Soft play party for 2 YO?

[taylorgrace]

My DD has been invited to her first birthday party (🥺) by another boy in her nursery class. She is my only child so far so this is my first rodeo.

I’m feeling pretty nervous. We don’t know any of my daughter’s classmates parents, as we don’t tend to run into many other parents or know which parents are for which child. (This has been a classic case of parent giving nursery the invites to put in the kids bags).

Nerves wise, this is primarily because my daughter is 18 months old. I’m assuming that her classmate is turning 2 (as my daughter had her first birthday in the baby room at nursery and later moved up to the teenies room which is where they both are currently). DD LOVES soft play and we’ve been a handful of times on rainy days, but she is very small, and needs a parent with her at all times during soft play (she’ll wander off, could get hurt etc).

She is still very much at the age of playing independently and interacting with classmates but won’t necessarily know to play with her friends for the full two hours.

How would you handle this situation? We’ve accepted the invite and RSPV’d because it’ll be interesting to see who’s in her class and get to know the other parents, but I’m wondering whether to let DH go off and supervise her playing whilst I catch up with other parents, or whether to expect everyone to be supervising their kids. I think I’m just struggling to see it as a ‘party’. For example, if DD finishes eating in the party room and wants to go off and play, age wise she’ll have no concept of waiting for others to finish etc…she can’t even string a sentence together yet!

Thoughts?

All the kids will be the same. The parents will each be watching their own children. You'll have a vague chat with a couple of them while doing this. Completely normal situation and your daughter won't be an odd one out, they're all in the same group at nursery. Enjoy!

Yes exactly, you're really overthinking this. The 2.5yos will be even harder to control than the 1.5yos.

Everyone will be chasing a feral toddler. You don't both need to go either, most will probably just show up with one parent.

It will be absolute chaos. Personally, I'd just send your DH and stay at home yourself...

Echoing the others- don't both go. In my experience of many parties (thankfully reaching drop off stage...), it would be considered slightly odd and usually the birthday child's parents will be billed per parent attending at the end for soft play. At that age, everyone is busy looking after/chasing their own DC with very little time to catch up.

Nothing you’re worrying about is a big deal. Unless it’s a soft play specifically for toddlers, it will require constant supervision. Everyone will be in the same boat. You supervise your child unless you have a rare moment for a coffee and to talk to another parent (probably mostly when food is served).

She’ll sit and eat because everyone else is. When they finish, they’ll start getting up and that’s fine. It’s not a formal meal and no one will mind. Ideally, don’t both go, it can make things very crowded if everyone brings two parents and a lot of party packages include 1 parent, so you end up sticking the birthday child’s parents will an extra £15 or whatever for another adult.

Mostly, you just play with your dc at these things and say hello to other parents in passing and then go home and take a paracetamol and lie down in a dark room to recover. 😂