The ex allowed stayover without telling me

Op, I think you're making more out of the situation than needs to be. Do you consult your ex on everything you do with DD? Why don't you try to get to know her friends parents in the hope of building up a friendship with them? Also when you say about DD being somewhere with people you don't know, do you personally know all the staff at her school? Just because they will have a CRB doesn't fully mean they're safe. We send our kids and assume a cleared DBS means they're safe but there's been plenty in the news in the not so far back past that would give any parent the right not to be so sure.... and I'm not saying this to make us all wary of the schools our kids go to, just stating the fact, you never know who is lerking anywhere our kids are without us, don't be so quick to assume DDs friends parents could be sinister.

This all sounds a bit paranoid and controlling. i know there are a lot of feckless fathers out there but surely those that aren't 'own' as much of their children as the mothers and have a right to make a decision re sleepovers.

You need to chill out. Your paranoia is stopping your DD from having normal childhood experiences. There is an element of risk in most things in life but wrapping your child up in cotton wool is not good for them.

And it's also not your decision on his days.

^this. You have boundaries with someone you are voluntarily in a relationship of some sort with (romantic, friendship, workplace). When you lay out a boundary, the tacit (unspoken) part is "...or I will end our relationship". You already did that. The only thing left is voluntary agreement between the two of you, because the law, such as it is, is that he is as much her parent as you are and consequently during his parenting time he makes 100% of the decisions.

It’s not a boundary, it’s not something she can control. It’s not up to her.

he’s an equal parent and she can’t control what he does, however hard she tries or people on here encourage her to do so

Wow
this looks very much like you’re exerting control. You’d be fuming if your ex did this I presume…

If it was on his time you really have no say in what happens unless it's putting her in any danger.

One of the downsides of co-parenting is that you lose some of the control over how your child is parented. You just have to trust the person you chose to have a child with to do the right thing.

Your ex is her father - he has the same rights to allow her to go to places as you do

That's not legally the case, however strongly you feel it ought to be. OP has no control over decisions her dd's father makes on his contact time. You're not doing OP any favours by telling her she can veto something when she absolutely can't.

The mum aka op did let her dd stay there Before though

Don't understand these people saying you're being over the top. No way would I be happy with my seven year old girl sleeping over at a strangers house. He might as well pick someone off the bus and send her to their house. This is definitely something that both parents have to agree to.

So she has stayed there before on 'your time ' and that was ok as had her watch

B it it's not ok on ex 'time ' as no watch

I assume dd wanted to stay there

Pot kettle black springs to mind

It's good for children to have some independence and dd obv felt happy enough to stay without a means of communication

So you're not happy with DD sleeping over there because several playdates, a coffee, dinner and a sleepover mean you don't know them and they're strangers. Yet you're not happy to invite them into your house because they're strangers.

But lucky DD gets to have a sleepover with YOUR friend and their child.

Your posts when she's a teen are going to be interesting.

Not everyone. If you've been dating years and the kids know the bf, and it's serious etc then I don't see any harm in him staying over. Likewise, if I know the people who my daughter would be sleeping over at, I wouldn't have a problem either. She's been having sleepovers since she was around 6/7 and she's 17 now. Nothing happened to her.

The vast majority of other parents will not be abusers though. Risk is something we need to get into proportion and take our own decisions about. It's very hard. Car journeys, sports, trampolining - all carry the risk of injury/disablement/death. But also bring rewards and enjoyable experiences for children. How do you decide which risks to take? I'm not sure myself, though my dc have had a fair number of sleepovers.

Yep yep yep

Mumsnet is crazy. On one hand people will say it’s irresponsible for a mum to allow her boyfriend to stay over, even when they’ve been dating for years, in case he’s a paedophile. On the other hand it’s perfectly fine to leave your child overnight with a mum you’ve had a couple of coffees with and never even met her husband. Maybe she’s even got a new boyfriend who will be in the house. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Most abuse is conducted by family members and family friends. The notion that you think that be knowing them well means your child is not at risk is naive. Do you think youd pick up on signs? Don't be ridiculous.
No court is going to facilitate your controlling behaviour. His time = his rules.

I think you are being absolutist saying you don’t know this family at all and don’t know anything about them. Because that’s not true, is it? Your daughter has had four play dates and one sleepover already, and you’ve been invited in for coffee/tea twice. So they clearly provide a warm welcome to your daughter, like having her, and have extended the welcome to you too. And you’ve been happy enough for her to go to play. If you are regretting letting her stay over before, that’s fine: you’re entitled to change your mind and decide sleepovers are not for now. But it’s not fair to project that regret onto your ex, or to minimise the hand of friendship the family has extended.

Out of curiosity, and apologies if I’ve missed this, but have you returned the invite and had the child back to your house, and also what’s your view on hosting a sleepover if your DD asked for one, eg for her 8th birthday?

You must know them a bit, you let her stay until 10pm the last time the friend had a sleepover.

What? Your point makes no sense. Presumably OP’s sister has had many patients (probably mostly adults) talk to her about sexual abuse or weird or uncomfortable sexual experiences that happened to them at sleepovers and so in her personal opinion, coloured by her professional experience, sending young kids on sleepovers is a bad idea. She doesn’t need to be a forensic psychologist assessing this particular family to believe that, in general, the risks of sleepovers outweigh the benefits.
Also, abuse or just bad experiences can happen at sleepovers in houses with parents who have no idea that an older sibling/other children invited are targeting or pressuring a child at a sleepover.

Respectfully disagree. It might be ‘perfectly normal’ for naive people who underestimate the risks. Anybody who hadn’t been through it would like to imagine it’s very rare. Those who aren’t as fortunate are fully aware that it happens a lot more frequently than people realise. Estimates are between 5-10% of children. My children’s dad was always respectful of my feelings on the matter. If I didn’t trust him to keep our children safe I’d have withheld contact.

On a related note, I spent my teenage years in care. I wasn’t allowed to attend sleepovers as a condition of my care order. Social services obviously didn’t think it was over the top either.

OP, don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you’re being over the top. You are entitled to your boundaries

OP can feel whatever way she wants to feel. But she has no way to enforce what her ex does on his time any more than he has any way to enforce what she does on her time. Her only leverage would be to end the relationship, and I believe that ship already sailed.

This isn't neglect or abuse. It's a very normal, everyday thing for most families.