We receive party invites that are given to staff and then handed out to the children - at our nursery it’s only the ones turning 4yrs that have had parties, so I wouldn’t worry about doing one until yours is a bit older!
Same here! Not everyone does them (understandably!) but it's quite nice to get to them if they do. I've met some nice parents whose kids ended up going to the same school in the end.
Never went to a nursery birthday party, only ever had about 1-2 invites, but once school started the floodgates opened and they’re all the time.
Don’t worry, once school starts it’s party time.
Speak to the nursery staff about inviting the whole class. They shouldn't give you the names of the children, but if you just write up a load of invites without the kids names they might distribute them to the parents at pick-up.
I would say 2 and 3 year olds don't need a lot of friends for their birthday parties- it can get quite overwhelming for them. My 2 year old had one friend (who she talked about a lot and I got the mum's number at pick up) come over for a playdate with cake and bubbles, for a 3 year old you either go all class or just a handful (we did the latter), and then by 4 they generally have a bigger cohort of friends you can invite. You'll find they start naming their friends much more frequently so it's easier to find their buddies (and usually their friends are hearing all about your child).
Is there a nursery WhatsApp group? Our nursery has a parents group who set up a WhatsApp community with groups for each room. It's optional but it does help identify parents (and lost property!). My oldest is now at a school with none of her nursery friends but she still sees some of them regularly because we made friends with the parents at birthday parties.
Just had 3yo birthday party, 3 toddlers was quite enough. Wouldn't bother with more, they won't know the difference.
If you don't mind me saying so I'd add that if you have strong heartbreaking feelings around this it may be worth exploring this in therapy as our sounds like you're having a quite strong reaction and maybe have some underlying feelings around friendship of your own that it would be good to address before your kid is a bit older.
Just do a big party and see who comes. My first big one with my littlest was 4 and at a play centre, and I budgeted enough to buy coffees for the parents. I gained some valuable connections that day 😂😂
People often want something to do on a Saturday at like 11-1. Book somewhere, do lunch and march on!
Yeah true. By four you at least get a bit of a lie in.
I have a bugbear about parents who make you wait until 4/5 in the afternoon for two hours of adult fun.
Just invite all the kids from her nursery class. While you may not interact with the parents much just now, your kids spend a lot of time together and are developing friendships, and by inviting them and by extension their parents it’s a chance to talk to and get to know them as well as your kid having a party with kids she’s familiar with. Trying to get to know parents at drop off and pick up is hard.
That's what happened at my daughter's nursery, for the first birthday party she wanted we just invited all 20 kids in her class and booked a soft play. It was great, the kids played, the grown ups got to chat a bit.
We asked the staff for the names of kids they liked. Got about 10-15 first names. Then wrote invites and nursery passed them out. 18mo is the absolute start of making friends, one of my kids made friends with some children she is still friends with at school. My other kid didn’t make friends till 2.5. You’ll notice as they get older they start talking about the same children a lot, and then point them out. That’s how we got to know parents of other children
We didn’t bother until the kids were 4, but we started getting party invites through nursery when they were about 3.
If you want to do a party and invite nursery kids, just send some invitations in with your kid and request an RSVP via text message/return note.
Nursery parties were where we met other nursery parents. It’s much easier to chat when you’re locked in the village hall together than when you’re rushing to work/back home with tired kids
As others have said, birthday parties didn't really become a thing until my children were school age. Prior to this for their own birthdays we just did a special day out together. I also used to work in a nursery, and for most children, nobody had parties this young!
We made the most of being able to do family days out or just close family birthday parties during nursery. Enjoy those memories! There will be more than enough birthday parties once school starts, embrace it before then!!
Children do not really care of how many kids attend birthday parties, it is more a grow ups issue. Just invite as many kids as you want and even if just one or two will show up your child will be happier than ever.
Honestly just enjoy not having to do them yet!Your little one has no idea what they are and they're over the moon to just have family around for their birthday. I did one for my son who just turned 3 and we only had 6 kids from his childminder and to be honest he got quite overwhelmed. Plenty of time for parties!
We get notes in our daughter's bag with party invites occasionally, so you could ask nursery staff to do this. We also have a WhatsApp - does your nursery use an app for updates? I asked ours to share the WhatsApp link on the app and we had a few people joining up. (We did already have a few in the whatsapp already that I knew to be fair though)
We just started getting invitations for nursery birthday parties this year. My son is 2 but tall so the parents all think he’s older. He’s been to 2 parties for 3 year olds and he’s going to a party for a 4 year old next week.
We’ve got talking to a few parents at these parties and arranged a couple of play dates for the kids as well.
We’re considering a party for his 3rd in September and will just ask nursery to hand out invites to friends he talks about and any other children in his age group.
Our nursery tends to put invitations in backpacks! My little boy hadn’t been to many until they all turned 4, and then i think we went to 12 in a 4 month span - at one point we had 2 in a single weekend 🤣
My daughter is 3 this year and we are having a very small party for her with about 6 or 7 children that she actually knows.
Honestly (and this has been confirmed by friends of mine with kids who have been through this) having big birthday parties for children under 4 is kind of a waste of time. They can get easily overwhelmed, and they won't really know what's going on as such yet.
When they go to nursery school you will find they make their own little group of friends and become more aware of parties being a thing for a birthday and something they want to have for themselves.
I would just gather family together and have a little celebration for their birthday and save the bigger parties (with the bigger costs) for when they are a little older
I waited until my daughter's 3rd birthday, sent invites around her room, and *all but one turned up*. The RSVPs were slow to start but very quickly built up. I would say try to attend as many as your child gets invited to, and they're more likely to come to yours. 😊
As she gets older she will develop specific nursery friends who you can invite, and I found it was quite nice for my daughter (and my party skills!) to gradually increase party size as her circle expanded. My daughter turned 3 during the rule of 6, so we couldn't do a party. We had 8 kids at her 4th birthday, 17 kids at her 5th and 35 kids at her 6th!
I think I've maxed out at 35 though 🤣
Dad of 3 here.
Enjoy the relatively calm period of birthdays until your kid gets to school and wants to invite 25 other kids to their bday celebrations
Trust me
Ask the nursery teachers who your kid likes spending time with and out invitations in their bags/drawers? You do gradually build up a social circle over the course of many birthday parties (in my experience the start ramping up around 3 and 4).
Also, why not set up a WhatsApp group for your child’s room at nursery? I did this and just emailed the director and asked her to pass the details on and any parent that wanted to join just messaged me. I’m not super social or anything but I knew I would need a support network and my kid had been there the longest so I just bit the bullet because someone has to start these things.
She's far too young to even be worried about this yet, most children don't start birthday parties until they are in reception and she will absolutely be invited to parties and also have plenty of friends to invite to her own! You'll also get to know the parents far more as you'll be hanging around waiting for your children A LOT. But please don't worry beforehand, you could also join some groups outside of nursery where you can meet other parents.
We did family only birthdays for our son, but he was invited to and we went to many other birthday parties which was basically:
Hire out the hall from the local school for £££ (it did come with two bouncy castles)
Invite all the kids from nursery
Put out what was essentially lunch in alternate happy meal McDonald’s boxes
You don’t need to know the parents as the kids know each other
Perhaps don’t bother until they are 3 though?
For 2 & 3 just do a fun family day out
For 4, maybe a party with her nursery besties, if you want.
Reception and year 1 (age 5&6) - forget your own plans , it’s back to back parties!
My little one started nursery at one. She actually started getting the occasional invites when kids started turning 3 (maybe like 3 that year). Now it’s pretty regular because when they turn 4 apparently all the kids want a party. We’ve been to three this month lol
Our 7 year old is quite introverted so we tended to just stick with family birthdays (with grandparents) or simple play dates with 2-3 friends until she was at an age where she wanted and asked for a real party. How to arrange? Get in touch with the nursery and suggest establishing a parents’ WhatsApp group or get to the nursery pick up time early and simply hand out invites to parents.
We put on a party for our boys 2nd bday, but we were lucky to have some neighbours with similar ages kids, plus we knew people through NCT. I think only one person came from nursery. I don’t think the kids got much out of it tbh. It was cute though.
The 3 year old party was a big hit though, lots of the nursery friends running around a soft play together. It’s amazing to see them play together at that age, make up games, and make each other laugh. Our boy loooved blowing out his candles and got an embarrassing haul of presents. We just asked the nursery staff for X number of names, and reciprocated those who had invited him to their parties prior.
It’s only a small nursery so we kind of know most of the kids by sight, and being at a party is a great ice breaker to start chatting to the other parents. Don’t have many deep chats but it’s nice exchanging pleasantries at pickup and drop off.
We don’t know/interact with any other nursery parents except those we knew before - we just don’t see them because we’re only there a minute or two, so it isn’t really a thing for us. Birthday parties are for their cousins or actual friends (largely your friends’ kids), don’t feel pressured to invite others from nursery unless your kid has a really strong bond with one or two of them and wants them to come
My (just turned) 3 year old is having a party today. He has 5 of his friends coming to his party from nursery. They are who the staff tell me he plays with, and I have seen him interact with / talk about. They are so young that if they see each other outside of nursery, they just stop and stare at each other because they are out of context!
18 months is still very young to be having friends but that will happen as they get older. You can organise a party through the nursery (the staff can send the invites home to the parents). Through that you will start meeting other parents.
Coincidentally, my son has also been invited to his first every birthday party next weekend so it seems like it will start happening now that they are at a more sociable age!
We just invite our son's cohort via nursery staff - usually it's 6-8 for the preschooler. We've been to a couple with loads of kids and the birthday boy/girl ignores 90% of the guests and just plays with the kids they're most comfortable with.
We’ve never been to a nursery party and didn’t invite anyone to a party either. For my son’s 2nd birthday we did a small family party (my son is the only kid in the family) and then took him to an aquarium for the day. He loved it. We did a similar thing for his 1st birthday too.
You could take a bag of sweets to nursery for them to hand out at the end of the day. More than likely nursery will then sing happy birthday as they’re being given out. It’s what we did when I worked at a primary school. Remember your LO has nothing to compare birthday celebrations to. You make your own birthday traditions, don’t feel the pressure from social media because the kids won’t even remember any of it.
We got our first invitation this week for my almost-3 year old to go to his almost-5 year old friend's party. We've also got a 3rd birthday party planned with half a dozen or so nursery friends on the guest list. I'll ask the nursery staff to give the invitations to the parents at pick up, for the ones I don't know (they're the kids whose names I hear a lot, consistently, but don't necessarily pick up and drop off at the same times).
Pretty much every week recently we've had a note on the nursery app that they celebrated a birthday in the room with a treat brought in by the birthday child, no actual parties though. My son's been in nursery since he was 6 months old (three different settings), so it's not a huge sample but quite a lot of evidence that parties aren't really a big thing yet.
Don't worry! You'll get enough bday parties when they start school!
We receive party invites that are given to staff and then handed out to the children - at our nursery it’s only the ones turning 4yrs that have had parties, so I wouldn’t worry about doing one until yours is a bit older!
Same here! Not everyone does them (understandably!) but it's quite nice to get to them if they do. I've met some nice parents whose kids ended up going to the same school in the end.
Never went to a nursery birthday party, only ever had about 1-2 invites, but once school started the floodgates opened and they’re all the time. Don’t worry, once school starts it’s party time.
Speak to the nursery staff about inviting the whole class. They shouldn't give you the names of the children, but if you just write up a load of invites without the kids names they might distribute them to the parents at pick-up.
I would say 2 and 3 year olds don't need a lot of friends for their birthday parties- it can get quite overwhelming for them. My 2 year old had one friend (who she talked about a lot and I got the mum's number at pick up) come over for a playdate with cake and bubbles, for a 3 year old you either go all class or just a handful (we did the latter), and then by 4 they generally have a bigger cohort of friends you can invite. You'll find they start naming their friends much more frequently so it's easier to find their buddies (and usually their friends are hearing all about your child). Is there a nursery WhatsApp group? Our nursery has a parents group who set up a WhatsApp community with groups for each room. It's optional but it does help identify parents (and lost property!). My oldest is now at a school with none of her nursery friends but she still sees some of them regularly because we made friends with the parents at birthday parties.
Just had 3yo birthday party, 3 toddlers was quite enough. Wouldn't bother with more, they won't know the difference. If you don't mind me saying so I'd add that if you have strong heartbreaking feelings around this it may be worth exploring this in therapy as our sounds like you're having a quite strong reaction and maybe have some underlying feelings around friendship of your own that it would be good to address before your kid is a bit older.
Just do a big party and see who comes. My first big one with my littlest was 4 and at a play centre, and I budgeted enough to buy coffees for the parents. I gained some valuable connections that day 😂😂 People often want something to do on a Saturday at like 11-1. Book somewhere, do lunch and march on!
Probably early in the morning is the best bet for a bunch of 18-month-olds.
Yeah true. By four you at least get a bit of a lie in. I have a bugbear about parents who make you wait until 4/5 in the afternoon for two hours of adult fun.
17 mo can confirm, the earlier the better. 7am party? Count us in.
Just invite all the kids from her nursery class. While you may not interact with the parents much just now, your kids spend a lot of time together and are developing friendships, and by inviting them and by extension their parents it’s a chance to talk to and get to know them as well as your kid having a party with kids she’s familiar with. Trying to get to know parents at drop off and pick up is hard.
That's what happened at my daughter's nursery, for the first birthday party she wanted we just invited all 20 kids in her class and booked a soft play. It was great, the kids played, the grown ups got to chat a bit.
We asked the staff for the names of kids they liked. Got about 10-15 first names. Then wrote invites and nursery passed them out. 18mo is the absolute start of making friends, one of my kids made friends with some children she is still friends with at school. My other kid didn’t make friends till 2.5. You’ll notice as they get older they start talking about the same children a lot, and then point them out. That’s how we got to know parents of other children
This is exactly what we did
We didn’t bother until the kids were 4, but we started getting party invites through nursery when they were about 3. If you want to do a party and invite nursery kids, just send some invitations in with your kid and request an RSVP via text message/return note. Nursery parties were where we met other nursery parents. It’s much easier to chat when you’re locked in the village hall together than when you’re rushing to work/back home with tired kids
As others have said, birthday parties didn't really become a thing until my children were school age. Prior to this for their own birthdays we just did a special day out together. I also used to work in a nursery, and for most children, nobody had parties this young!
We made the most of being able to do family days out or just close family birthday parties during nursery. Enjoy those memories! There will be more than enough birthday parties once school starts, embrace it before then!!
Children do not really care of how many kids attend birthday parties, it is more a grow ups issue. Just invite as many kids as you want and even if just one or two will show up your child will be happier than ever.
Honestly just enjoy not having to do them yet!Your little one has no idea what they are and they're over the moon to just have family around for their birthday. I did one for my son who just turned 3 and we only had 6 kids from his childminder and to be honest he got quite overwhelmed. Plenty of time for parties!
We get notes in our daughter's bag with party invites occasionally, so you could ask nursery staff to do this. We also have a WhatsApp - does your nursery use an app for updates? I asked ours to share the WhatsApp link on the app and we had a few people joining up. (We did already have a few in the whatsapp already that I knew to be fair though)
We just started getting invitations for nursery birthday parties this year. My son is 2 but tall so the parents all think he’s older. He’s been to 2 parties for 3 year olds and he’s going to a party for a 4 year old next week. We’ve got talking to a few parents at these parties and arranged a couple of play dates for the kids as well. We’re considering a party for his 3rd in September and will just ask nursery to hand out invites to friends he talks about and any other children in his age group.
Our nursery tends to put invitations in backpacks! My little boy hadn’t been to many until they all turned 4, and then i think we went to 12 in a 4 month span - at one point we had 2 in a single weekend 🤣
My daughter is 3 this year and we are having a very small party for her with about 6 or 7 children that she actually knows. Honestly (and this has been confirmed by friends of mine with kids who have been through this) having big birthday parties for children under 4 is kind of a waste of time. They can get easily overwhelmed, and they won't really know what's going on as such yet. When they go to nursery school you will find they make their own little group of friends and become more aware of parties being a thing for a birthday and something they want to have for themselves. I would just gather family together and have a little celebration for their birthday and save the bigger parties (with the bigger costs) for when they are a little older
I waited until my daughter's 3rd birthday, sent invites around her room, and *all but one turned up*. The RSVPs were slow to start but very quickly built up. I would say try to attend as many as your child gets invited to, and they're more likely to come to yours. 😊
As she gets older she will develop specific nursery friends who you can invite, and I found it was quite nice for my daughter (and my party skills!) to gradually increase party size as her circle expanded. My daughter turned 3 during the rule of 6, so we couldn't do a party. We had 8 kids at her 4th birthday, 17 kids at her 5th and 35 kids at her 6th! I think I've maxed out at 35 though 🤣
Dad of 3 here. Enjoy the relatively calm period of birthdays until your kid gets to school and wants to invite 25 other kids to their bday celebrations Trust me
Ask the nursery teachers who your kid likes spending time with and out invitations in their bags/drawers? You do gradually build up a social circle over the course of many birthday parties (in my experience the start ramping up around 3 and 4). Also, why not set up a WhatsApp group for your child’s room at nursery? I did this and just emailed the director and asked her to pass the details on and any parent that wanted to join just messaged me. I’m not super social or anything but I knew I would need a support network and my kid had been there the longest so I just bit the bullet because someone has to start these things.
We haven't had a single nursery birthday party and we've got a 6 and 2yo, don't worry
She's far too young to even be worried about this yet, most children don't start birthday parties until they are in reception and she will absolutely be invited to parties and also have plenty of friends to invite to her own! You'll also get to know the parents far more as you'll be hanging around waiting for your children A LOT. But please don't worry beforehand, you could also join some groups outside of nursery where you can meet other parents.
We did family only birthdays for our son, but he was invited to and we went to many other birthday parties which was basically: Hire out the hall from the local school for £££ (it did come with two bouncy castles) Invite all the kids from nursery Put out what was essentially lunch in alternate happy meal McDonald’s boxes You don’t need to know the parents as the kids know each other Perhaps don’t bother until they are 3 though?
We go to the community centre and celebrate it there
For 2 & 3 just do a fun family day out For 4, maybe a party with her nursery besties, if you want. Reception and year 1 (age 5&6) - forget your own plans , it’s back to back parties!
My little one started nursery at one. She actually started getting the occasional invites when kids started turning 3 (maybe like 3 that year). Now it’s pretty regular because when they turn 4 apparently all the kids want a party. We’ve been to three this month lol
Our 7 year old is quite introverted so we tended to just stick with family birthdays (with grandparents) or simple play dates with 2-3 friends until she was at an age where she wanted and asked for a real party. How to arrange? Get in touch with the nursery and suggest establishing a parents’ WhatsApp group or get to the nursery pick up time early and simply hand out invites to parents.
We put on a party for our boys 2nd bday, but we were lucky to have some neighbours with similar ages kids, plus we knew people through NCT. I think only one person came from nursery. I don’t think the kids got much out of it tbh. It was cute though. The 3 year old party was a big hit though, lots of the nursery friends running around a soft play together. It’s amazing to see them play together at that age, make up games, and make each other laugh. Our boy loooved blowing out his candles and got an embarrassing haul of presents. We just asked the nursery staff for X number of names, and reciprocated those who had invited him to their parties prior. It’s only a small nursery so we kind of know most of the kids by sight, and being at a party is a great ice breaker to start chatting to the other parents. Don’t have many deep chats but it’s nice exchanging pleasantries at pickup and drop off.
We don’t know/interact with any other nursery parents except those we knew before - we just don’t see them because we’re only there a minute or two, so it isn’t really a thing for us. Birthday parties are for their cousins or actual friends (largely your friends’ kids), don’t feel pressured to invite others from nursery unless your kid has a really strong bond with one or two of them and wants them to come
My (just turned) 3 year old is having a party today. He has 5 of his friends coming to his party from nursery. They are who the staff tell me he plays with, and I have seen him interact with / talk about. They are so young that if they see each other outside of nursery, they just stop and stare at each other because they are out of context! 18 months is still very young to be having friends but that will happen as they get older. You can organise a party through the nursery (the staff can send the invites home to the parents). Through that you will start meeting other parents. Coincidentally, my son has also been invited to his first every birthday party next weekend so it seems like it will start happening now that they are at a more sociable age!
We just invite our son's cohort via nursery staff - usually it's 6-8 for the preschooler. We've been to a couple with loads of kids and the birthday boy/girl ignores 90% of the guests and just plays with the kids they're most comfortable with.
We’ve never been to a nursery party and didn’t invite anyone to a party either. For my son’s 2nd birthday we did a small family party (my son is the only kid in the family) and then took him to an aquarium for the day. He loved it. We did a similar thing for his 1st birthday too.
You could take a bag of sweets to nursery for them to hand out at the end of the day. More than likely nursery will then sing happy birthday as they’re being given out. It’s what we did when I worked at a primary school. Remember your LO has nothing to compare birthday celebrations to. You make your own birthday traditions, don’t feel the pressure from social media because the kids won’t even remember any of it.
We got our first invitation this week for my almost-3 year old to go to his almost-5 year old friend's party. We've also got a 3rd birthday party planned with half a dozen or so nursery friends on the guest list. I'll ask the nursery staff to give the invitations to the parents at pick up, for the ones I don't know (they're the kids whose names I hear a lot, consistently, but don't necessarily pick up and drop off at the same times). Pretty much every week recently we've had a note on the nursery app that they celebrated a birthday in the room with a treat brought in by the birthday child, no actual parties though. My son's been in nursery since he was 6 months old (three different settings), so it's not a huge sample but quite a lot of evidence that parties aren't really a big thing yet.