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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not agree with sleepovers for kids aged under 5 or even slightly older?!

71 replies

MigraineMartie · 09/04/2016 22:49

Am I crazy?
I am a 35 year old mother, normal enough I would say!
Yet I just can't seem to agree with my family on this subject who think the children ( aged 4 and a baby ) should be staying over at cousins etc for sleepovers by now - in particular the 4 year old DD
I don't know how she would be as generally she is always in our care, we have quite an attachment parenting relationship if you like so aside from pre school and school come September she is with us in all that we do.
I don't feel like she misses out on anything, and she's never asked to stay anywhere without us although has started to question why cousins stay at grandparents and she doesn't but more in a confused sense rather than envy and when asked if she would like to always asks why we would need to leave her instead of taking her home with us.
Am I alone in my view that it's not needed and actually 4 is very young for this anyway?

OP posts:
MumOnTheRunCatchingUp · 09/04/2016 23:22

Lol at the outrage ' it's family members not strangers'

Er. Your kids are more at risk of abuse with family than strangers

DixieNormas · 09/04/2016 23:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LucyBabs · 09/04/2016 23:28

Hold on so you've never had a night off? Ah think I'd have cracked up by now Grin

By sleepovers you mean babysitting. Sleepovers are your dcs friends coming to stay the night (or cousins obvs) possibly sleeping downstairs and having a mid night feast..keeping the parents awake till dawn!

cleaty · 09/04/2016 23:28

There is nothing wrong with sleepovers at this age, there is nothing wrong with DCs not going on sleepovers at this age. Some DCs love sleepovers from a very young age, others prefer to wait till they are a bit older.

LeaLeander · 09/04/2016 23:30

When I was growing up we stayed over with relatives from a lot earlier age than 4, and I have nothing but pleasant memories 45-ish years on.

  • Grandma and Grandpa of course. Gram used to let us take marathon baths and make us "snack plates" of lettuce and carrots and cheese and crackers and play checkers and "bingo" with us.
  • My mother's two younger sisters who would have been about 20 and 25 at the time, very mod (late 60s-early 1970s) and did fun things and drove us around in their Volkswagen Beetle with the flowers on it and took us shopping and watched "movie of the week" on TV at night with pillows on the living-room floor
  • My father's cousin and his wife, who had two little girls same age as my sister and me; we often did sleepovers there or they came to our house. Again, great fun.
  • My mother's other sister who had a lovely house full of antiques and eclectic refinished furniture - she was very elegant. I still remember the time she put an entire stick of butter on to melt before making popcorn; it seemed the most unreal decadence! Her husband was very nice and they had a little boy - she used to pamper us and it was great fun to stay there.
  • My uncle and his wife, childfree, she an art teacher - she was very hippie and used to teach us macrame and let us paint - uncle was very irreverent with a caustic sense of humor but very patient in discussing things on an "adult" level even with a little kid. As I grew older he was a sounding board for talking about college plans, career advice and so on, things my parents didn't know much about as they had not attended college.

I think it is very healthy for children to develop their own relationships with friends and relatives instead of always having parents hover as the intermediaries/filters/chaperones. They need to have relationships with more than mom and dad in order to thrive and be properly socialized.

And it's important for kids to have some sense of independence and coping from a very early age, and if sleepovers are common from infancy onward they will - who wants a four or five year old who has a meltdown if mommy isn't there? What if something happened to mommy - would one want him to take years of being miserable to adjust? What if something arose and the kid HAD to stay with another family for awhile? Wouldn't it be better if it were a natural thing?

HanYOLO · 09/04/2016 23:37

My 3 have been for sleepovers from age 3 or so. And we have reciprocally hosted them. Sometimes out of necessity (childbirth/parent in hospital), sometimes just for fun, often so that we/our friends can have a night out and a lie in after.

It's not needed, and if it doesn't feel right you shouldn't feel pressured to do it.

Grilledaubergines · 09/04/2016 23:40

What's the fuss? It's fun.

Not sure if I've missed something but I don't get the issue.

Chilver · 09/04/2016 23:49

Do what works for you and your DC.

Our DD has had sleep over with family (even staying recently with grandma without us for 4 days) since she was young. She and her bestie had a sleep over at his house last year too when they were 3 - they absolutely loved it and are asking for another one now at our house. Helps we are very good friends with his parents though :)

AbernathysFringe · 09/04/2016 23:52

You know your own child. It won't adversely affect them NOT to do sleepovers. She hasn't asked to do it, why force it on her?
Personally not tackling sleepovers or staying the night with anyone else without me there until I can explain to my DD why. I don't care if it's called attachment parenting or what, but I'm not bowing to any pressure from anyone else.

Original poster
MigraineMartie · 09/04/2016 23:53

No never had a " night off "
Is that really unheard of?

OP posts:
AbernathysFringe · 09/04/2016 23:57

Lea agree that it takes a tribe to raise a child, disagree that changing it up where a child sleeps, even with other relatives, promotes independence. I think a secure base is important. Socialising can be done in the day.

LeaLeander · 10/04/2016 00:02

But memories of snuggling up to Nana in the crocheted slippers she just made you, watching Columbo (LOL) or The Wizard of Oz on Tv, late at night, feeling totally secure, cannot be made during the day. Nor can memories of my other grandma, or of Auntie Edwina serving us a posh breakfast in bed in her elegant guest room, or of uncle and his hippie wife letting us stay up late to catch fireflies in their garden.

I guess to us, where we slept was not that big a factor in feeling secure and loved We enjoyed adventure and novelty and hanging out with different people, literally from toddlerhood (or infancy in the case of staying at the grandmothers.)

cleaty · 10/04/2016 00:05

Of course it promotes independence, although it doesn't have to happen at 5. Getting comfortable with sleeping away from home, is a skill we all need to learn eventually.

teenmumandsowhat · 10/04/2016 00:12

Both my dd and my ds have stayed overnight at grandparents houses by themselves from about 6months old.
Both sets of grandparents love it, it gives them one-to-one time with their grandchildren, and I get a bit of a break too.
They have at least 2-3sleepovers a month.

Itsmine · 10/04/2016 00:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AbernathysFringe · 10/04/2016 00:48

cleaty my sentence was about a child. It had the word child in it. Ass covered. Homesickness is also a very natural thing at any age and even animals return to the security of their den. At 35 sleeping away feels...not weird, but different, although mostly a NICE different, it's still relaxing to come home to my own bed, isn't that normal?

But re. the OP, if the child isn't asking to do it, doing it would just be dumping her somewhere to please the relatives or kickstart her 'coping' mechanism for the hell of it.

AgathaMystery · 10/04/2016 00:59

DC's fave thing ever is a cousins sleepover. These happen a few times a year & have been going on since DC were 2. They go utterly bonkers for them.

cleaty · 10/04/2016 01:15

I know you were talking about a child. Which is why I disagreed with your assertion that sleepovers do not promote independence. Of course they do.

NickiFury · 10/04/2016 01:32

My kids don't do sleepovers, I never did sleepovers. I survived and have no regrets. I don't quite get the importance of them. They'll stay over at the aunties houses occasionally but that's it.

Unicow · 10/04/2016 01:43

My eldest is almost a teen. The only time any of them have slept anywhere else has been when I was in hospital. None of them have moaned yet.

claraschu · 10/04/2016 03:46

What a lovely post Lea. I have lots of great memories of sleepovers, and my children loved them. You get close to people in a different way when having a sleepover.

Don't have them if you don't want to, but they are fun.

Mousefinkle · 10/04/2016 05:14

I had two best friends in primary school and we started having sleepovers at four. In fact we would stay at each other's houses for days at a time in the school holidays! We absolutely loved it. So it's strange now that I'm agreeing with you... To a point.

It totally depends on the child. My DD's wouldn't have any of it, in fact DD1 (4) wouldn't even let me leave her at a two hour birthday party in December, she wouldn't even go in to the house! Stood there screaming so we had to go back home. So she'd be crying to come home, I imagine DD2 would also. DS (6) though has a similar temperament to me at that age and would enjoy it.

It's more play dates and what have you nowadays isn't it. How common are sleepovers? I don't hear talk of them in the playground not that I talk to any of them.

BathshebaDarkstone · 10/04/2016 05:42

DD has been staying with my aunt since she was tiny, she stayed with her best friend on my due date for DS, he decided to stay put, so she stayed with my aunt again when I went in to be induced.

maras2 · 10/04/2016 05:54

Our 3 DGC's are fast asleep in the next room.A.fairly normal occurance.They're 2,3 and 6.Only the eldest calls it a sleep over,the other 2 just say 'stopping at Gran and Grandad's house'.We tend to have at least one of them on a Friday or Saturday so that their parents (DD and SIL and DS and DIL) can have a night out or a quiet night in.

dontcallmecis · 10/04/2016 06:23

Well, it isn't really needed. But 4 isn't "very young" for sleepovers with family imo.

If grandparents and aunts and uncles would like to have them, and the kids want to go, then I don't see why you'd refuse? (I'll just add that the usual disclaimers apply rather than detailing every. single. scenario. where it might not be appropriate - raging alcoholism for example.)

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