Childcare and birthday parties - reciprocal invites?

When inviting children from childcare to birthday parties is it reciprocal? E.g. Do you mainly invite children who you have been to the parties of?

DD is nearly four and she has never been invited to a birthday party by anyone at childcare (been there three years) - I know they go on because one of her close friends from childcare is in our mothers group so I hear from her mum - she has had invites to at least 6 parties over the years. I have always assumed that because we have never had a party (just not really our thing and have been on holiday for two out of three birthdays) that is why DD has never had an invite. Or DH says is because people don't know how to spell DD's name :-)

Anyway one of the girls I know DD is friendly with is having a party in a few weeks so subject came up when out with friend from mothers group, DD doesn't have an invite,- so I mentioned to MG friend that DD had never had one from childcare - and she seemed to think it was a bit strange? Is it?

This is my boys (nearly 5 and nearly 3 and 1/2) 3 rd year at child care centre and neither have ever had an invite to a party.
I know they have been other kids invited and 1 day one of the carers said hang on I need to check if an invite here for someone's party then no there isn't, she asked the mum the next day as she thought was weird as everyone else got 1 and her answer was oh forgot him oh well!! They only went 1 day a week last 2 years and now 2 days.

I have not invited kids from cc as have only had mothers group kids.

When DD has had parties, we have invited her friends - whether she was invited to their parties or not. She went to some parties that we then didn't invite to her party, but some of them were really big ones with lots of people, whereas we usually have something small, ie if she was turning 5, she was allowed 5 friends only.

Does your DD have really close friends or does she have lots of friends, but not necessarily close?

I find some of the invites are reciprocal. Certainly with DD1 when she had a birthday party, I found her party invites would increase. I do often feel obliged myself to invite in return, even though I am debating that this year.

DD2 took time to get invites, but once she started at childcare 5 days per week last year, the invites really jumped. Could also be due to 2 other girls having the same name and maybe the mothers just invited all three rather than miss inviting the right one ;)

I don't really know about state of her friendships - I know she is close friends at CC with the other girl from MG and normally from what I see from photos and reports etc they are always together playing either on their own together or with a few others too ( I suppose maybe that is why friend thought it odd because our DD's are always together when both there but is only her DD's who gets the invites). They both go three days a week but only overlap on two and from what DD says she plays with range of children on other day.

Have you or your son met many of the other parents? My daughter is the first to arrive so most of the parents are familiar with her as she's there when they drop their kids off, and excitedly greets each friend as they arrive. She got a tonne of invites during birthday season, and I think it was because the parents knew her. Of course because I'm there so early, I never get to meet her friends, so a lot of her birthday invites were reciprocal, or kids I met at other parties. It was strange because the other parents all had stories about my daughter and their child but I know nothing about them.

But when I was writing the guest list, there were limited numbers so definitely reciprocation comes into play when you have to cut people off the list.

Neither of mine have been invited to parties of children from childcare (they went two days a week). But we didn't have any parties where we invited kids from childcare either so I didn't think much of it. I think at that age unless they are seeing kids outside childcare on playdates then it's completely normal not to invite them.

But DD1's invites went nuts as soon as she started school - five in the first six weeks! Luckily for my wallet, things have slowed down a lot.

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Neither of mine have been invited to parties of children from childcare (they went two days a week). But we didn't have any parties where we have kids from childcare either so I didn't think much of it. I think at that age unless they are seeing kids outside childcare on playdates then it's completely normal not to invite them.

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We haven't had a party before and I never really thought much about it but like you I didn't really think people would invite children from daycare unless saw them at other times - but the friend from MG's DD doesn't see anyone from CC outside of CC either - so seems does happen. Who knows why DD has never got one invite - she wants to invite several friends from CC this year so if it is reciprocal then maybe she will start getting invites - and if no one comes maybe there is some other reason. DD isn't bothered she knows there are parties going on but she has decided she has been on holiday for all of them :-)

Is your childcare centre helpful when parents ask who are friends? Often I had to talk to the carers, or at Kinder, the Kinder teacher to really work out who the friends were (also to get help with spelling names)

Actually with DD1's kinder year, I was asked by the teacher to invite a couple of little girls on the basis that it would boost their confidence. I was happy to do so, these girls are now some of DD1's good friends. Also I am now very good friends with one parent and a friend with the other.

I asked dd who she wanted to invite to her 4th birthday from child care. She was allowed 6 friends as we had a few friends from Other places to invite. She has been to about 5 parties from child care and some I didn't reciprocate and some did depending on who dd chose.

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Is your childcare centre helpful when parents ask who are friends? Often I had to talk to the carers, or at Kinder, the Kinder teacher to really work out who the friends were (also to get help with spelling names)

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Yes they will be helpful I will ask them who they would suggest for her party to sense check her list, and while am at it ask if any reason or behavior of hers that would lead to no invites. Another invite yesterday but not for her so DH thinks we should now check with staff. I don't think there will be is just one of those random things.

You know, I'm inclined to think Ryan's spelling comment was possibly spot on, lol. It is no doubt quite random and if parents are just asking their kids to name say, 6-8 of their friends to invite it could just be random kids whose name they can pronounce, IYKWIM?
I wouldn't think too much of it, personally. Nat's party invitations didn't start coming until she was in her last year at CC when she had a couple, then at school they started to roll in fairly regularly. She certainly misses out on a lot of them (I guess it's a good lesson for them to learn, that you won't get invited to everything. Even I had to learn that, as being friends with some of the CC parents on FB and seeing pics of them all going out to dinner & not inviting me, lol!!) but I don't think they are majorly significant in the lives of little kids.
Phoebe has been invited to one party (she has one very special friend from CC - in fact I think she is the one kid whom P has befriended without them being the sibling of one of Nat's friends) and I'm not realistically expecting any more any time soon.
I doubt very much that the lack of invites is due to anything CJ is or isn't doing. She is delightful :)

Snacks - you are right if she is not getting invites I don't think is because of her - more likely is because of DH and I :-) I can cope with that though. The kids actually are all very good at name pronunciation there are many Indian children and staff too so they are all good with saying names (and the kids correcting you if say it wrong) - but I can imagine the kids listing the names and the parents not being able to spell them might come into play.

We have only had one invite and it was to some totally random kids party.
He and DS werent even in the same age room :wtf:
I checked with the teachers, thinking there must have been a Lachlan in the other room and the invite had been put in the wrong pocket.
But no, there is only one Lachy in the whole centre :D
Then I figured they must have invite the whole centre. (to hungry jacks, no less)
But nope, just a random invite :)
We have never had a party outside of family, we are saving it for school.