[quangle~wangle~q...]

DD is having her first party in a few weeks. She will be 5.

I know there is a standard suggestion of inviting the same number as their age, but our list has expanded a bit and when I take into account that some of the kids will be bringing older/younger siblings, who while not officially invited, will still add to the numbers, so our invited list currently stands at 10 (including birthday girl).

Is this too many? There is another little girl I would really like to invite and she will probably bring her sister, so that would take it to 12.

Am I mad to consider having this many. It is a fairy themed party at home. I will have lots of craft stuff for the kids to do and we have a decent back yard to play in, as well as 2 large rooms inside if it is wet.

How many is too many?

[Ange]

For DD's 5th Birthday party is a couple of weeks, we've invited the whole class (25).

[BetteBoop]

We just had DDs 5th birthday party and invited 11 kids with 11 adults (including DH and I).

It was the perfect number of kids. We have a small backyard but 2 very big back decks and quite a big house.

We had a pinata for entertainment and made balloon animals (bought a manual plastic pump and long skinny balloons from Crazy Clark's).

It was a terrific party and it wasn't too much work for me to organise. Lots of free play time for the kids too.

For her other parties, we have only invited 2 or 3 other kids but it wasn't as much fun.

[Butterfly*77]

We had 25 to DS's 4th birthday last year (whole of Kindy class) but only had about 13-14 this year for his 5th birthday. Very hard at this age to exclude anyone so I naturally felt guilty that I hadn't invited the whole class but it worked out well in the end.

[baddmammajamma]

Twelve sounds lovely and reasonable.

When my daughter turned 6 last year, toward the end of her first year of school, we invited the whole class plus a few other kids from the other class. Some brought siblings unexpectedly. We ended up with 32 in our yard

It was crazy mayhem, but everyone had a good time (except our neighbors! )

Hope the party goes well!

[T2Mum]

12 should be no problem. I've just invited 17 girls to DD's 5th birthday party. That said we have hired an entertainer to keep them occupied for the duration of the party.

[Julie3Girls]

It really depends on your child

My older two girls both had a party with around 12-14 kids total for their 6th birthday (FYOS) and that is the biggest party we have had. That number was really no problem. So 12 total is a fun number.

Normally, our parties are much smaller, around 5 or 6 kids invited. It works for us. My girls prefer the smaller parties. Last year, DD2 invited 8 for a pool party, and didn't like it. This year, she just wants 3 or 4 friends over.