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I agree with @Adira: My kids would definitely love a cheese tray- even my younger one who won’t eat cheese would happily eat the crackers and fruit anyway. Just pointing out where it is and saying help yourself is plenty. In my experience parents always make the plate for their own kids in that situation, though expect a couple of kids to try and help themselves when their parents aren’t looking.

I've been to maybe 20 3 year old parties. Almost all were similar where there were a few bowls of fruit/cheese/crackers out and normally most people come in,make a plate, and eat while they wait for everyone to arrive. I prefer a cheese tray over prepackaged snacks and pizza.

I think it's great you're making it clear on the invite that it's just snacks. We went to a birthday from 330-530 and totally misunderstood that it was snack only. Kiddo got full on sugar without any substance (they had cheese and fruit, just not a meal). The sugar crash was bad and he was too full of cake to eat dinner. Given that you have similar timing (right before a meal and nap), I might serve cake early so they can burn it off.

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I think if you want to spend more time playing versus eating that doing one main thing to eat like pizza will achieve that better than snacks which they might keep coming back to.

I did a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme for my son’s first birthday, so the food was trays of what the caterpillar ate. I liked it because it gave me an automatic, easy menu; the parents liked it because most of the food was healthy; and the kids ate it! One of the two-year-olds ate the entire plate of pickles If I’d thought of it, I’d have provided containers so they could take some home if they wanted.

We have thrown multiple 10 AM birthday parties at home (at least 4). We will be hosting another one in a couple of weeks. I tend to find that things like cheese trays and veggie trays aren't that popular. We usually have food set out and people just graze. The food that is most popular is the stuff that can be picked up when walking by the table easily (chips / salsa, CFA nuggets, bacon strips). The stuff we always have leftover seems to be the stuff that has to be served on a plate and sat down to eat.

We are having a 10 AM party next month and will be serving:
Fruit
French toast casserole (happily anticipating 1/2 the casserole to be leftover - luckily this is my favorite meal!)
Chicken biscuit minis (assumed 2-3 per person)
Mimosas
Birthday cake

My husband may convince me to do bacon again, not sure. It was SUCH a hit last time, but bacon for a large group can get pricey!

In the past I've done lots of pinterest-y stuff and it just isn't worth the time. Also, after lots of experience buy a size down from the cake then what is specified. We always have an insane amount of cake left over.

My son will happily eat lunch at 10:30 AM or 11:00 AM (he's 4) - I wouldn't really care if the nuggets ended up being a meal substitute (and he would be delighted). I would, however, be annoyed if he went to town on a bunch of crackers and refused lunch.

@jape14: this is exactly what we serve regardless of time as well. I buy the sandwich platter from Costco and people go nuts for it. Plus they keep in the fridge well for a day or two so we are good for lunches after. I never worry about leftovers and haven’t ever had an issue with that. You can always send some home with party stragglers or family if you’re concerned. I would rather have more food than cranky hungry kids and adults thinking why didn’t they serve something more substantial?! I would be annoyed if I went to a party before lunch and then had to figure out lunch as soon as I got home.

If you go with cheese and crackers plus veg and fruit, I still consider that substantial enough for lunch for myself and my kid so I would also be fine with that. Every party I’ve been to people graze and snack and whatever. Definitely make your own veggie tray, and even fruit tray: broccoli and cauliflower never get eaten, same with all the melon and I personally hate having that leftover. Cucumber, baby carrots, peppers, celery or tomato (with a dish cut up for the kids separate) with a thing of dip, plus berries and grapes for the fruit (also separate dish cut up for kids of grapes). We add tortilla chips and homemade layer dip too. .

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I can't remember what time of day you said your party was, but I recently had at-home parties for each of our girls. We did it in late afternoon, so I did serve dinner, but the *most popular* thing was the cheese and fruit tray. I picked up a big one from Sam's Club for like $18 and it had 2 kinds of cubed cheese and strawberries and grapes, and ALL of the fruit was gone and most of the cheese was gone at the end of the party. The grapes and strawberries were basically gone immediately, so in hindsight I should have just bought grapes and strawberries separately and had a plate of just those. My nanny was there and was worried about the grapes so after the party started, she sat and cut all the grapes in half length wise...so that might be the only prep you'd want to do.

But if you are hosting a mid afternoon party and are truly doing just snacks, then I think popular fruits (blueberries, grapes, strawberries) and cubed or small slices of cheese with crackers is the way to go.

If it's late afternoon and some parents might be making a dinner out of your snacks, then I would include the chick-fil-A nugget platter you mentioned before, because I think I lot of kids would be thrilled with a dinner of nuggets, fruit, and cheese.

Now I'm craving Chik Fil A nuggets. =( =( I don't think there are any Chik fil As in my area.

Any kind of finger foods work well. Cheese, fruit, fish sticks, chicken nuggets, cherry tomatoes... And I definitely wouldn't put out plates with food on them, because I never know who will eat what. The parents (or the kids) can figure that one out.

A lot of parties I've been to serve pizza, but usually they'll do giant slices and the kids will either leave half the slice, or miss the whole party because they won't get up till they've demolished the whole thing

All of the AM parties I’ve been to (at that exact time) have bagels and spreads, coffee, juice/mimosas, for adults, plus fruit tray. I did mini muffins too and they were big hit. But we’re in NYC, bagels are a food group here
They’ve also all served pizza at the end since 11:30 is right around lunch time.
I think having some pouches/yogurt and bags of goldfish or pretzels is also fine.