A FOUR-year-old boy celebrated his birthday on New Year’s Day alongside his seven sisters and first niece.

Alfie Cribben is the eighth child in a family full of girls and became an uncle aged three after his second eldest sister gave birth.

Now little Mia Ferguson, eight months, has joined the rest of the huge family in celebrating Uncle Alfie’s birthday with a big party.

Alfie’s mum Mandy, 39, of Tally Ho Road, Shadoxhurst, said: “Alfie is probably too young to appreciate being an uncle at his age.

“He just treats Mia like another member of the family and he mothers her like the other girls.

“I thought because we’d had so many girls my daughters would probably have all boys when they became mums but that hasn’t happened.

“It was amazing for me to witness a birth for a change rather than experience it.”

Alfie, who attends St Michael’s Pre-School in Tenterden two mornings a week, hit the headlines in the Kentish Express when he was born on January 1, 2004 after parents Mandy and civil engineer Bill, now 47, previously had seven girls.

He was named after the EastEnders character Alfie Moon and the actor, Shane Richie, sent him a signed photograph.

The family’s second eldest daughter Emily, now 19, gave birth to Alfie’s niece Mia on April 28, 2007.

Alfie also attends Shadoxhurst Nursery two days a week, and will start at St Michael’s Primary School in September, which all his sisters have attended.

Mrs Cribben said: “Alfie idolises Spider-Man and Batman and is already very strong. He can lift the frame of our garden swing.

“I don’t think he misses having a brother because in some ways he treats the girls like brothers – he can be a little too rough and boisterous with them.”

Mrs Cribben hopes to find paid work after Alfie starts school and has started writing on a book on her experiences with her huge family.

The size of the Cribben clan means they live in a six-bedroom house and the family car is an 11-seater minibus.

Mr and Mrs Cribben and their eight children have seven birthdays between October and January.

Mrs Cribben said: “That makes that time of year, and Christmas, very expensive.”