Presents for friends kids

[Throwaway202]

Backstory: So there are 3 of us in a friend group, Me, Friend 1 (F1) and Friend 2 (F2). Myself and F1 have 1 kid each, both are nearly 13 months while F2 has 2 kids (nearly 12months and 3yrs)

We only started hanging out this year and have just reached our first Christmas as a friend group. Christmas was fine as we all bought each other’s kids something small and it was quite equal.

The issue now lies with birthdays. My kid and F1s kid had their birthdays first. F1 & F2 spent approx £20 each on presents for mine and F2 & myself did the same for F1s kid.

My question lies around F2s kids. I think we should spend £20 on each kid, their birthdays are about 2 months apart. But F1 said it should be £10 each so £20 in total. We can both afford to spend the extra £20 but I know if I do 2 gifts of £20 each F1 will get annoyed with me.

What is the usual protocol for this type of thing?

It’s not the kids fault they have a sibling, if you are doing reciprocal gifting then it should be equal.
Better to not gift imo, or just all agree to stick £10 in a card for each child every b.day.

Yeah, it's like saying their birthdays matter less because they have a sibling? Weird mind set. If £10 is all the friend can afford fair enough but would be extending that to all the children.

Same amount should be spent on all the children.

I answered £20 per kid because that’s what you want to do. Friend 1 does not get to monitor what YOU spend.

Personally I would ask them to agree not to buy gifts for each others kids. Save yourself the continued expenses and bother. It’s the adults that are friends, rather than the kids. I assume the kids get plenty of gifts from others.

That seems a lot to spend on presents for the kids of new friends, but I guess you say you can afford it. What about agreeing £10 per kid per present?

Is she having a party?
I feel a bit obliged to spend more if it's in a play center or something.
Otherwise I think it's better to keep presents low key....the children won't know!

So I think the way F1 is looking at it, is more that as a whole she is spending £40 on F2 while F2 is spending £20. Even though if she had another kid both myself and F2 would obviously buy her second kid a present too. We don’t do presents for each other or partners instead we do fun days out that we can all enjoy but pay for separately.

I have no issues with spending the £20 per child. Sorry should have clarified, we’ve actually all known each other about a year as we met while pregnant and since then we’ve all gotten really close and have become almost token aunts to each others kids which has been lovely. My biggest concern is F1 made a “jokey” comment that if I spent that on both kids I would be going out of my way to make her look cheap. Which obviously isn’t the case.

We did say from early on about having £20 as the limit, we all agreed we could afford that. But it was never specifically said £20 per child or £20 per family. I took it as being per child but F1 took it as being per family. She is able to afford it, we’re all lucky enough to be in that position. It’s more we’ve interpreted it differently.

I also didn’t think it’s that big a deal if I spend £20 and she doesn’t. Personally I’m not the type to check the cost of something afterwards and nor would I care too much if they bought a thoughtful gift that happened to be less than £20.

does it have to be so black and white as £10 or £20 such that it is so obvious.

if you look to spend around £20 you might get something for £15 for example. Your friend can do what she likes and so can you but will you change it again if you or F1 have more children or are you planning to stick at 1?

Your friend doesn’t get to tell you how much you are allowed to spend on gifts for someone else, that’s crazy. She spends what she wants to and so do you.
In my friendship group we only buy gifts for the kids if they have a party, we don’t have any sort of agreed amount on the cost of the gift either, it could be £5 or £15, none of us would check what the other spent.

I have one child. Brother has 4. I spend roughly same for each kid as what they would spend on mine. So throughout a year, including bdays and Xmas, I would spend about £80-£100. They would spend maybe £30 ish. Im not in the least bit bothered (apart from the time they blatantly just regifted an unwanted present of their own DD) - Spend what you want to spend and let the others do the same

Do people really do this? I buy presents for family and friends of my children only. I don’t buy presents for my own friends children. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere. I would slowly back out of this agreement altogether.

£20 per child. Assuming you’ll go on to have another child that new child will get the same spent on them.
if F1 is unhappy with that set up it’s for her to state to F2 otherwise … you spend what you wish :)

Look all 3 of you are friends. You spend what you can budget for on the kids ...if it's £5 or £20 each for birthdays it doesn't matter. The friendship matters more than the bank balance/ expenditure available for extras. Sometimes a night's babysitting or help picking up/ dropping off a kid is worth more than a £20 piece of plastic. Even an evening with a bottle of cheap wine and venting is better than a pressie for a kid. So a cheapsake friend not buying kid pressies could be a better friend than a friend keeping up pretences?

I'd say it's none of the F1s business what you spend on F2s kids.
However given buying something for £10 is actually quite hard, unless your buying craft stuff or books I'd say £15-20 is a more realistic budget.

So we set the limit of £20 more so no one would go over it.

also - bit of extra info is none of us have family nearby or left alive which is why we all bonded quickly and have become close to each others kids. We’ve been having a small party with each other and our husbands for each child.

we do nights of free babysitting for each other and cheap days out together. And everything has honestly been absolutely fine up until this.

I never look at the cost of presents and it honestly wouldn’t ever bother me something being less than the stated amount.

We spoke about reviewing it should anyone have more kids. F1 is just a very black and white person so for her she thinks it should be completely fair across the board and same amount spent but instead of same amount on each child, its same amount per family.

I am just going to go ahead and do what I was planning which is get them a joint present of a family ticket for a day at the zoo. Works out just shy of £40 hopefully F1 will just accept it

This. Honestly save all of yourselves the bother! You really will not be wanting extra crappy little presents for your children over the years (to clutter your house and end up in landfill), not will you want the extra admin headache of sorting extra presents each year. I love my friends but presents are strictly family only

Personally for this birthday I would spend £20 or if a gift was originally £20 or more then spend a slightly smaller amount. This would keep it equal. Then for the next set of birthdays agree a set amount for each child. £10 is very reasonable and you can get lovely gifts for this. This is the amount I spend for birthday party gifts etc.

The gift is for the child, not the friend. Looking at it like £20 per friend makes no sense. If one friend had 7 kids I might feel different but for the sake of an extra £20 per year why make F2s kids less important? I would just buy what you like, £20 is presumably a rough guide anyway not an exact number. So if you saw something you thought was a great gift for £15 or £25, it makes sense to get that over something random that just happens to be exactly £20. Do what you want to do and let your friends do the same. Kids (especially infants/toddlers) have no concept of how much was spent on a gift anyway. I think you are all overthinking this!

Is always that obvious what you spend? I’ve just bought a book for a child for £16. On Amazon the same book was £12, but I wanted to support a local shop. On the other hand, I’ve often bought toys and games from TK Maxx which were a lot cheaper than the retail price. A supposedly £20 gift can easily cost near to £10 from there.

Similar situation - I have three DC and my brother has one. Do we spend the same per kid (so he spends three times as much as me every year) or the same per family (so my DC get a much smaller present than his)?

We've ended up somewhere in the middle. Eg say he spends £20 per child, £60 in total, and I spend £40 on my niece.

So maybe £15 would be a compromise in your situation?

I have a friend I made on maternity leave who went on to have a second whilst I stuck at one, I used to spend 10-15 on her DC for Christmas and birthday but now I spend 10-15 on both DC combined or get a present they can share. This is partly because I'm more skint than I used to be and because I moved away so don't really know her 2nd DC. She spends about a fiver on my DC so not about tit for tat financially, I just can't afford to spend what I used to on each now she has 2! I would say spend what you can afford.

£20 per child if that was what was agreed.
Within my friends we have so many children we agreed £10 in a card if the child has a birthday party your child attends. Just be honest with both, you're confused and don't want anyone upset, personally if they spent £20 on yours id expect £20 to be spent per child irrespective of how many kids per family

Not sure about friends kids as many of my friends don’t have children, but one of my close friends has a child the same age as my daughter and we spend £60ish on a birthday present for them and around £30, I understand this isn’t standard though we’ve been friends for a long time and our kids are close too.

as for birthdays though, my DD gets invited to at least 22 birthday parties per year for friends in school and we spend £20 per child per birthday, when it’s DDs birthday she receives gifts worth about £20 each from every child also.

Meant to say £30 for Christmas!

Just spend what you feel comfortable spending, but no more than £20 per child as this has been agreed. I would look for bargains to make spending £10 to £15 seem more generous than it is.