Sleepover limits

[WellhelloMrBond]

Hi Our DD is 11 & just started having sleepovers… AIBU to expect the girls to settle & be quiet after midnight or certainly by 1:30am? ?
We aren’t stopping chatting, just tv off & calm? We have had 3 much older DS & worry now that we are old fogeys setting these limits?
DD is v cross with us today after last night because we checked on them every 1/2 hr or so after midnight :(
Do you just leave them talking all night?
Thoughts?

Are their phones in the room with them?
If they’re not, then yes just let them get on with it - the whole point of a sleepover when we were young was that you didn’t sleep much… just talked and laughed all night.
If you’re popping your head in every 30mins yes your DD is going to be annoyed… you’ll have interrupted the juicy gossip or silly conversation or brave pre-teen confession. Let them be.

No phones.
Just a hope for at least some quiet if not actually some sleep? Guest’s parent seemed to have similar expectations about sleep tbh.
Perhaps we should only do them in school holidays…

Mine are 11 and 13. When they have sleepovers I tell them around 11.30 that devices have to be off, then I go to bed. I can't hear them from my room, the next day they tell me what time they've gone to sleep, usually between 12-1am.

My eldest has suffered the consequences of no sleep before and now seems to avoid it😂

DD - now 14 - is very keen on a sleepover and has had lots over the last few years. There’s one rule: everyone else in the house gets a good night’s sleep. It’s hard to be enthusiastic about them if that doesn’t happen - but you have to let go of the idea you’ll control what they are doing/talking about at 2am.

If you wake up to chaos, then you won’t have another one for a long while. But if they go well and don’t impinge on you, they get to have them more often (though never on a school night).

Interesting perspectives TY

I would leave them to it but they need to be keeping the noise down so the rest of the household can sleep.

I’d expect them in bed, no screens or devices, by 10ish/10.30 ish. They can chat if they want but nothing that disturbs other people in the house. Our friends have a similar approach.

If my DD is at a sleepover and comes back exhausted and grumpy having fallen asleep at 2am, that’s probably not a house that she’d go back to for a sleepover.

I tell them at 10.30pm im going to bed and DO NOT wake me up (obviously unless there is an emergency) they haven’t so far. No idea when they go to sleep and im
not bothered unless I’m woken up

I normally confiscate the remote control and switch of the WiFi at about 1 / 1.30 ish. You can't force them to sleep and you can't really police guests phones so they may not sleep. I did get asked by some parents once to ensure their ds's got some sleep as they had a football tournament so I did stand outside the door till they went to sleep at 3.30am after discovering them running round the kitchen (my own ds was actually asleep bless him).

Thank you all.
It’s a balance isn’t it?
For context, our guest had had an asthma episode earlier in the day so we were being extra cautious incase she needed her inhaler again.
We have a total no phone zone ( age 11)
Navigating this 2nd time around is definitely more complicated!

I agree with this. I want to be able to go to bed as my normal time. Weekends are precious, I have no patience for them being ruined by other peoples kids.

My usual tactic is to take them on a post dinner walk to the woods (yes even in the dark) and let them run off steam. Then once we’re back it’s a movie in pjs. I remove devices at 9/10pm and expect quiet after 11. Tbf they’re usually asleep by then or just chatting quietly.

We had spent all afternoon in the woods & LO had been volunteering at a farm all morning, so plenty of freshair /exercise!