To feel so strongly about sleepovers

[Energydrink]

So, DP and I keep having a reoccurring argument about our position on sleepovers. Our DD is 3 years old , a long way off of sleep over her nursery friends house.

I think that she should not go to a sleepover until she is at least 10y, able to communicate if she wants to come home, confident enough to speak up for herself and able to tell me if something has upset her.

I would however welcome a child into our home that she has invited.

husband thinks that I am being ridiculous. He was sleepover friends from the age of 6 and he was fine. He also thinks that my attitude to an innocent activity is what is wrong with the world (sensationalism and scaremongering).

my view is that he is naïve and as much as I would like us to live in an ideal world where terrible things do not happen .. that is not reality. I would rather keep her safe then to expose her to risk.

AIBU to feel this way about sleepovers?

Why 10? I mean, dd is 7. She can speak up, tell me stuff etc. She's not willing to be away from me so no sleepovers but theoretically I would be fine.

Shes young so it would need to be a family I knew well and was comfortable with so thay I could feel confident she would be confident.

But yes, blanket bans seems weird to me.

I think you're having a pointless argument with your DH. For a start you don't know what age your DD will want to start having sleepovers and you don't know who with either.
You might get to know her best friend's family really well and it not be a problem.

So someone else's younger kid is fine in your house, but not the other way around? What if they think you are wronguns?

I think its a little odd to say no sleepovers til 10 years old. But it's your child you can do as you want.
I also think if youre happy to have another child over..do you not think their parents are naive?

Piece of string anyone?

You don’t know what she’ll be like then. Having said that, my incredibly sociable and articulate 5yo has recently started mithering for sleepovers and I think it’s going to be a hard no for a while. She needs her sleep. The excitement will drive her crackers. She sees her friends all day and most of the weekend. Etc.

So youre definitely safe but no1 else is. Sleepovers are not safe for your child but fine for others. Right.

10 seems like a good age to me (as a mother of a 3yo ). However if your 7yo can speak up then that’s great.

to clarify… by sleepovers, I mean class mates not family

Fair point!

6 is young for a first sleepover IMO, but 10 seems quite old. So I guess I think both of you are being unreasonable!

😂 obviously they wouldn’t be allowed round. They would be welcome, but that is up their parents

Ours are 5&7, no problem with the 7 year old or them going together. Had 7 year old’s friends staying.

Mine were both 9 when we allowed sleepovers. And the first time was with long standing friends from school where we knew the family well and whose parents i knew from the playground.

They stayed with family overnight once in a blue moon before then (more cos their GPs didnt want them to stopover often than anything!)

YANBU

I am up for play dates. Plus I have a large family… I certainly wouldn’t be up for her staying round every single one of their houses

however, she has approx 7 1st/2nd cousins and I absolutely would trust her to be okay sleeping over there .

but the house of a mother that I speak to at birthday parties/ play dates … nope

Odd to try to set a predetermined age! She's ready to have a sleepover when's she's confident and wants to do one. I think it was around 7/8 for my DD, but it will vary from child to child. An arbitrary set age is pointless.

You can argue about it all you like but you might end up with DC like mine who at almost 16 has never slept over anywhere other than with family & doesn't like others sleeping here as they value their own space. Even with the 2 older DC (now adults) I could count on one hand the number of times either of them went for a sleepover at friends, just wasn't their thing.

My 8yo finds it hard to fall asleep so no sleepover until I can be sure I won't be getting a call at midnight asking to collect her.

My younger DD is out like a light, so it might be different for her. There's no hard and fast rule.

I have DS11, DD9 and DSD8. None of them have ever had a sleepover other than with family. Doesn't seem to be so much of a 'thing' at their schools anyway. You decide what you are comfortable with. Personally I'm not keen on the idea of either hosting or letting them go to people I don't know well.

i’ve found so many things with my kids that you can’t plan / predict. Things like this are a combination of a host of factors - your child’s disposition, their enthusiasm for a sleepover, your friendship with the family in question. No point giving it any further thought right now - revisit it in a few years.

Look. Parenthood is a long old game , don't argue about hypotheticals, see how you feel when she firsts gets invited to one or wants to have a buddy to stay . Cross that bridge when you get there

At the very least you have three years before this is actually an issue. Seems rather a waste of time to argue about it for now.

I guess the following statistics have me rattled

1 in 5 girls are SA
mostly between 5yo and 17yo
and rarely by strangers (family, friends etc)

his response is that there is a 4 in 5 chance that it won’t happen. I couldn’t bear having to tell my DD sorry for making the wrong judgement call

😂 noted

My youngest first slept over at a friends aged 6. We were really surprised that he wanted to go and he behaved himself so well that we had a flurry of other invitations from mums who had spoken to the host mum 😀 he was very popular as he went to sleep by 10pm every time.

The only "non positive" feedback we had was one mum (who was smiling as she told me) who said he came in at 7am and very politely woke them to say he'd been awake for an hour and was bored now 😳😳😳

Most importantly, he felt safe, was more than capable of telling us how it went/asking the parents for help (cf. Above 7am!).

DS1 didn't sleep over until he was 8 cos he was in night nappies until then...

I know lots of people are happy for younger kids to have sleepovers, but for me I feel like 10 is about the right age as well. Think this is partly down to what would have been considered normal in my family at that age, and also because my kids have never been great sleepers and I dont want to inflict that on other people! And the tiredness would make me question whether a good old playdate might be better 😆 Think it's just some people are comfortable with different things, same way some 6 year olds love sleepovers and some 6 year olds would rather be home with their parents. Got loads of school mum friends who's kids sleepover all the time at each others as young as 5 and they love it and sleep well - so think it's just what feels normal for you.

Wait and see. Don’t waste your time worrying about it yet!