Were having a sleep over!

Our boys all love having a sleep over.

It is enormously exciting when we say the "yes" word. 

As I write this I am listening to the loud , fun imaginary play game escaping the lounge. 

Aaah, yes, the lounge is the place we generally have our sleepovers. We have extra mattress that have been so pulled and pushed and carried. They are Futon mattresses and we had them when the boys needed a first bed. They were pricey at the time and came with a long list of 'how to care for your Futon'. These have long since been forgotten and abandoned.

All our boys really really love having a sleepover.

Having said that , being individuals, they each like them in a slight different way. One might like to sleep out ; another in ; one might like to have two friends and have a sleepover that lasts a life time. 

So, we make a giant sleeping den in the lounge and they snuggle down to sleep.

as if......

Their is usually so much excitement and energy that sleep goes off to find some other more responsive children.

I am a mom who generally operates on slightly too little sleep and so I love an early night. I really dont like kids up all night bouncing around and being crazy and so our sleep overs generally dont afford this. :)

I think the best part of the sleepover for them is the waking up- right next to a friend - and then the fun begins.

The thing I love about hosting a sleepover is the great conversations that come from these opportunities. Around meals and while playing a game or just hanging out. It is a great time to really connect with the newer generations and "see" how they tick. It is great fun.

The difficulty around sleepovers is , dare I say it, who to allow and who not to. People often ask me this question and there are very real and obvious fears around allowing our child to go sleep over at someone else house.

We have generally only allowed our boys to sleep over with friends who are good, close family friends. This is the rule, for us, especially for the little ones. - (6 and 8) . The really problem of being asked by people we dont know has only really cropped up as the boys have grown older. It can be tricky saying no. We have had to say no because we dont know people well. I think for our boys, who we talk things through a great deal with, this affords us another chance to chat about all the length and breath issues in life. ( not all at once)

:)

Any advice I would give is to say  - go for the sleep over AND stick to your guns as far as saying no when no is appropriate.

They are great fun and although they are hard work some great relationship building is being done on all fronts. 

Sleepovers are well worth it.If you have not yet, join the fun.

 *

(A Plea - Being safe - I have to say a word about safety. To do this I will tell you of a conversation I had with someone once. It was a mother and it was about sleepovers. This mom, had never even considered that a sleepover  may be something that could put her child in danger and so consequently allowed her child to sleep over anywhere. It surprised  me that she had not thought through even one possibility- I can think of many which do not even include the worst case scenario. In my shock I did drop in a few seeds for her to ponder and I trully hope she did. Just because people live  near you, work next to you and go to the same schools as your kids - just because they "look" the same does not mean they are the same as you . People hold very different beliefs and ideas about what keeping kids safe looks like.

An example is .... do the host parents go our while your child is sleeping over leaving the kids with a babysitter ? Are you ok with this? Thinking through the things we would allow with our kids is one way to help set the bar for sleepovers with others. I always inform the parents of the child sleeping over if we are going to be taking them out to a movie or another persons house for dinner etc - asking permission)