Children's party invite etiquette - what would you do?

[QuercusQuercus]

It's my daughter's 3rd birthday soon. We're having a little party. She's at the age now where she's formed a few special connections with other children at her nursery and in our friendship group, and we'd like to invite those children to her party.

At nursery she is particularly fond of one little girl. My daughter's key worker reports they play together, I've seen them run and hug when they arrive for the day, and when we're at home DD will mention this little girl as her friend.

The little girl is one of a pair of twins, and her brother is also at nursery. He is not friendly with DD - in fact, she quite often says he hit her or pushed her, that her key worker had to tell him 'gentle hands', etc.

I'm aware they're toddlers and they have their skirmishes, so this isn't a major issue day to day. However, I'm torn as to what to do about party invites. If the little boy was unrelated to DD's friend, we wouldn't invite him, as he isn't one of her buddies and we're probably only inviting 2 or 3 kids from her room. But as he is her twin, I worry I'll give the impression he's 'excluded'. Is it OK to invite one twin and not the other, or is that mean?

If any of you more seasoned party throwers could advise me, that would be great.

Tricky. We have one and a half sets of twins in dd2’s class and they all get invited - the set who are both in the class and the set who are split so it does seem like it’s the done thing to invite both. However, in our case they’re all girls, I don’t know if it makes a difference that they’re boy/girl.

Sorry, that was completely useless as an answer

You can't invite one twin and not the other. Logistically it will be a nightmare for the mum who has to take one child to the party but not the other. And how is she supposed to explain to one child that they aren't invited? Under the circumstances you have to invite both or neither.

Is it just fuels your inviting? If so it would be fine if not it’s tricky. Are you able to talk to the Mum or Dad? Say something like my dd really wants to invite your little girl but I’m worried her twin will feel left out then gage their reaction? Or just invite him the parents will be there so hopefully stop any issues. Is it the nursery of the school she’ll go to?

• fuels = girls

I disagree - if she is friends with one and not the other why invite both? Especially if the other one isn't particularly nice to her.
It's up to their mother whether the invitation is accepted, and whether she can cope with the 'difficulties' of taking one child to an event and not the other (non-twin mums seem to manage this perfectly well....)

I would invite both. But I'm soft and buy my nephews "equal attention" gifts when it's their brothers birthday. I'm seeing this entirely from the little boys eyes.
I'm sure your dd would still have a great time with him there and there will be supervision.
Imagine trying to explain to a 3 year old how his twin sister goes to a party but he doesn't.
I don't know, doesn't sit well with me and as the mother of the twins, if only one was invited, I probably wouldn't take either and take them out somewhere nice instead...

I think it's fine to only invite one half of a twin, but not as this age. It will be harder for them to understand why they're not invited, and also practically quite difficult for the parent unless you're offering a 'drop and go' type party.

Hmm, this is like reading what goes on in my head when I try and make a decision!

Thank you for the responses, and I see everyone's point.

It won't be just girls, it'll be mixed. So I guess the best option is to invite both twins, to avoid the chance of upsetting the little boy or his parents.

I just wasn't sure if that would seem 'weird' to his parents, given that he's not mates with DD. Or whether twins usually get invited to things together, or if separately is OK. This stuff is a minefield . . .

I have twins and quite happy for one of them to be invited to a party and not the other. Very good for them to be treated as individuals and not a set. I'd hate to feel people were put off inviting one of them to a party as they felt the need to have both or none. Might be worth chatting to a parent as it could present them with logistical difficulties - in our case we usually use it as a chance for the non-parent goer to do something nice with the other parent but I appreciate not all families have two parents available.

Good point about the logistics. It's not 'drop and go', so yeah, tricky.

Non-party!

Do you have contact with the parent at all during nursery drop offs etc? My brother and sister in law are twins and growing up theyd very often get invites for one or the other but my mother in law would more often than not be told "twin2 is welcome to come too if they want?" Was entirely upto MIL and "other twin" then. If theres other kids at the party id like to think the boy twin would possibly play with others anyway?

I don't actually do drop-off and pick-up, DH does. We only have one car and I work from home, so he takes her and picks her up before/after work. He's met the twins' parents, but I haven't. Under normal circs I'd sub in for a few pick-ups and see if I could chat to them, but I'm just about to drop with our second child (due this week) so it's about to get complicated!

I suppose once I'm up and about I might well want to walk DD to nursery with the baby, but there's no telling how I'll be really.

I don't get the logistics side of this argument. Surely many other party goers have siblings? Not all siblings will be invited to parties just to make things easier for the family?!

@TartanDr3ams , I like the idea of inviting DD's friend and saying that her brother is very welcome to come as well. It doesn't exclude, and the parents will know best how he'll feel about going/not going.

Just invite her fiend and not the other twin. Unless you are inviting the whole class/room.

We quite often read about parents of twins wanting their children to be treated as seperate people and not one ‘twin entity’, which is fair enough.
Just invite her friend. Plenty of small children have siblings. The logistics are for the parent/s to work out.

We have a couple of sets of twins in DD2's class - very common for only one to be invited.

Inviting the friend twin but letting parent know other twin can attend sounds like a good plan. That way the friend can attend if logistics or avoiding upsetting other twin would have been barriers. Equally if the parents are keen to encourage separate friendships they can.
I have a friend with Yr R b/g twins in separate classes. She has always said she wants to encourage them to be independent. But was still annoyed when G twin got an invite to a classmate's party and B twin didn't. B twin wasn't in the same class and party child's mother didn't know G twin had a twin. It can be a minefield...

You can't invite one twin and not the other. Logistically it will be a nightmare for the mum who has to take one child to the party but not the other. And how is she supposed to explain to one child that they aren't invited? Under the circumstances you have to invite both or neither.

But it's ok to invite one sibling and not another?!

Sorry, your reasoning makes zero sense. Lots of people with more than one child have to deal with this all the time. Not sure why it's a special problem just for twins!

I agree with PP who said invite the twin she's friends with and write in the bottom of the invite 'twin brother is more than welcome to come along and join in the party as well'

(If I were the DM I'd appreciate you including him but I'd probably leave him at home with my DH on the day)

At parties where a parent stays, I would be more inclined to say bring siblings along. We always had quite small parties at that age though, often with a few extra children of different ages tagging along.

I think when children are 3, it is nice to include twins, though when they are older it is fine just to ask one out of a set of twins.

You can't invite one twin and not the other. Logistically it will be a nightmare for the mum who has to take one child to the party but not the other. And how is she supposed to explain to one child that they aren't invited? Under the circumstances you have to invite both or neither.

I have twins I disagree with pretty much every word of this ^^.

We have always encouraged people to invite our two separately and never had any problems explaining why you aren’t always invited to every party.

If you insist on them both being invited then you risk neither child being invited. My DD was friendly with the DD of another set of twins. Neither DD or DS liked her twin brother (he’s unkind)

Their mother insisted that we needed to invite both so after that we stopped inviting the girl.

The logistics are no more complicated that if you have two ordinary siblings. You just sort childcare.

Invite just the girl and see what the mum says. She might ask for the boy to be included, if so you might need to decide what to do in advance.

I would make it girls only this year, problem solved. You have plenty of years ahead to do mixed parties.
It will be much easier for you and you won't compromise the mother of the twins.

I have twins and this is a topic that has come up in twin groups that I am in. There are often mixed opinions from twin parents.

Personally I think that sooner or later only one twin will be invited to something. It’s life. If they were different age siblings would you invite both? I think it’s totally reasonable for you to only invite your daughters friend