How many sleepovers will your 8-12 have this holiday?

[Dino11]

AIBU to think the amount of sleepovers expected these days is a bit much?
how many sleepovers (at your home) will your 8-12 year girls have this summer holiday?

just wondering if the amount we do is ‘average’ now?

None for the 11 year old. She has only been on an organised sleepover for a family friend’s birthday and it was 8 girls.
otherwise , I don’t know school parents well enough to have their child overnight or let them have mine and that won’t change anytime soon. They have play dates though

12 year old is away for 5 night with his best friend will have 7-8 nights away in total .

9 year old has had 3 so far , only 1 a success.

None.

10yo dd - once a week plus other play dates.

12yo dd - none although she’d love to. She has ASD and struggles socially.

My dd is 13 and has had 3 this week, but on average maybe 1 a week, and not all here. All 3 last week were other houses.

Well that’s not helped much 😂 huge difference so far it seems! It just seems so expected within our group…from kids and parents, and I struggle to fit it all in quite honestly, we have a shift worker in the house, and various other commitments. I don’t want to keep accepting DD invites and not returning the favour, But I am honestly exhausted and behind with my own work!

9 year old and he hasn’t had any for a while. My six year old had one friend sleep over this summer. Curious about when you have them several times a week - does it not affect your child’s sleep? When my son had friends sleep over a couple of times aged seven they seemed to not go to actual sleep till about midnight, would be up early and then he was grumpy and tired all day!

We don’t do sleepovers.

Have you talked to your DD's friends' parents about it?

Ours has a friend who sleeps over frequently but her family never hosts our DD overnight because it doesn't work for their family. The parents were honest about it and acknowledged a reluctance to accept invites without being able to reciprocate, and my DH and I (and DSD's mum) have never had a problem with it. They do other things to keep the relationship from being one-way, like offering to drive the girls to activities/events, hosting daytime things, or sending their DD with a box of pastries for everyone to have for breakfast.

I will also stress that I consider sleepovers and slumber-parties to be different, and it's totally ok to make sleepovers very low-key, just a normal night with one extra child at the dinner table and getting sent off to bed at the usual time.

This is why I don’t love them, my 10 year old and her friend are showing no signs of sleep yet and I know tomorrow she will be shattered. There is no way we could do them multiple times in a week.

One or two a week when the kids are here.

There's 0 effort involved with sleepovers, kids entertain themselves, we get pizza and ice cream, they watch a movie then go chatting in their bedroom. Breakfast are just as easy, parents pick up around lunch time, done.

It gets tricky when they are invited to something a bit more fun, for a few days holiday for example, there's more work involved to find something to reciprocate, and to actually do it.

None. DD(9) is only really friends with boys, so sleepovers are sadly a a bit of a no-go. DD5 would jump at the chance but is too young.

They have 'sleepovers' in each others rooms instead, almost every night of the holidays, and weekends too.

that's a bit sad, we had sleepovers with boys and girls in primary.

They are not in the same bed, door stays open, never had any issue. By the time they reach secondary, it's bedroom for girls, bedroom for boys but siblings might not always agree to share with someone else's friend 😂

ds12 and dd8 will probably have 1 or 2 all holiday. They play out and meet friends a lot but don’t tend to do loads of sleepovers

DC have 1-3 per week in the summer. Lots of lift sharing for sports etc so works well for lots of our friends. They have been regularly sleeping over so the friends and us hosting since they were about 4. I love it as it is ZERO effort for me.

I think that if they happen regularly enough then there is less excitement about them. They may go to sleep a little bit later as it generally takes them longer to get ready to go to bed and there may be a bit of a chat once in bed but probably asleep within 30mins-1 hours of their usual time.

As a PP mentioned though, I’m talking about a regular sleepover With 1 extra person, not some sort of slumber party with multiple kids.

When ds was aged about 7-12 he had multiple sleepovers here and at close friends houses. I knew the families and ds has always been very chilled, confident and polite when staying at friends. His friends were good but I had a rule of a max of 2 friends staying at once. I'm really suprised at pp's saying that sleepovers will start at 13/14. At that point they stop becoming sleepovers and become, "Is ok for X to stay over on Saturday?" Usually discussed between the teens and they then check with their respective parents that it's okay.

Oh I mean sleep has gone to absolute shit but it’s the summer holidays and it’s wall to wall cricket and swimming in the river or at the beach. It’s great being 12 isn’t it.

None for DS 10. It's not that common for boys. My nearly 14yo has slept over once in a friend's garden tent.

It depends on their groups of friends. I see boys having as many sleepovers as girls.

I honestly think you’re putting too much pressure on yourself. I wouldn’t be doing them on a work night for a start. At some point you have to also respond to your needs and clearly you’ve got into a pattern of something that is too much.

Do a lot of your circle’s group have sahms? I’d probably be doing more sleepovers if I didn’t have a job but so many of my children’s friends’ parents are either working, or abroad so there definitely isn’t any sort of pressure to be constantly doing stuff this holiday at all.

I'm surprised so many people don't allow sleepovers.

I had sleepovers about once a week during the holidays in from about 8 years old and as a teen it was every weekend, pretty much. Either I stayed there or someone stayed round mine.

I was an only child so I do wonder if that makes a difference, though many of my friends had siblings and still did regular sleepovers.

The question was how many sleepovers will your kids have during the summer holidays not how many have they ever had.

None (age 9). Sleepovers don’t seem to be a thing for her friendship group yet (though this might change in Year 5 and 6), and DD hasn’t been on one.

None - ten year old DS. We have been away for a few days with my friend and her DD and we've had my other friend and her three boys to stay for a weekend. He would absolutely hate a sleepover without me - he's a home body.