DD5 birthday party, capping the numbers

[notsochatty]

I'm am getting a bit stressed about my dd birthday party in June and need some advice please. We have booked the local soft play as that is what she wanted. it's £15 a child so we cannot afford the whole class (30 in her reception class).

She has been invited and gone to 8 parties throughout the year so far, some of those she isn't the closest with but it's probably the right thing to do to reciprocate isn't it?

I can't really afford to have more than 12 children but there are probably an extra 7 that she would like to have there that she plays with regularly.

I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to upset my dd/ any of her friends, or the childrens' parents by not inviting them. We just need to cap the number somewhere.

Oh I almost forgot she's also yesterday got another invitation for a few days before her own party and its someone who wasn't included in that 7.

I wish money wasn't an issue then I would have the whole class!!

What would you do?

We invited who our child played with but just because we gave an invite we no way expected a reciprocal one

We don't have the time to go to every single party nor do we expect everyone to make ours

I’d just invite the children your DD wants to attend; don’t get caught up in having to invite the ones who invited your DD. My DDs class do a mixture of whole class parties and small ones: no one is worried about who gets invited to what and often you wouldn’t know

The reciprocation to being invited to a whole class party is brining a present with you.

let her invite who she wants / the names you know she plays with. But if there are say 14 girls in the class you can't invite 12 and leave 2 out. If the list is a mix of sexes it will be easier.

We don’t do inviting on the basis of reciprocating and earlier invite. DS birthday is one of the last in the school year so it would mean his invite list would be totally determined by other invites.

i simply asked him who he wanted to invite. If it means he gets less invites next year, then that’s fine. At least he spent his birthday with the people he wanted to spend it with.

The parties she has been invited to might or might not have been whole class parties s so don't choose based on that.

I worked on the half rule. Invite up to half of a group, so that might be half the class or half the girls, but in a class of 15 girls and 15 boys don't invite 12 out of the 15 girls as that is not nice for the three left out, in that case you could invite 8 girls and 7 boys.

Begin by choosing the children who she plays with the most but also have a think about are there any children who might normally be left out (usually for reasons of hidden disabilities). My son once invited a girl who had only joined the school 3 weeks before (I though it was lovely of a then 8 year old to think of that).

I would not invite someone just because they invited my child. I don't expect a reciprocal invite either.
I would invite who my dd wanted. Are there 12 girls in the class by any chance? That would make things less socially awkward assuming that DD's list is all girls.
It's perfectly ok to say no to an invite too. Some invites are out of politeness rather than specifically wanting your dd there and not everyone can afford or rope in enough adult help for a party of 30. If my child is friends then obviously attendance will be a priority but my child isn't friends with all of the 29 other kids and their absence won't be noticed by those who aren't friends.

If people invited based on the who invited them then you're signing up to inviting them until year 6 which is obviously nuts. If your are social media friends then you might want to restrict who can see party photos but the half rule that others mentioned is sensible. I have bought packages from soft play for 10 guests plus birthday child sort of thing which has worked well.

Thanks for your replies, really helpful! To answer the question about girl/boy ratios, there are 15 girls 15 boys in her class. She would like to invite 5 of the boys, so I will ask her to pick 7 girls.

I have a dilemma of this and issue also DS is turning 8 so is his friends from class. That they will notice when he hands out invite, some got it and some didn't... so what do I do, maybe don't send him to school with cards, just send e-invite to parents' WhatsApp?