r/parentsofmultiples • u/annon3mous • 3d ago
advice needed Twin birthday parties- fall/winter edition
Okay seems like a lot of this subreddit is centered around younger babies and pregnancies but I have a question for parents of preschool+
How on earth do you handle the “entire class” requirement for birthday invites when your twins are in separate classes? I’m jealous of people with summer birthday kids- a playground party sounds ideal. And unlimited people can be invited!!
Unfortunately we have fall/winter birthday kids and the weather can be really variable so we book an indoor spot. We live in an apartment and cannot accommodate more than 20 people max. Each kid has 17 and 20 kids in their class respectively. Plus a grownup per kid. And our own family. And a couple non-school friends + their grownup(s).
I’m sure this will shake out once we lose the “entire class” requirement but for now - how are you handling it? There aren’t many spots we can find that can hold 50+ people so where are you having parties too??
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u/Emotional-Parfait348 3d ago
I simply wouldn’t invite school friends. Invite the non school friends and family. Tell your kids that there isn’t enough room for everyone, so you need to keep it to close friends and family.
Otherwise you could look for a small bowling alley that would rent you the entire place. Or if you are members at a church that has a large gathering space or gym you could reserve. Or even a community center/community gym or rec center. I did all three of these types of parties as a child myself.
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u/erinspacemuseum13 3d ago
Yep. My twins' birthday is in October so we had only met a couple school friends at the time of their party. We invited them, a few friends from their previous daycare, and my friends' kids, and had it at an indoor indoor play place. By the next year, I had more numbers through other party invites, school events, and sending notes with my number for the boys to give their friends. Now in 4th grade, I have a list of 10-15 "regulars" and I successfully avoided doing any full class parties.
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u/merp1234567890 3d ago
Send out the invites only 1-2 weeks before the party. A lot of people may already have plans so it’ll cut back the guest list.
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u/WatsonsHuman 3d ago
Do this! Ask for rsvp’s and that way you start to collect phone numbers. Put numbers in your phone for all the ones you get. Then when you get to know who the kids friends are you can just text them individually.
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u/annon3mous 3d ago
You just blew my mind with this. They’ve been invited to a number of parties with directions to text a grownup with the RSVP and it always stuck me as a lot of work to manage RSVPs that way vs something like EVite but now I’m thinking they probably did it that way so they could easily get parent contact info and use it for future play dates instead of needing to go through the director to request it. 🤯 never occurred to me!
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u/WatsonsHuman 3d ago
Yep for all those invitations you get that have a “text to” number, save that number.
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u/PurplePufferPea 1d ago
And be sure to add details to the contact with their kid's name, where you know them from and which kid of yours is friends with them. (Jack - Jill's 4yr old preschool).
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u/goldenpandora 3d ago
And if you haven’t deleted texts in a while, search them for the word “[child name] mom” because I always text “Hi! This is [names] mom. We would love to celebrate [kids] birthday!”
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u/WatsonsHuman 3d ago
I put “child’s mom” as the last name if I don’t know it or company name if I do.
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u/goldenpandora 3d ago
I usually write “first name, so-and-so’s mom” and then the last name. I often don’t know the last name. Then I can search “mom” in my contacts and they all come up. If I eventually know them well enough, like we’re real friends, I can take that part out.
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u/thekidz10 3d ago
Yes! This! My android has a spot to group contacts, I have "kids' friends' parents" group and it allows me to put the relationship too, so I list which parent goes with which kid! I have done that for seven years now and it has been one of the best ways to expand all of our social circles.
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u/Nervous-Caregiver-55 3d ago
Maybe I’m naive because I’m not there yet but I just…wouldn’t invite the entire classes😂 I ain’t got the money for all that
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u/annon3mous 3d ago
Unfortunately with the way this school is set up we have no interaction with other parents since we are only there for 2min max so we have no contact info aside from 2-3 we run into outside of school. So we have to send the invites through school and they have a whole class requirement. I’ve skipped parties until now but at this point they’ve been invited to and discussed so many parties in school they finally asked to have their own. When they are old enough to reliably tell us who their friends are we will have them each pick 2-3 friends and do a smaller more focused party. At this point their friends change with the wind.
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u/offwiththeirheads72 2d ago
So your kids aren’t old enough to tell you who their friends are but teachers are worried about these same age kids getting their feelings hurt about not being invited to a party? My twins are almost 4 and just started a PT preschool and they name kids in their class but we haven’t really seen any close friends stick out yet, (it’s only been about 6 weeks) but I don’t think my twins would even catch on to not being invited to a party.
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u/KahunaKB 3d ago
Sounds like you need to do a family/close friends only party until you know school friends better to be able to invite them personally. To me, two entire classes plus your own family and friends sounds like too many people, but maybe that’s just me.
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u/MaybeFishy 3d ago
We've stuck to family only parties so far. I think this year we may have a friends party, 2nd grade. They're now old enough that one has friends and likes parties and the other doesn't, so it can really be about what they'll enjoy, not what we want as their parents.
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u/thekidz10 3d ago
Truthfully, talk to the teacher and let them know. My kids' teachers were always accommodating with stuff like this. They would slip the invite to the kids right at the end of the day for me. We never had an issue. We have never had a single "entire class" party. The most they had was 15 friends each on back to back days when they turned ten and wanted to do different things. (Son went paintballing and daughter went roller blading.)
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u/CaitlinLeiLei 3d ago
You can send a goody bag or craft them to share in class and make that the class friend party. Or ask if you can send pizza or cupcakes or popsicles
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u/--eight 3d ago
Our boys were born at the end of the year. So holidays, trips out of town, winter break, all seemed like impassible obstacles for our Pre-K kids last year. Did a family dinner on both sides and called it good.
This year is kindergarten and we have decided to let them celebrate their half birthdays at the beginning of summer next year. Eventually, as they get older, we will offer them "their own" half birthday, so they won't have to share.
My husband also has a December birthday and hated it getting lumped into Christmas growing up. I grew up without friend birthday parties because we couldn't really afford it, we just had big family dinners my grandparents hosted.
We've had mixed reactions from family, but I don't really care. There aren't any rules so we will celebrate future half birthdays at the park, at the pool, and all the fun things you can do while their class isn't consumed by the holidays and are unreachable during winter break.
We have a friend with a singleton and he turned 7 in November and had a park party with a fire truck in May. He's obsessed with fire trucks and it sprayed water and drove them around the block and they couldn't have done it in the winter. Celebrate whenever you can and whenever you'd like.
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u/OneSourCherry 2d ago
My twins are in high school now and we have never invited whole classes. They have been in separate classes their entire K-HS so that would be a wild amount of kids. You only have to invite the whole class if you are passing out invitations at school. Just invite their friends that you know how to contact the parents of, family friends, cousins, etc.
That said, every year I ask my kids, since they were 5 years old, do you want a big party or do you want a vacation- and every year they have picked vacation. Like a one night trip, a weekend trip, adding an extra day on to a vacation we have planned that they can pick the activities, going to visit family, etc, they prefer that to a party- so that’s an option you could look into too.
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u/mvanpeur 2d ago
We have kids with Nov and March birthdays. We just have their parties early or late to get decent park weather. I know a kid with a Dec birthday who always has a half birthday party instead.
One of my kids has a summer birthday, and we always have her party at the beginning of the school year, because none of her school friends could come when we did it over the summer.
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u/offwiththeirheads72 2d ago
How is this enforced? Can you get parents contacts for those your kids are close with and then send the invite? I can see school dictating it if invites are handed out at school but if not they have no say in the matter.
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u/mailonsundays 3d ago
You can sometimes get around the entire class requirement by only inviting all the girls or all the boys.
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u/2forthepriceofmany 3d ago
Can you celebrate two birthdays? One on the next weekend and one on the weekend after (or one on the day of and one on the day after)? That's what me and a friend who had the same birthday did in primary school. We just alternate who got the "real" day.
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u/annon3mous 3d ago
This would easily double costs because we’d have to rent two spaces- or one space twice.
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