To say no to sleepovers?

[SouthernandCross]

My girls are 9, 8 and 5 and are obsessed by the idea of sleepovers.
The eldest two have been on a couple but I can't bring myself to reciprocate.
I don't even like playdates much and ration them to one each every half term.
There is always so much arguing, the friend inevitably plays with the 'wrong' girl and ends up in the middle of a scrap fuelled by the words 'she's MY friend'.
If they could all play together nicely it would be fine but I spend too much time managing my kids' fights, I can't deal with someone else's children.
DD2 and DD3 share a room and bicker constantly, there is no room for another child and I get little enough sleep as it is.
I've suggested that we wait until next summer and put the tent up in our garden, then invite a friend each then but the girls want to do it NOW.
AIBU?

Hmm, that's an interesting point. We don't have any relatives, so they never get to sleep elsewhere, except on holidays. And then of course they always sleep fine.
In a couple of years we should be able to afford a loft conversion and they will all have a room of their own, which will make things much easier. Also they'll be older.
So I think I'll definitely be more up for it then.

I think it's hard on the kids when it comes to their first residential school trip and they've never slept away from home before.

OP if you had told me when ds was 3 that by the time he was 10 we would have stream of kids through the house for sleepovers and unplanned meals I would've laughed in your face - things change, see how you feel later.

Valium, my older ones have done a couple of Brownies trips and gone to a couple of sleepovers with friends. It's just having OPK's here that I don't like!

Ha ha ha

DD went off for 6 nights of Brownie camp having never slept away from us before, she was fine, too, didn't want to come home .

YANBU, we don't have the space for them to sleep and I enjoy the peace and quiet and only having my dc's here but then I am a childminder so I have 7 dc's here after school everyday so I don't think my dc's miss out. Dd1 has started going to them now and again but she knows it won't be reciprocated and she has talked to her friends before the event so they know that, even if I wanted to let her there just isnt room and I don't want dd2 kept awake as she wakes up at the same time everyday regardless of bedtime and the only difference is that they are both miserable from being sleep deprived. It's basically not worth it for me.

If you have normal, well balanced, well adjusted children they will not be phased by sleeping away from home. IMO they don't need a constant stream of sleepovers to introduce them to that.

I think that sleepovers are, and should be a treat. Surely if you do them with a monotonous regularity they lose their appeal and are no longer a fun adventure? They are about having fun with your friends and doing something different and out of the ordinary. So what if they stay up late, get a bit over excited and have less sleep than normal? Do it at the weekend and no harm is done.

No one ever died or became seriously ill from getting a bit over excited and missing out on a few hours sleep once in a while.

I host so many it is like a B&B here! but it hasn't always been that way.

I used to not like having opk around, because 1) they are loud, and I live in an apartment building, 2) possible fall outs between visiting kids, 3) the mess, 4) they eat all my food, 5) I couldn't get anything done around the house, and it was frequently messy

Over time, I have set rules that all visiting kids follow. I basically treat them exactly like my own. They help out around the house, they eat what I'm making for dinner, they know that in this house, there is no raising hands and no being rude.
I have also made great strides in decluttering and now have systems in place to keep the house clean.
Because sleep overs are so common here, there is no need to stay up all night, shreiking, and eating vast amounts of junk. although they do eat all my food still, and now that they are bigger, they need so much more!

It takes time, but once you have hosted a few, the stress goes out of it.