Aaaallll the birthday presents 😵‍💫

[SparklesTheSoupDragon]

DD turned 3 last week and had a party on Sunday. Having done my MN research, 20 kids were invited based on an expected 40-50% decline rate, particularly after a thread I read about people having only one weekend free between now and September, but also it’s a Sunday so religious reasons, activities/clubs for siblings, other parties, holidays, general ‘being busy’ that summer brings, family time, not to mention some parents just don’t like kids parties.

Obviously I ended up with 19 kids attending so I now have a box of 19 gifts very kindly given to DD 🙈 She’s 3, she doesn’t need another 9 presents, let alone 19. Is it morally acceptable to open them myself, give her a small selection of stuff she’ll like and keep the rest for future uses/charity shop? Or are they her birthday gifts and therefore she gets to open them all, maybe over a staggered period of time, and have a chance to play with them because someone has gone to the effort of selecting something for her (albeit from their generic present cupboard 😁)?

When they're old enough to write their own brief thank you notes, the rule is that they have to write the thank you for one before opening the next.

DD was invited to a joint soft play party for four boys in her class. The invites said to just bring one gift, and they would divide them between the boys. Great idea, and duplicates weren't a problem.

What was I meant to do with them? We did say not to worry about presents in advance and thanked everyone profusely but no 6yr old needs that many presents, and we don’t have the room!

I read another post where someone said they always ask everyone coming to give £5 towards a big gift and that most people gratefully oblige; saves shopping for pressies, wrapping etc I totally plan to do this (my LO is only 1 so a wee way off)

19 gifts? You don’t want her to turn out like Dudley in Harry potter… ( yes its fiction but the general rule on not spoiling kids counts) i’d give her maybe 5. Keep the others for reciprocal stuff and christmas. With kids that age. Its the priceless stuff that will aid development. No child needs presents.

She's 3 and won't even notice and will probably become too overwhelmed by 19 gifts. I put away most of the gifts my kids receive and stagger them or re gift duplicates/something i know they won't be overly interested in.

I agree.

So controlling and puritanical.

Let them have the joy of opening their stuff. It's a once a year event not something you have to wring your hands over.

So you will need to do thank you notes/cards but as DD is 3 their involvement in this will be fairly minimal. Make a Word doc with an image of a drawing she’s done and reproduce this for everyone but write their names at the top yourself and sign off too. As with Christmas gifts keep a list of what you’ve got so that if you get asked you have some chance of remembering which gift you are talking about. You may well get duplicates, which I’d just regift, another reason to keep a list.

As regards parties, I think at 3 and 4 they are a bit of a waste of time and can be overwhelming. Even at 5 it’s hit and miss. At 3 we just did a small group at home. At 4 a picnic in the park. At 5 playbarn where 2 kids didn't leave their parents laps until the food and 2 other got into a barney 😂 DS went to a superhero themed party where the party bag contained a booklet written by the mum and the games were very elaborate. Much of this wasn’t really appreciated by the kids who just wanted to hurl themselves around in capes and eat cupcakes

Agree with @allthewaytobeanotown @TheWayTheLightFalls and @Elephantsdontlikechocolate

I think it's downright cruel and nasty to withhold most of your children's birthday presents, because you've invited 20 or 25 children to their party, and they got 20 or 25 presents ...

Holding back half or two thirds of them, and giving them to them bit by bit as the year goes on is pathetic. But what's even worse is giving them to other children or to the charity shop ... That just absolutely fucking stinks !!!

Why would you do that??? Don't invite so many children to the party if you don't want them to get so many presents! How dare you take their presents and give them to other people??? They're not yours to give ... who do you think you are?!

Also as @Elephantsdontlikechocolate said, how rude and nasty to give stuff away that other parents have spent money on, and given to their child to give to yours. FFS. Some people!

😂You are not wrong though! 😂

Wow....I'm actually really shocked at some of these comments! It's your child's birthday.... Let them open their presents! If they don't play with them all, then donate some later but you can't open them for them and decide yourself what they want. These people have gone out and bought gifts for your child, it's a bit ungrateful to not even give them to them. Imagine you bought a gift for someone's child and they just gave it away without even letting the birthday child have it. Not nice.

Also, I've never heard of a 50% turnout for parties.... I'd usually expect a good 90% to turn up, maybe 70% mid August...but we've invited 30 kids in the past and very often had 30 kids turn up.

You've only got a tiny window to do this anyway-by the age of 5 my dd was certainly likely to ask a friend whether she liked the present she gave her for her birthday!

@Elephantsdontlikechocolate @PurpleButterflyWings Oh get away with yourselves! Cruel, abusive, nasty? Christ on an absolute bike, she is THREE! She’s opened a lot of presents this weekend, had a thoroughly wonderful time at a party with her friends and has now had the joy of opening a couple more gifts each day this week.

Also if you’re going to bustle on over with your ‘pathetic’ comments, at least read my updates, there’s not a lot of them, and you’d have read that I’ve staggered them over this week not as the “year goes on” and we’re already most of the way there. Come on guys, critical thinking hats on yeh?

@Espanaes81 no duplicates received 💪Some of the general wave of toys in our house will go to find better homes in the next few weeks, just not immediately. The few anonymous online posters suggested to let her open all her gifts and have time to take them all in vs siphoning the ones I didn’t think she’d like off immediately and I think that’s actually decent advice.

I dont think it is reasonable to put your child in a situation where they get this number of gifts, why didn't you tell people it was a no gift party? We normally did an outing with around 3 or 4 other children, but if we had a party and had more than that, it was a "presence not presents" event. No child needs 30 birthday presents, or benefits from it in any way

Personally I'd let her open all of them in one go- it's part of the fun! Then she can play with what she likes best, and others can go on the shelf for a rainy day or if no interest has been shown at all, then filtered off for use as future presents (or charity shop if she's taken them out the packaging ). But our house is ridiculously full of stuff!

You obviously prefer foul language and swearing as opposed to reasonable comments.