did your kids ever miss having a birthday party?

[AnnieW625]

I swear this is my last question for the day! he he!

DD turns 4 on Easter this year, spring break is the following week in our area. I am hesistant to plan a party the day before Easter because I think people will be out of town or have other pre planned Easter activities. We'll celebrate with family on Easter, or after her ballet recital the following Sunday. Last year DD loved the bounce house we had in our yard; and she had 10 friends come over; this year I'd feel bad if we didn't invite her 10 classmates from her preschool too so that could be up to 20 kids in our yard or at an area play space. This year I will be somewhere between 34-37 weeks pregnant of when we'd actually have the party, but I am thinking I'd almost rather do something else like take her on last trip before the baby comes to Legoland (2 hrs. away) in mid March. For preschool I can just send cupcakes to school with her, and I can take a few hours off work, and have a little something for her (with cupcakes, balloons, and party hats) at her daycare (a private home) on the Friday before her birthday in the PM (after nap and before going home). There are two or three other little non school or non daycare friends that would miss out, but we could always do something later to celebrate with them like movie and pizza at our house on a non weekend day.

What do you all think? Stick with a party or skip the traditional party and go to Legoland?

[sunshine873]

I vote for Legoland!!! Sounds like a great family together moment before the new baby arrives.

[egoldber]

What do the other kids in her class/daycare do? IME, around age 4 is when kids start to really "get" birthdays and birthday parties. For some it would be no big deal to not have a party and for others it would be a very big deal.

Does she have an opinion?

[AnnieW625]

What do the other kids in her class/daycare do? IME, around age 4 is when kids start to really "get" birthdays and birthday parties. For some it would be no big deal to not have a party and for others it would be a very big deal.

Does she have an opinion?

She's been to two daycare parties in the last school year and will most likely go to another one or two in May. Her other friend who did turn 3 in December didn't have a party because of holiday conflicts; just had cake at daycare. She hasn't been to any birthday parties for her preschool yet, and since DH or DCP handles the drop off and pick up I am not sure of when the class birthdays are. Her class is pretty much all three year olds so I just don't think they've had any birthdays yet. I do know one girl (whose mom I know from Jr. League and the girls didn't know each other before preschool) is a couple of weeks younger than DD.

[lmh2402]

i'm definitely not BTDT, and i think the legoland fun-outing-before-baby idea sounds fab!

but in terms of timing, DS is turning one on good friday

we're just having his party the sat before... i agree that doing it easter weekend is not really feasible

have fun, whatever you guys decide to do!

[codex57]

DS' 2nd birthday wasn't much. Course, at that age, he doesn't really understand what a birthday is and what little he got is still more than what I got (my birthday is the day after so we're always doing the after effects of DS' stuff on my birthday).

[BabyMine]

I vote for Legoland!!! Sounds like a great family together moment before the new baby arrives.

:yeahthat:

[fivi2]

What do the other kids in her class/daycare do? IME, around age 4 is when kids start to really "get" birthdays and birthday parties. For some it would be no big deal to not have a party and for others it would be a very big deal.

Does she have an opinion?

:yeahthat:

We didn't do a party until age 3, and maybe could have skipped it that year.

But if we had skipped the party this year (age 4), it would have been a huge HUGE problem. I don't think my girls will be into the family outing thing instead of party for a few years to come. Their party was very important to them.

We had been to several playgroup and pre-k parties, so maybe that plays a part.

eta: I do think it is a nice idea to do Legoland, if your dd will be okay with it. I just know that my 4 yos would definitely NOT have been okay with it!

[SnuggleBuggles]

At that age I wouldn't worry about it because you have so many other things lined up. But, would your preschool be willing to let you host a "party" there during the day? It was a normal thing at ds1's preschool for families to bring pizza for lunch, play a game, do treats and then hand out goodie bags- so a miniature version of a b-day party just during the day at school. At his other school this might not have worked b/c they were strict about food so I don't know what your school is like. It's an easy way to at least get the preschool friends out of the way.

Beth

[maestramommy]

Besides the 1st birthday, we have yet to have a party for our kids' bdays. We do have a family birthday moment with cake, candles, and opening presents. For Dora's bday the last 2 years we've taken her to the circus. For Dora the big deal about the bday is really the cake, candles, and opening the presents:p, even though she's gone to a couple of parties now. She's never asked for a party. She has asked when she can have bday cake with candles and presents again though:rotflmao:

I just remembered that at her preschool, every kid will bring snack to share on their bday, they get a bday crown to wear, and I'm assuming the class sings "Happy Bday" to them.

I think YMMV on this though. It probably depends a lot on the kid's personality.

[Andi98989]

Besides the 1st birthday, we have yet to have a party for our kids' bdays. We do have a family birthday moment with cake, candles, and opening presents. .....

I just remembered that at her preschool, every kid will bring snack to share on their bday, they get a bday crown to wear, and I'm assuming the class sings "Happy Bday" to them.

:yeahthat: When I was growing up we only had a family party until we were 10, and that was the only party we had with friends over. I had been to other partys, so I knew that they did happen. I was fine with it.

[elephantmeg]

DS is turning 4 on Sat (yikes!) and he is REALLY talking a lot about b-days. I would ask her what she wanted to do.

[KpbS]

I vote for Legoland and party at school/daycare. DS1 wanted to just have a family party when he was 4 and was somewhat ambivalent about a friend party at 5. I am thinking about having friend parties just every other year.

[HIU8]

DS didn't have a friend bday party until age 4. I caved. We were not going to start bdays until age 5, but all the other kids in his classes have done parties (age 2 and 3) and DS started begging us to have one.

DD is 2 and we don't plan on doing a friend party for her until age 4. I think legoland sound really fun!

[tmarie]

My 4yo has been asking for months when we can have her next bday party, so in our house, we'd be in trouble if we didn't have a 'friends' party. For dd#1's 2nd bday we just did family, very small. By the time she was 2.5 she was asking why she didn't have a party for her 2nd bday. Sigh. Our trouble probably stems from the fact that she goes to school and therefore attends parties all the time for her classmates. I was 7 months pregnant for dd's 3rd bday, on partial bedrest, so there was no way I wanted a party at our house. Instead we went to Gymboree. Dd loved it. I loved it. The kids were all entertained, there was no clean up or food to prepare, they even took care of the favors and invitations, and I really enjoyed 'playing' with dd as opposed to 'running' the party. I love at home parties and all the personal touches, but I can't wait to throw another Gymbo party for dd#2's bday. :)

tmarie

[rlu]

i'm definitely not BTDT, and i think the legoland fun-outing-before-baby idea sounds fab!

but in terms of timing, DS is turning one on good friday

we're just having his party the sat before... i agree that doing it easter weekend is not really feasible

have fun, whatever you guys decide to do!

DS's bday is the end of March so we run into holiday issues as well. For OP, as PP above suggests and as we have done in the past, I would do the party the weekend of March 27. We keep our parties pretty small though.

[chozen]

i guess id say ask her and see what she wants.:)

[luvmypeanut]

My kids love birthday parties so there is no question that we would have one. But a few of their classmates with birthdays close to holidays choose to have their parties a month and sometimes two months after the real birthday. In fact, DD is going to one on Friday for a friend who's birthday is Dec 20th. For the kids I know, the date of the party doesn't matter as long as there is one planned.

[alien_host]

I had friend parties for DD for the first 3 years (well the first 2 years was really for us, if you KWIM). Anyway at 4 I got lazy and went back and forth on who to invite so I just did a family party for her. Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles - she had balloons, cake, candles etc. That was enough for her and she didn't seem to miss friends. But I think if I didn't have a family party, she would have noticed.

I've gone back and forth on the preschool "invite the whole class thing". We don't do anything with the kids outside of school. She has been invited to 2 parties from classmates, one last year and one this year. It seemed like the majority of the people didn't throw one (and DD is towards the end of the school year) so I didn't feel it was necessary to do that route.

I think once she enters kindergarten we will be "closer" maybe to more families since they will be neighbors/people in the town where we live. Her preschool is two towns over.

ETA: read your post again, yes do the preschool treat and little day care party, I think that would be fun for her.

In your situation with the holiday and you being very PG, I'd do what is easier for you. Having 20 kids in my house is not something I'd want to do even if I wasn't PG! I think a special day with Legoland sounds great. Maybe get her a balloon the night before and have it tied to her door knob so she knows it's her special day.

good luck.

[HallsofVA]

We took the kids to WDW in early January as their Christmas present this year. We followed that with a 4nt Disney Cruise that ended on my son's birthday, with a lunch at T-Rex in Downtown Disney before heading home. We kept the cruise a surprise until we actually arrived at the ship, and the T-Rex lunch a surprise until we arrived at the restaurant, but had told my son well in advance that we had something very special planned for his birthday, and as a result, we wouldn't be having a birthday party with his friends this year.

He agreed and even told his friends that he was sorry that he wouldn't be able to invite them to a birthday party since he was doing something special instead. He hasn't seemed to miss having a party, though there were a few times before the trip when he mentioned he wanted "this" type of party, or another type, and we just reminded him that his upcoming surprise was so much cooler than any party.

[fivi2]

My 4yo has been asking for months when we can have her next bday party, so in our house, we'd be in trouble if we didn't have a 'friends' party. For dd#1's 2nd bday we just did family, very small. By the time she was 2.5 she was asking why she didn't have a party for her 2nd bday. Sigh. Our trouble probably stems from the fact that she goes to school and therefore attends parties all the time for her classmates. I was 7 months pregnant for dd's 3rd bday, on partial bedrest, so there was no way I wanted a party at our house. Instead we went to Gymboree. Dd loved it. I loved it. The kids were all entertained, there was no clean up or food to prepare, they even took care of the favors and invitations, and I really enjoyed 'playing' with dd as opposed to 'running' the party. I love at home parties and all the personal touches, but I can't wait to throw another Gymbo party for dd#2's bday. :)

tmarie

We did Gymboree at 3 yo and also LOVED it. This year (at 4) we did Chuck E Cheese. Easy for us, the girls loved it, but a bit headache inducing ;)

[AnnieW625]

In your situation with the holiday and you being very PG, I'd do what is easier for you. Having 20 kids in my house is not something I'd want to do even if I wasn't PG! I think a special day with Legoland sounds great. Maybe get her a balloon the night before and have it tied to her door knob so she knows it's her special day.

good luck.

This is us too! We haven't done anything with any of the preschool kids yet (except for a Chuck E Cheese night at the begining of school, but not all the kids came and I've never kept up with the parents because we all have different lives, kwim?), but I know that if I told DD that we were going to have a party she'd tell me I want to have friend A, and friend B and maybe whoever friend C of the week is but then I'd feel bad if I we didn't invite the other 3 girls in the class, and then we might as well just include the four other boys too.

I have a hard time reading DD in regards to birthday parties as she knows they exist, but she only knows her birthday is in April (example she knows it February now because they have calendars at preschool and daycare, and will know it March also next month) so she'd probably tell me or her friends it's not her birthday yet, as this is the same silly kid that will get mad at Moose A. Moose when he sings the birthday song during the fillers on Nick Jr. . She stearnly tells him "It's not my birthday!" She has yet to mention wanting to have a party and hasn't mentioned inviting friends, but I think I can probably get away with her not having a party in our home w/a bounce house like she did last year or at My Gym or a local play space, etc. for at least another year.

I also have to consult DH on this and see what he says, and yes we could most likely still have a party on March 28th if we need to.

Thanks again!

[Roni]

My girls are older, so they have really strong opinions about having a party. But, I realized last year that the month of DD#1's b-day was going to be so crazy, and we had her party almost a month later. She's okay with doing that again this year.(I know, that's not an option for you.) I am going to run into trouble this year with DD#2's b-day because I will be 8+ months pregnant. I'm trying to talk her into having it early, but she wants to be "fully 7" when she has her party. She even has the theme and her outfit picked out. (It's in August.) It will, of course, come down to how I'm feeling by then, but it will be a hard sell if we need to do it early.

With a 4-year-old, I'm not sure what I would do. Of course, sometimes parents just have to make decisions and say "this is how it is." But, if you really want to go to Legoland, maybe you can "sell it" in such a way that she thinks it's what she wants. :) If you decide to have a party, go with the March 28 date--definitely avoid Easter weekend.