Birthday party for 3 year old

[gingerbabe]

My DD will be 3 soon and I was wondering what other Mums did to celebrate this birthday. For the last 2 years we have just had small family celebrations, but now I think she is old enough some kind of party.

The thing is I think she is still too young for proper party games,so should I just let the kids play? Also, I don't want loads and loads of kids over, but don't want to deliberately leave anyone out from her nursery.

It would be really helpful to hear what others have done.

village hall, bouncy castle hire?
That's what I plan to do for DS1 in April

ds is only little but have been to quite afew 2, 3 and 4 year old parties recently...
don't know what kind of budget you have, but we have serveal 'soft play'/adevnture playground centres near us and they go down very well....
ds may be going to one for his 2nd birthday with afew friends...
hth

We have booked a party for our dd at the local soft play area - they provdie food and they get to amuse them selfs

We had a 'big red bus' party. Double decker bus that comes to your house fully equipped with soft play and games, they also did a party tea. Soft play and bouncy castles seem to be the best. We invited dd's nursery friends, cousins and home friends. 16 in all, sounds horrendous but most mums stay at this age and it's a group they're used to playing in.

My ds was 3 last march, and we had about 30 (yes I know too many) kids. We booked an entertainer who did a magic show, and a kinda disco, with a bubbles machine and lots of prizes. It went down very well.

I would suggest putting prepared plated down to children withthe food already on it. ie sausage, sandwich, some crisps, cake.etc etc. Kids tend not to eat much at parties and if mommies aren't there don't eat.

Also if children are being left (some older ones might be) get a contact number for the mum in case child doesn't settle. Name badges are good.

And very big warning, although everyone says you aren't, you ARE judged by your party bags

Message withdrawn

Ds1's 3rd birthday party was at a Brewsters pub with an indoor activity centre attached. Not very imaginative but the 10 kids who came had a great time and though the food was the usual nuggets and chips, at least it got eaten. And someone else cleared up the not inconsiderable amount of mess they left behind.

We didn't have party games but have played them at other people's parties and to be honest some of the younger ones have struggled with the concepts of the games. Ds1 still tries to open the whole parcel when the music stops and not just his own layer and he's now 3.6.

Have been to good parties in soft play areas and a fab one in a huge garden last week. The worst one we went to had 6 kids and one saggy bouncy castle in an enormous church hall. The kids all got overwhelmed by the size of the hall and lost the confidence to play together so they sat with the mummies while we all tried to get on together.

Agree with deegward about the party bags - if you don't put much in everyone thinks you're mean, but if you go over the top everyone thinks you're too competitive. You just can't win.

Hello

I'm also trying to plan ds's birthday party, but this one's going to be at home with a few other 3 year olds.

Can anyone suggest a couple of games that would suit 3 y/o children of short attention spans? Or should I just provide 'activities' like playdough/messy play etc instead?

thank you

Charlotte