Today I welcome Adam Barrett, kid’s party planning expert from Snozzcumber.com, to talk about how you can plan and manage your children’s birthday parties when they come close together. Over to you Adam…

‘DIY kids party hats’ by Maegan Tintori, Flickr Creative Commons

Whether you’re bringing up an only child or have five little bundles of joy to look after, before you know it it’ll be time to don your event planning hat again and start arranging your next children’s party.

If you’re like most parents, these times of celebration in reality will be tinged with mixed emotions. When the big day arrives there’ll be a great deal of enjoyment for all involved (provided all goes to plan), however there is no hiding from the huge responsibility of making sure every child and parent leaves feeling satisfied. Expectations have never been so high, and to get it right usually requires planning well in advance.

Arranging one party at once is challenging enough, however Nicola explained to us how she is faced with a particularly taxing organisational challenge to wrestle with each winter – all 3 of her children have birthdays within a single 5 week period! To make things even more interesting, the first of these birthdays happens to fall on Christmas day.

Nicola asked if us if we had any advice for her and for other parents in similar situations. We gladly agreed to put this guest blog post together with some tips on how to cope.

Our 7 survival tips:

1. Cheat! Would one of your children be happy to have their party at another time in the year? Perhaps they would enjoy an outside party in the summer?
2. Decide on a total budget before you start making any bookings or buying presents. If you have multiple children’s birthday’s close together, the cost of parties, presents, birthday cakes will quickly start to add up. If you have a total budget in mind with perhaps an equal share allocated to each child, it will give you an idea of how much you can spend on each party and on each child’s presents. Make sure you set aside money for all the extras such as cakes before you allocate money at the party itself.
3. Save up throughout the year. Easier said then done of course, but unless you have money to spare, you are going to have really stretched wage packet for what ought to be an enjoyable time for your family.
4. Arrange joint parties. If at all possible, arrange a single party to accomodate two (or even more) of your children. Depending on the range of ages of your children and their respective interests, you might be shaking your head at this one – but for those who can make it work, there is significant money to be saved.
5. Book well in advance. It can often be tempting to keep putting the final arrangements off to the last possible minute, but for the sake of your own sanity, this situation really calls for forward planning.
6. Call in favours. Are you going to need babysitters? If you have anyone that might owe you a favour, try and get them pencilled in for babysitting duties as early as possible. Perhaps a grandparent or your close friend with the cupcake business will be able to help out to save money on the cake.
7. Prioritise. Can you really afford to give all your children an all-out party every year? What if you decide on particular milestone birthdays to celebrate in style, which you can apply to all your children in the interest of fairness?

Summary

We hope you found one or two of these tips helpful. We would love to hear how other parents with close together children’s birthdays find the experience each year, and welcome you to share any other survival tips you have via the comments section below.

It has been a pleasure writing this article for inclusion on Nicola’s blog. We look forward to continuing our working relationship with her in future.

About the author

This guest post was co-written by Adam Barrett and Marek Setnicka from Snozzcumber.com. Snozzcumber is search tool for kids’ party packages and related services.