Birthday Party Problems?

13 is a great age for the girls to have a party one day and then the boys have a party another day, especially if it is a sleep over. The 2 that are not having the party stay at a grand parents (or other relatives) home and the next night the other pair go and stay with another pair of grandparents or relatives.

Explain that since thy are separate parties, the guest list will be smaller than if they had one party for everyone. It costs more to have 2 parties than one, especially sleep overs. 2 cakes. 2 dinners, 2 sets of snacks and 2 breakfasts.

I would let them each have their own party. I know it's a lot, but they are siblings and should each be allowed to have their own ideas.

I would suggest a gender neutral party place that they all agree on.... whether it be a movie, bowling, or something like that.

If you want to do sleepovers, that should be separate from the birthday party.... and held on two different nights. Boys one night, and girls another night.

Since they all want friends to sleepover after the party, and you're worried about the co-ed sleepover, I would do 2 parties. I would have the parties on the same weekend to make it easier: a boys party Friday evening into Saturday morning and a girls party Saturday night into Sunday morning.

Let the boys plan their party, and the girls plan theirs. Two themes (or color schemes now that they're turning 13) and two cakes. All kids help with party set up and clean up. Having the parties on the same weekend means you do one big shop for food/drinks/party supplies and you're house is sleepover central for just one weekend.

Above all, enjoy it!
Congrats, Momma!
T. Y

Well, my triplets will be 16 on Tuesday. The few times we had parties, we had no problems. We may have a bowling party this time. Maybe that would work, they could have their own boy/girl lanes? As for sleep over, they are going to be 13, why would it not work out as long as you have rules? 13 should know how to behave. I could see a bunch of 6 or 7 yr olds being an issue but 13 should know what to do without making one heck of a huge mess.

What about expanding on the idea floated below of one gender having a sleepover Friday night and the other Saturday night. Let's say the boys have overnight friends on Friday, and the girls just sleep in their own room, no friends. On Friday night, the girls make themselves scarce and the boys do what they want (DVD choices, themed cake, decor, etc.), followed by breakfast the next day. Then the girls' friends arrive around noon, and ALL the kids do something together (make their own pizzas for lunch, watch another DVD if all can agree, etc.). (Alternatively you can go out to one of the suggested things below, like mini golf or bumper cars, if it's not prohibitive in terms of finances or carpooling.) Then the boy guests go home at 3 PM and your sons make themselves scarce at home. If you go out to a venue, then the boy guests get picked up there by their parents (having been taken there by you from your house), and the girl guests get dropped off there and get taken back to your house by you.

Then the girls' party begins, with whatever activity they want, and their cake/gifts, and then their sleepover. In the morning, the girl guests go home after breakfast, and you and your husband collapse.

Your sons and daughters could choose their own respective themes for decor and theme (cake, paper plates etc.) but have them agree on a color scheme for things like balloons if they want that - you aren't doing 2 sets of the more expensive things or dealing with picking up a 2nd set of balloons mid-weekend.

It's a ton of logistics and you absolutely have to have iron clad RSVPs from the other kids.

I think if the kids' birthday comes mid-week, you could split it into 2 parties, especially after the kids get old enough that they aren't sharing friends or interests. But for now, if they do, great. It's a ton of work but it's not much worse with one marathon weekend vs. 2 separate ones.

By the time our son was 13 we'd pretty much stopped the friends parties and did family things together.
One birthday Dad took our son on a tour of an aircraft carrier - he was thrilled!
You can get pretty creative with this and have great celebrations and the logistics can be much more simple.
If there's no pleasing everybody - then just please yourself!

Just do two separate sleepovers, one for the girls and one for the boys. Your husband is right, that would be easier.
And the girls will see your son, and the boys your daughter, so if they want to socialize and bring a present they can.
Not two nights in a row obviously, that would be a nightmare (!) but maybe one each over two weekends.

Girl party/boy party separate. I don't think the one party is going to fly much at this point. They're teens. Maybe 1 week apart, or during the same month.

If they want sleepover after, I would do a boy party and a girl party. If they want everyone together, then I would do one party but not have it a sleepover. I would encourage the second option, have them invite as many kids as you can handle and then call it a night at a reasonable hour and send everyone home.

I have 4 kids but they're not the same age. The two oldest (step-twins) are 4 months apart and then there is a 6-year-gap and then my two youngest, who are less than 2 years apart. We've had days where each has had 1-2 friends over after school on the same day and suddenly there are 10-12 kids in my house, so we try to minimize those.

With my two oldest, because they are a boy and a girl, we stopped allowing them to both have a friend sleep over on the same night when they were in middle school. I wanted to make it clear way before it was a problem that none of their friends would be able to use a night at my house to get closer to a boy or girl that they liked. When I was younger, I had a friend who had an older brother close in age and more than once, one of his friends was hooking up with one of her friends and a lot of sneaking around happened at their house. So for sleepovers, you really can't have all of your kids have a friend over on the same night anymore.

Good luck!

I would do at least two separate parties. They are individuals and all non twin, triplet etc kids get their own parties. So not sure why they shouldn't too.

Your husband's idea makes sense.
I think the girls should have a girly party and arrange for your boys to sleep over at the friend's house (or grandparents house). Then a couple of weeks later do the opposite.

I'm not totally following why you think the guests will have to do duplicate parties if you want to seperate gender. You said the boys will invite a male friend each and the girls will invite a female friend each. If your girls pick the same girl, then if you want to host more tell them combined they can have X friends over.

If the head count is so small (2 or 4 guests per event), I do not think there will even be a major RSVP issue).

When is the birthdate? If it is warm enough, let the boys camp outside for the overnight. Dad can supervise them after the birthday festivities. The girls can stay inside and camp out in the bedroom or family room floor. Or vice versa... borrow some large tents and stick them all outside on opposite sides of the yard/house...

Or even rent an RV and stick half in the RV camper and the other half in the house or tents in the yard. Share the *party* but the sleepover is divided by gender. Closely supervised.
Because, honestly, by this age (my youngest is almost 14) they really don't do "theme" parties. They just want to hang out with their friends. So the girls stay inside and do hair/nails/makeup/foot spa.... while watching movies or whatever. The boys are outside with a campfire... boys and fire, what else do they need??

Just have a big cake (non-gender specific) with multicolor balloons and streamers... That's it. They don't need a lot of entertainment, or "theme" decorations.

Trampoline place, bowling, roller skating, mini golf and go-carts and movies are all pretty gender neutral parties. I would either do sleepovers on different nights, or the boys could sleep in a tent in the backyard and have a camping party and the girls in the house and do a spa theme.

What about something like roller skating or laser tag which are kind of gender neutral or a scavenger hunt in teams? They could each bring a two friends and you would have a dozen kids. At 13, I would host a sleepover for the boys separately from the girls. Maybe on a different weekend than the joint party.

You're the mom. You decide what is OK for you, write down what is a acceptable to you and then let them decide, with your input what to do. Sounds like you're having difficulty because you're trying to make everyone happy. Can't be done and trying to do so creates drama.

Your not wanting a sleep over is reasonable. Perhaps compromise by letting one or two kids at a time have a sleepover at a different time. I agree that because they share friends that having a party for all of them makes sense.Be firm in telling them that if they can't decide on decorations you will decide on the decorations. Suggest compromise and let them figure it out.

There's no way my kiddos would have a party that was shared with anyone else much less 3 other people. They'd each want their own party unless there were 2 kids that both liked the same thing and agreed they could do that.

Two of my grand kids are very close in their birth dates so they always had joint parties when they were little but now they have their own. They are individuals and shouldn't have to compromise. They do occasionally choose to share a venue that's something they both like such as a party at a local gymnastics place. They each had their own group and they did their stuff at the same time but they sat with their own friends at one table while the other one sat at another table with their friends. That way they felt like they had their own party.

Otherwise I'd buy a couple of huge cakes and invite a bunch of kids from their school classes and have cake and drinks then just let them run amok or something. Not have them all spend the night with just you.

When I turned 13 I was allowed to have my best friend spend the night with me at grandma's house. Maybe 1 party and then girls spend night at grandma's or an aunts house? and boys stay at your house.

When each of my kids turned 13 we invited the whole 8th grade and had a bonfire.

What about one of those places that has go carts and put put or six flags? Bowling sounds like a good one too.

If they thrill adventure seekers - in door sky diving? Rock climbing. something of that nature

How about you do a boy party one day and a girl party the other day, and their actual birthday is celebrated with family instead? If you do not want a sleepover with teens of mixed genders, then don't. There were friends of my SD whose parents did not allow their daughters to stay overnight if SS was home. So they picked up the kids at 11 or whenever instead.

What I would consider is allowing an evening party that was not a sleepover. Or do something special with each one and one or two best friends. Like a movie or getting nails done or laser tag or something like that.

No solution is going to 100% appeal to everyone, and if they can't agree, then they don't get a friend party.

I would have a Girls vs Boys party.

Have the kids help you think up a good amount of competitive games and the winning sides gets a small rewards. (Nothing junky, just candy)

I don't have a problem with Boy\Girl sleepovers in this context. Have the boys sleep out and girls inside, or have the girls upstairs and boys downstairs and keep an ear out.

why do they have to agree? YOU know better than anyone that they're not the same!
it would be a PITA either way, but i'd let them each have a separate party/sleepover. leave it up to the parents of the friends to figure out which one the mutual friends choose to attend.
or if THEY like the idea of boy/girl separation you could go with that.
i myself had boy/girl sleepovers for as long as my kids wanted 'em, and we never had any issues. we were very firm and clear about what was expected, and alert without being squinty-eyed and suspicious. i've found that kids respond very well to high standards and expectations, and being treated with respect.
khairete
S.

I would have 2 parties on different days. You realize that as they get older and more uniquely opinionated, you may be having 4 different birthday plans? Enjoy what you have now.

I'd say No to sleepover parties for my own sanity though.