What time ? How long?

[lexiemum]

Need to be putting invites out next week (3wks prior) for dd1 3rd birthday but am stumped at two things as this is the first party I've ever done.

Party is on her actual birthday which will be a saturday

so what time do we have it, taking into account that limited disruption to other families saturday etc and the fact that the 6 mums are likely to stay as well because they've never been to my house before.

how long? 1 hour or 1 1/2hrs

planning on doing following:

1)open pressies (assuming there are some)/ general play
2) make something - name badges (?)
3) treasure hunt
4) pass the parcel
5) food
6) musical bumps / action songs
7) birthday cake
8) home

Depending how many are there, we tend to leave opening pressies till after party. A bit of qiet unwind time.
Say party start around 3.30 and end around 5?

It is DD's 4th party on Saturday. It's ina sports hall, not my house though.

Party is lasting 1.5 hours, between 2:45 and 4:15 in the afternoon.

We arre having a lot of free play, with little structured activity at the party - mainly as there are a lot of children coming.

Not opening presents until we get home. Will let DD accept them and say thank you, but then will take them home to open - otherwise I'll have no idea who bought what and things are likely to get lost.

there'll be 6 children and no more. I 've based my plan on the only 2 parties I've been too with dd and this is what they did.

not sure my 3yr old will wait for pressies. Though I would like her too - guess this is easier to achieve if party is in a venue?

I was thinking more of a 3.30 start too - gives me plenty of time to clear house and prepare but also gives guests time to do what they need to do on a saturday.

i have two aunties and godmother helping out - so they will be given jobs as follows:
1 to keep mums happy with drinks etc
1 to list pressies against names
1 to look after and feed baby

dh will no doubt disappear to the pc until normality resumes.

I'd go for 1.5 hours, starting 3.30 or 4 and making tea the last half to 3/4 of an hour so they have a tea at usual sort of tea time and don't get home too late.

I'd also leave opening presents till afterwards (no embarrassment over duplications/birthday girl announcing loudly that she doesn't like something or whatever. Also gives you more time to note down who gave what so you can do thank-yous).

I'd keep games simple, and don't plan too many of them because it's amazing how long it takes a group of excited children to play them!

I'm off to a 3rd birthday party on Monday and it is starting at 11am and finishing at 1pm

It sounds like you have a good plan, and it is ideal for an at home party.

Our timings are constrained by the time of the hall hire.

will think about how I can leave pressies till after without having a major tantrum.

I guess she will find it hard because she will have had her pressies from us and family in the morning and probably a large pile of cards, so will naturally assume party is just progression of this....

(thinks to self - job for dh to do.....)

I'd be wary of opening the presents, what if the other children or your DD want to play with them and they get wrecked? Would leave this till after the other kids have gone home.

For a at home party with 6 children I think I would maybe leave the presnet opening in, as children do like to see what presents there are. You could leave it till the end (hide presents in hall way or something until the "right" time), when calming them down to go home.

Do an hour and a half from 3.30 - allowing the last 1/2hr for tea. Action songs after tea sounds a bit dodgy tbh, better tea then home ! do pressies afterwarsd unless you can really keep tabs on who gives what and you are sure they won't rip them apart and lose bits !

maybe we could hide them, then 15mins before end, open them, light candles, sing HP and cake into bags and thankyou for coming, bye, bye.

If you need a game after the food, try sleeping lions. Might be a bit optimistic for 3-yr-olds though!

I quite like the 11-1 idea. What does anyone else think? From the adults point of view - would that completely disrupt your day? Guess you'd have to provide more adult food.