Sleepovers

[shebird]

I didn't grow up here so maybe I am missing something but I just don't get sleepovers. Why are children obsessed with wanting to sleep in other peoples houses? I mean mostly they stay up all night talking and/ or arguing and they have to sleep on an air bed or something equally uncomfortable. It seems that every birthday party DCs are invited to now end in a sleepover for a select few.
I have tried sleepovers at my DCs insistence and the result was no sleep for the entire household, one child wet the bed and another was sick. Never again - AIBU

easiest party ever
I think you are very lucky to have such well behaved party guests

dd3 is 6, some of her friends have sleepovers. i have firmly told her she can do that when she is 10,like her sisters did. dd1 is 19, honestly nobody did sleepovers at 6 when she was a child (5 minutes ago!)

My kids have a friend spend the night probably every other weekend (they go them less frequently - story of my life). As a general rule I like having kids around our house. As has been noted, we pick carefully - I won't invite certain kids over because I find them difficult.

I grew up in the US and had them with equal frequency there, but I do recall that some friends who had non-native parents were really confused and put off by the sleepover custom.

I wouldn't worry about who is at the house, either - if I trust the parent enough to let my kid spend the night there, I would happily rely upon their judgement.

I agree with Joules, I qould feel wary about leaving my child overnight at somebody else's home who are barely known to me. I didn't go to sleepovers as a child so it's all new to me.

Society places great emphasis on CRB checked staff working with kids, yet when it comes to sleep overs all the safety precautions are out of the window. The vast majority of parents are wonderful & law abiding but it is always a small minority that bring them down. If you have any doubt then you must always trust your instinct as a parent to safe guard your child.

Personally not keen on them. Have hosted them when DS1 was younger...over excited group of boys being mad til the small hours. Tears. Vomit. Etc etc . Didn't have another one.

DDs very best friend stays over occasionally and DD has been camping with her and her family....I've known the parents and their parents for 20+ years and my ILs live next door so they feel like family! So I don't mind that.

DD was invited or another sleepover recently. I said yes but I wasn't keen. My main worry is house fires. I am very vigilant about fire safety and I don't like my DCs being in houses overnight where other people might not be as vigilant. (We had a house fire at my mums years ago. Only a small one but bloody scary in terms of what might have happened.)

Read with interest - DS is having a sleepover for his birthday next week (he's 8), and they are going on their first residential school trip this year, so thought it would be good practice. They had a sleepover at school last summer and apparently were all asleep by 10pm! My thinking was rather than tie up all of Saturday with a party they could come over at 7, fill them up with carbs to make them sleepy, DVD and sleep. Pick up early sat morning as most of them play football etc. I did reassure the parents about my suitability as I'm a teacher - hey if you can take 30 kids on a plane how hard can a sleepover be? And obv I am CRB checked, and as OH is a copper, I think they will be pretty safe...

"I think you are very lucky to have such well behaved party guests"

Well they weren't too young-it was for daughter's 10th & she only had about 8 friends to stay.

And they mostly arrived in their pjs so not a lot of fuss at "bedtime".

Diddl did you see my posts about my dds sleepover on Saturday night?

I thought a frigging rock band had stayed over. I'm quite a strict mama I like to think, the girls including my dd are very good well mannered children who are never in trouble at school.
There just seems to be a culture amongst them of becoming riotous during sleepovers.
I should have known better really.

Today they are all handing over pocket money to pay for the broken curtain rail that they previously thought was so funny.

Maybe your dd and her friends could give mine some advice on how to ensure you get further sleepover opportunities

Your sleepover sounds like how I'd expect them to be.

They are 11/12 btw not babies and I had hundreds of sleepovers when my boys were younger with no incident whatsoever.

Still at least I don't ever have to have them again haha

I have often wondered this msasprey. As a society we expect anyone who cares for our children to be fully vetted but as soon as an invite to a sleepover arrives it is all forgotten. Not that I expect parents hosting sleepovers to be vetted but I think there are some people who say yes to young children when perhaps they don't know the family that well

But how do you vet them? You do know men who seem perfectly nice abuse children?

My parents used to have a code phrase for me that I could say over the phone if I wanted to come home - How is grandma. It didn't have to be about abuse, just any situation I was unhappy about but didn't feel able to say over the phone I wanted to come home. I only used it once as a teenager when in a crowd of friends where things started to feel a bit out of control in terms of the messing around.

I think we're lucky in that the daughter, well both the kids have well behaved friends.

We are pretty relaxed with them on such occasions & luckily, they don't take the piss.

Daughter used to have a friend whose parents were/are very strict.

She was always wanting to stay over but would just be uncontrollable.

Before daughter could end the friendship, the friend was banned from seeing our daughter as our daughter was deemed a bad influence!

Was a relief all round!

JapaneseMargaret - your words will come back to haunt you.

We don't allow sleepovers in term time and certainly not on a night before DS1 and DS2 might be playing football the following morning.

The DC are warned that if they're grumpy the following day because of lack of sleep they won't have another sleepover for a long time. They do their utmost not to sleep. Friends bring in energy drinks, and most disconcerting is the is the diabetic child who brings in more sweets than all the others put together. They do get confiscated at some point in the evening.

Just make your child a nice safe tinfoil helmet and insist they wear it at all times. That'll ward off the alien abduction risk........

My DDs love sleepovers. We waited until they were 9, and so far both DDs have only one friend each they do sleepovers with. We know these parents well, and have similar parenting styles. And generally, we restrict sleepovers to the holidays. They all behave very well, but do stay awake until crazy o clock. Bad behaviour during or day after sleepover would put sleepovers on hold.
Dd1 would like to invite other friends, but I wouldn't like to do sleepovers with some of her friends. Some would wreck my head or my house, or I don't feel comfortable with dd staying with them mostly because they have too much freedom and God knows what they may get up to. So restricting to just one friend seems to work well as a compromise. I'm hoping to keep it this way until secondary school.

I'm not looking forward to disallowing certain sleepover invites when she is older. In some cases I know and like the parents and it is going to look very judging (because it is just that).

diddl you make two relevant points.

Maybe I'm too strict at times. So she goes wild when my back is turned.

I have just had surgery so needed to still get sleep so for the first time I left them downstairs so they must have just got carried away.

The other point is about the type of children.

One of dds friends is a gorgeous child but when you out her and d together they seem to go mental. Me and the mum are friends and she agrees, bad combination.

To be fair the mum is one of my old drinking buddies and we were also pretty wild back in the day (a long time now) so maybe it's the personalities.

Stil glad I not having another for ages though

What I find difficult about them is the relentless list of people you owe them to. No matter how many you have, there's always someone else. I suppose it comes with having three dc. If I do it for one I must do it for them all; so I put it off and put it off but it hangs over me, the obligation. I like their friends round to play or for tea; but I dislike the fact that that doesnt seem enough nowadays and that there is then an expectation for the visit to extend into a sleepover and that I get pestered about it. I hate shuffling about in my dressing gown the next day in front of strangers. I prefer Sundays to be more of a chill out day for us and I hate that the standard pick up time is late morning the next day which blows a hole in Sunday. I hate that I or dh invariably to have words for the umpteenth time about GOING TO SLEEP NOW PLEASE. I hate having to pretend I love doing it when I dont to other parents (although I suspect they feel the same). I hate the friction it causes in the house when ds's friends won't stay out of dd's bedrooms despite being asked to umpteen times and the ensuing mayhem, shouting and slammed doors not to mention thundering up and down the damn stairs. Dd had one once for her 12 d/day. God what chaos. They were bickering, wandering about the house at 3am, one was crying...total nightmare. Not to mention dh getting more enraged and threatenting to take them all home. I just kept thinking what an awful end to dds birthday My dc do many many nice things and dh and I give up lots of time to see that they have a happy childhood. Yes, we do sleepovers (when I absolutely have to) but nothing can guilt trip me into saying I enjoy them.

I'm not keen on them at all. I had a couple of bad experiences when both boys were younger. I found the age 7/8 age the worse. Ds2 was friends with twins so it would have been unfair to only have one if them over to stay. He was invited to theirs quite regularly (I didn't always let him) but I felt I had to return the favour. Their behavior was terrible. They wouldn't listen to me when I told them to keep the noise down/put light out. I did threaten to take them home at 1am once.

Now that they are older it's not do bad. Ds2 is now 11 and had a friend over last weekend. I hardly knew they were here.

Dd is 6 she was invited to a sleepover at the end of last year. She loved it. She's had a friend to sleepover here and they were as good as gold.

As long as it's not a regular thing I can put up with them because the kids enjoy them.

I am with you scented. Both DH and I work all week and and spend most weekday evenings and Saturday at some activity or birthday party. The obligation to return play dates or sleepovers hangs over me but there aren't enough hours in the week and it does worry me. Like you I feel I do my best for my DC they have friends for tea and a rare sleep over but we do not do this as regular as others. Some parents at DCs school should register as childminders they have kids home after school or sleepover so much. I did not grow up with this we just played outside and never went to friends houses only on a birthday so this is all very alien to me I'm afraid.

I think my new New Years resolution is to pay more attention to my own social life and to worry less about entertaining my DCs friends

Yes I don't like the "owing" hanging over your head either. I have said to mothers before, upon an invitation for a sleepover, "I won't be able to reciprocate for quite a while" if I'm busy or feeling intolerant of them. I think that's a perfectly fair thing to say.

Honestly I'd rather have someone offer to ferry my kid to and from a party than a sleepover because I feel nervous about the possibility of being called out to collect them in the middle of the night, which forces me to remain more or less sober on a weekend night.

We have had DSs friends sleepover on a school night and they have been fine also. They are told they can only do it if they do as they are told. They are 7 and last time there was 2 girls plus DS1 and DS2 (5). They were fine and as it was a Thursday night it was only 1 day to get through (last day of term).

The other occasions in the week have been just one child and because of an essential reason not just for fun. We had him for 2 nights and there were no problems.

I guess my DCs have not cottoned on to the staying up all night crazy sleepover thing, I have always sold it that they can have fun, stay up a bit later than usual then if they go to bed nicely they can do it anther time. How long this will last I am now beginning to wonder?!

Please don't feel obliged. I have sleepovers and kids to tea and so on because my children want to, and I am happy to let them. It's nothing to do with them being asked back, and I don't keep tally. Everybody's circumstances are different.

But do think before you say a blanket "no". It's not that bad, honestly!

DD asked me earlier, "Can L stay over on Friday"
My answer-sure, what would she like to eat?

Honestly, sleepovers don't have to be bad, or a big thing.
As I said earlier in the thread, I only allow one guest at a time, so no big parties (I might allow this as a one off, but DD hasn't asked yet), and as they are 12, I don't need to supervise to the nth degree.

I'm actually looking forward to seeing L again, not seen her in a while, and she's a lovely girl.

This drives me a bit mad too. Most of Dd's friends were doing sleepovers when she was about 6. I thought that was really young and Dd didn't want to. She started having people over at about aged 8. I think it totally depends on the child or children invited. Some amuse themselves perfectly well for the entire evening and then drift off to sleep at a respectable time...some don't!