14 kiddies under the age of 4. Grandparents took our baby (3m old) out for a walk and returned just before the party was due to finish so they still got to see the birthday girl but without trying to compete with everyone else's attention.

Very pleased and would def. do it again. :)