WWYD - Not Enough Loot Bags

[Skywalker]

Let's say you threw a birthday party for your child, you invited 10 kids and miraculously all 10 RSVP'd and everyone is coming! Great! You put together 10 perfect little loot bags with awesome stuff and fun packaging.

Then one kid, the mom doesn't just drop and go, she makes it clear she is staying and not only that, so is the younger sibling of the invited kid. Okay, well, no problem. Stay if you want!

End of the party...people are leaving and not only the invited kid lines up for a loot bag, so does their sibling. If the sibling takes a loot bag, some poor invited kid is not going to get one. But who wants to make a kid put a loot bag back?

After that I started making extra (live & learn). Just wondering what others would have done.

 

[QueenIsabella]

I always made a couple extra loot bags. There's always the kid who didn't RSVP, the kid whose siblings tagged along, the kid whose siblings show up for pick-up and look forlorn--there's just always an extra kid, somewhere. Worst case (as in best case, I have extra), I send the bag home with someone I know has a younger sibling.

I always got more annoyed with people who didn't RSVP, or showed up with extra kids and just drop them off with the invited guest. Um, I'm not your babysitter! But generally, I would just invite any additional siblings if they were close in age--I had a large yard with a nice playset, and even indoors, we had a huge rec room, so an extra kid wasn't a problem. And I would be less annoyed because I invited them and had enough favor bags, place settings, etc.

 

[NannyBeBe]

l would have handed a bag to the invitee sibling and said, "You can share with your little brother (or sister)."

 

[Disneylover99]

I always made extra loot bags, But I wouldn’t have them all line up for a loot bag anyways. The kids kind of left in staggered times, so it would be easy enough to give a loot bag to the mom for her kids to share if there weren’t enough, without it being obvious to the kids.

 

[slo]

l would have handed a bag to the invitee sibling and said, "You can share with your little brother (or sister)."

I like this

Luckily….I have never had a kid party for my girls.
I’d always askEd them what they would prefer - a kid party or going downtown Chicago with us and eating at a restaurant of their choice (it was almost always Rainforest Cafe) and go to The American Girl Store so they could get something and do a carriage ride - they always choose downtown Chicago, which I loved. In the end the cost was probably the same.

 

[wenrob]

I’ve always made extra. My kids are going to a Friendsgiving get together where the count is 12, we’re making 15 cocoa bundles.

In my older DD’s soccer days the parents were notorious for trying to send a sibling along to the end of season parties. I generally headed them off at the pass and let them know they had to stay and watch their kids and had to order/pay separately for themselves. In your case I probably would have taken the mom aside and told her that I only had goodie bags for the kids who were invited. I would say it’s crazy she even let the kid get in line but then she invited herself and the kid to stay.

 

[motherof5]

I always made a couple extra loot bags. There's always the kid who didn't RSVP, the kid whose siblings tagged along, the kid whose siblings show up for pick-up and look forlorn--there's just always an extra kid, somewhere. Worst case (as in best case, I have extra), I send the bag home with someone I know has a younger sibling.

I always got more annoyed with people who didn't RSVP, or showed up with extra kids and just drop them off with the invited guest. Um, I'm not your babysitter! But generally, I would just invite any additional siblings if they were close in age--I had a large yard with a nice playset, and even indoors, we had a huge rec room, so an extra kid wasn't a problem. And I would be less annoyed because I invited them and had enough favor bags, place settings, etc.

I agree with this. We always tried to make extra.

 

[motherof5]

l would have handed a bag to the invitee sibling and said, "You can share with your little brother (or sister)."

Great idea!

 

[1GoldenSun]

I always personalized them, with their names on them, but I'd have some extra too just in case. The extras were scaled-down versions of the ones for the kids who RSVPed, just candy, stickers, and maybe a few small trinkets. Once the party was well underway and I figured no one else was going to be showing up I'd just divide the contents of those bags amongst the other bags.

Only one time was this a problem. We had a dinosaur-themed party at the children's museum when my son turned 5. I put toy dinosaurs and pterodactyl gliders and T Rex paddle balls in all the bags, plus candy and stickers and small stuff, and wrote a dinosaur version of their names on them--Lydiasuarus, Dylanodocus, Seanodon, Davidactyl, etc. One mom had RSVPd for her son but they didn't show up, so I dumped his bag into several others. She finally arrived about about 90 minutes late--with two little sisters in tow as well--when the "gathering" part of the party was ending and the guests were about to have free time in the children's museum. Apparently they had to look all over for unpaid parking--she didn't read the part of the invitation where I said to park in the museum parking lot and that pre-paid parking tokens would be provided at the party. I had to quickly reshuffle the contents of a few bags that belonged to kids who hadn't grabbed them yet, and use my son and daughter's bags too. Luckily I had a couple "unnamed" bags and I could provide one for this boy and his two sisters, although they were mostly just candy and stickers.

The funny thing was that once the kids were scattered around the museum mixed in with the regular museum patrons, I later saw this mom sitting on a bench watching her kids, munching away on her kids' candy!

 

[Donald13]

Tell the party place that you only have enough for the kids invited. They will make sure that only the invited kids get a bag

 

[White Cat]

Simple. I wish my problems were so simple to solve. Buy 10 loot bags and give them to the 10 invited children. Done. I would probably only need 9 though. Because the mother that wants to stay would be told not to , or to not bring the other 2, she would get offended and keep her child home.

 

[Christine]

I always made extra--only because we always had someone who didn't RSVP show up. But yeah, if the bags were very expensive to put together, I can see where you wouldn't want to make extra. I have no issues being confrontational (though I hate it) and telling the parent of the extra sibling that I only made enough for the invited guests.

 

[design_mom]

We only had it happen once. Normally we just had at-home parties with cousins, so I knew who would be there (and would have made a goodie bag for the cousin even if she couldn't actually come for some reason.)

Each kid had one "destination" birthday party with friends invited. My daughter had a pool party at the local rec center. The kids got to swim during open swim (so others were there, too) but we had a private party room off the pool area, too. One friend's mother brought the younger siblings to open swim during the party (which was fine), but the siblings kind of joined the party when we went back to the party room. I only had a enough goodie bags for the invited guests, but I pulled my two aside and told them I'd get them a treat after the party if they didn't take goodie bags. They agreed, so I gave "their" goodie bags to the siblings. (But, yes, I thought it was kind of rude.)

 

[Skippy918]

I don’t do loot bags. Most of the stuff ends up in the trash anyway.
I would be annoyed that the other mom didn’t give you a heads up or ask if she could bring siblings to the party, especially if the party place had a strict head count and cap on the number of kids.

 

[shoney]

I always made extra. It was quite common for parents and siblings to stay for the party when my kids were little.

movie parties…the whole family would show up because everyone knew that the local theatre charged a flat rate to rent the theatre.

once year we did it at Chuck E. Cheese. I bought additional tokens And bagged them up myself to hand to siblings. One mother refused saying that her kids have to learn that the party isn’t for them. Well okay!

one year I made homemade brownie cup cakes for a bowling party. I couldn’t believe how many parents took one. I didn’t have enough for the kids! Parents usually said no to the cake. Not to brownies, I guess

purchasing extra pizza to offer to parents and siblings was also the norm here

 

[disneychrista]

There were times I stayed and had my other daughter with me, I never expected the sibling to be part of the party, be involved in any activities, get a goodie bag, etc. it was just that I was a single parent and not really knowing the family hosting the party I didn’t feel comfortable leaving.

 

[disneychrista]

I like this

Luckily….I have never had a kid party for my girls.
I’d always askEd them what they would prefer - a kid party or going downtown Chicago with us and eating at a restaurant of their choice (it was almost always Rainforest Cafe) and go to The American Girl Store so they could get something and do a carriage ride - they always choose downtown Chicago, which I loved. In the end the cost was probably the same.

Growing up my birthday “party” was going to Disneyland. I was never very popular, so never really had a real group of friends to invite to a party. I remember one year asking to have a party, I hated it.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I would make more just in case for invitees who oops didn't RSVP but in the event that an extra who was not invited showed up sharing would be what I would gently nudge. However, if there really was enough for the sibling I would go ahead and give it to them, I wouldn't short-change an invitee one but if extra was available it's not a big deal.

I gotta say though I'm unaware of actually being in attendance to birthday parties my sister was invited to. I wasn't invited and I don't think my mom would have even thought to drop both of us off. Worked in reverse too, my sister wouldn't have been dropped off at my friend's birthday parties. My sister would have been embarrassed at me being there lol (3 year's difference) even when we were younger.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Growing up my birthday “party” was going to Disneyland. I was never very popular, so never really had a real group of friends to invite to a party. I remember one year asking to have a party, I hated it.

Uhhh Disneyland would be way better than some bowling alley or house!

I went to our local amusement park every now and then with friends but I don't remember it ever being a birthday party for any time, that would have been very expensive and quite the treat even as less expensive the local amusement park is compared to DL.

 

[design_mom]

Growing up my birthday “party” was going to Disneyland. I was never very popular, so never really had a real group of friends to invite to a party. I remember one year asking to have a party, I hated it.

^^ That's me, too. My birthday is in June and we almost always went on summer vacation that week. I've had my birthday in Disney World, Washington DC, Yellowstone... all sorts of places. Or, if we weren't "away" we at least did something fun like a local amusement park or a day trip. One year, I announced I wanted a "real" birthday party. Conclusion: Birthday parties are way overrated. I'd much rather "do something" than have a party. (Yes, I'm an introvert! I had friends in school but I generally hung out with the same small group. We invited the whole class to 'make it a party' and... eh... no thanks.)