Be direct but tactful: eg I’m sure your new friends wanted to come, but their families are busy that day.

This is sad however 4 year olds are resilient. Explain that people are sometimes busy and there will be other times however she has her old friends coming. Try to keep it upbeat as they feed off your emotions and mood. I think she will be okay.

I would get making a big deal about the ones that are coming and how exciting it will be, how much fun everyone will have. Downplay the ones that aren’t coming

I would focus on the positive that your good old trusty friends will be there and bring that with a hooray, while telling their child care friends can’t make it in a neutral and accepting way. Not a big deal, there will be friends and party’s in the future. The less emotional -as being bad news- you bring it towards your children, the easier they will take it.

Just explain that the kids have other things on and couldn’t make it, but they would love to come another time

That’s sad that none of them are coming. Just tell her the truth.

It is good reading the comments and interest to this!

It’s hard, but just tell them the truth and explain why the friends can’t come. Kids are more resilient than we give them credit for.

How did it go? I hope she is ok.

Thats really hard, i dont envy your position at all

that is a shame that no one from child care are coming, I would ask WHY

i hope she is okay

I too was hoping that there was an update on how you handled it. It seems to be the sad reality at the moment that parents don’t respond to any party invites and make decisions on the day as to whether they will go or not. Makes it very hard to plan. A friend who was organising a party for her child and had no one reply other than close friends and family did something that I don’t know if I’d have the courage to do. She changed the venue to an indoor play centre and left a note on the front door saying “Hi, if you’ve come for the party we’re sorry, but as no one replied we decided to do something else. I’m sure you’ll understand that we were a little too busy to notify you. Have a nice day!”

Hope they didn’t take it too harshly! Just explain that Christmas is a very busy time and everyone is running around like crazy. Maybe you can ask the childcare centre to have a present swap day so they could still have their secret Santa next year.

We had this happen when we invited childcare friends to our party too. I think sometimes the invites don’t even get home, or parents don’t really consider childcare friends as real friends

oh no thats a hard one. im not sure what you would do.

Do we get an update? hopefully she took it well!

how did it go, how how did you tell her

I hope it went well. Maybe explain that all the children were so busy with their mummies and daddies?

How did it all go in the end?