I tried to follow these great tips from Marinka on how to host your first sleepover, but I broke the most important rule immediately: Invite Only One Child.
We had never hosted a sleepover before though our children have gone on them. Recently, Milo and a roving band of five year-olds had made the rounds of two other houses. So it was our turn. Without giving myself time to overthink things, I invited the three other families with a only couple days notice. Two of the three said, “Yes please.”
And, just like that, this rookie mom had her debut in the realm of hosting slumber parties. Here’s the breakdown:
4pm. Two five-year olds, Elijah and Harry, arrive at my house to join our three sons. They’ve never been here before so, of course, they want to run around and touch every toy.
5pm. My intrepid husband takes four little boys to the park to run off their ya-yas before we settle in for the movie. I order pizza. So far, so good.
6pm. Time for Return of the Jedi, pizza, fruit, and carrots. I give myself a few bonus points for sneaking in fruits and vegetables. Water to drink so nothing bad will spill. I’m pretty good at this.
7pm. Pause the movie to run around in fort. Pause again for ice cream sandwiches.
8pm. Pause again for pajamas. We blow right past the predetermined getting-ready-for-bed time because the movie is still going on. Uh oh, I may have miscalculated how long this was going to take.
8:30pm. Bye-bye bedtime I had planned (one hour past my sons’ normal bedtime). Movie is still running.
9pm. Settle them all into their floor-bed. Harry thinks its better to sleep with no shirts on. All the boys agree. Bunk bed is unoccupied. [In hindsight, we realize we should have spent more time sitting in there and shushing. Oh well, next time.]
10pm. Only my seven-year old is asleep on the floor in his sleeping bag. Elijah moves to bottom bunk. My kid, Milo, is moved to playroom then my room to sleep. Harry stays on the floor.
11pm. All are finally sleeping. Hoist Milo to the top bunk.
2:30am. I hear crying. I am prepared to be sweet instead of annoyed. Potty accident. Only the one kid wakes up for it — yay! — and he doesn’t remember a thing in the morning.
3:30am. Someone else cries out. I investigate and discover nothing. No biggie, I haven’t fallen back asleep.
5:30am. Baby Sawyer is awake and yelping. Pleeeease don’t wake up the boys. My husband, who is still awesome, takes him downstairs. I am feeling slightly less awesome.
6:30am. Everyone else is awake now. They all speak at once:
- When’s breakfast? 7am, please stay upstairs until then.
- Why am I in my own bed?
- Can we play in the fort?
- Can we play the movie again from the Ewok scene? If that will buy me time to make you food, of course!
7:00am. Breakfast is not actually ready. They zone out in front of the movie again.
7:30am. I serve a superamazinggood lazy french toast from Katie Workman’s The Mom 100 Cookbook (100 Recipes Every Mom Needs in Her Back Pocket). Only Holden complains that he absolutely will not have seconds unless I make him regular cinnamon french toast. He’s excused.
8:30am. More running around. Happiness. Fighting. I sneak around to pack their bags and move all gear to the door.
9:00am. My guests return for second breakfast. Cereal this time.
9:30am. All kids are gone. I need a nap.
I think it was successful but I don’t really know. Milo tells me he had so much fun, and he can’t stop smiling. I feel like I need to have my coffee spiked to make it through the day.
Have your kids been on sleepovers? Have you hosted? Do you think these crazy sleepless nights are a must-do? Please share your wisdom.
Thank you for posting. I’m getting ready to host my first multi-kid sleepover and I’m afraid I may be a little naive. I’ve had each kid that is invited sleep over individually so I feel like I’m prepared. I’m armed and ready with an giant inflated waterslide and a movie projector for a backyard movie. I’m trying to keep as much of the hoopla outside for as long as I can. Wish me luck!
I had a 4-year old friend of Scarlett’s sleep over Saturday night. The girls loved sleeping together on the blow-up bed in the playroom and fell asleep at 8.40, 40 minutes after my initial, “Lay down” command. Not bad.
When I served dinner (to four kids because Julian had a friend over until bedtime), I announced that if anyone didn’t like something, they should keep it a secret in order to not hurt my feelings. That actually worked.
The only obstacle was that Julian felt left out and cried about being lonely sleeping in their shared bedroom by himself. I am reluctant to set a precedent for the left out kid to get special treatment or be able to join in the sleepover as mine are not as close in age/gender as yours. I’m open if anyone has suggestions on that front.
Too cute! Sounds exhausting, but fun. Still a few years off for us but I’m glad for the sneak peak.
We had our then 4-year-old niece sleepover once when our son was 2.5, and since it was fall I was silly enough to think making gingerbread houses was a great idea. My husband and I made gingerbread houses and the kids ate candy.
Then this summer we had the now 5-year-old niece AND the 2.5-year-old niece sleep over (our son now 3). They eventually slept on the floor of his room in a big pile of sleeping bags despite the fact that the power was out so no A/C, and overall I considered it a success. I did this in the summer because I am a teacher- don’t think I could manage it during the school year!!
Worth noting, the further away I get from it, the more fun I think I had.
I hosted our first sleepover last fall when my big kid’s best friend was over for a playdate and her mama called with a medical emergency for our guest’s baby sib. Could our guest stay? We rolled with it. I felt nervous at the time, but I lucked out on a lot of fronts. Fortunately the girls wore the same size (jammies: check!); the preschool sleeping bag was home for washing that weekend (my kid was thrilled at the novelty of sleeping on her floor and sharing her bed & animals with her pal); we played lots of dress-up and sent reassuring photo texts to her mama, who was just as worried about her older child’s reaction to not coming home; and I congratulated myself for having a few extra new toothbrushes around (a souvenir for our guest, right?).
Bedtime was trickier, and despite stories, songs, and cuddles, I remember having to go in around 10 and tell an extremely boring and detailed story with lots of repetition to finally get them to go to sleep. I don’t think I slept very well, keeping an ear out for any upsets, but there weren’t any. Our guest’s mom came the next morning and brought in breakfast for all of us, which was nice.
When I host again, I’ll plan something fun and self-directing/distracting (like a movie or board game), and have set up bed time to have an extra special story or some special mellow treat at the start of wind-down to set the tone.