Your kids are getting older, and bedtime battles are a thing of the past (maybe). The small people go to bed willingly and actually sleep through the night (mostly). You’re just starting to enjoy regular REM cycles and solid stretches of sleep and feel almost human again (barely).
And then you decide to fuck it all up.
I’m talking about sleepovers.
Who the hell invented sleepovers? Parents can barely survive the night with their own kids, why should they take in more?
Nonetheless, you are having a sleepover with four kids, your younger son and your older daughter and two friends (even though something deep down is telling you that this is a terrible idea). The evening will start out great because you will serve pizza and ice cream—classic sleep-over food.
All four kids will then spend the evening playing cards and Apples to Apples and watching Frozen (because that brand of torture never ends).
By 9:30 p.m. you will get them started on their bedtime routine (i.e., you will force them to floss and brush their teeth and change into clothes that aren’t covered in chocolate sauce and ice cream).
By 10:00 p.m. the kids will be downstairs with their sleeping bags ready for a campout.
And here are 10 reasons why the night will go horribly wrong.
- At 11:00 p.m. when the sleepover kids are quiet, you and your husband will doze off quickly in your bed, thanks to all the wine you drank. But it will last a mere 23 minutes.
- At 11:23 p.m. a muffled whisper will wake you up (muffled because you wear earplugs to bed because your husband snores like a lumberjack with a megaphone duct-taped to his mouth). The barely audible whisper will come from your son. He and his friend will be thirsty, and you will direct them back downstairs to get some water because, DUH.
- You will awaken again at 11:47 p.m. by the whines of your son standing next to your bed with his friend who’s now “too hot” to sleep. You will leave the comfort of your bed to get a fan, bring it downstairs, and plug it in. Mind you, the family room will be a pleasant 65 degrees (and for some reason the boy’s sleeping bag will be a high-performance bag rated for Mount Everest). Having gotten out of bed, you will find it more difficult to fall back asleep this time. Also, your husband’s snoring will have reached a new decibel level. But it will be just after midnight, and you will be damn tired, so you will fall asleep again after about 15 minutes.
- At 12:43 a.m. you will be woken up again, this time by a finger repeatedly poking you in the back. The finger will belong to your daughter, who is now your son’s friend’s keeper because your son will have fallen asleep. The “friend” will still be unable to sleep. Through clenched teeth, you will suggest warm milk (which he won’t want) and that your daughter read the friend a book (which she’ll begrudgingly do because she’s a nicer person than you are).
- You will be awakened at 1:12 a.m. by four peering eyes and the strained voice of your daughter who will have just read several stories to the child who could not fall asleep. She will be at the end of her rope and will not appreciate the irony of a younger child keeping her up all night. You will be running out of ideas.
- You will get kicked out of your own bed in order to let the still-awake at 1:30 am child who can’t fall asleep downstairs or in your son’s room co-sleep in your bed, which might not be a bad thing because your husband’s snoring vibrates the entire bed and walls like a T-Rex trying to sneak up on Jeff Goldblum.
- Somehow, the child will fall asleep in 30 seconds, and you will be forced to sleep in your son’s room in a tiny bed surrounded by a minefield of Legos and Hot Wheels vehicles. Under the superhero sheets, at long last, you will fall asleep. For exactly 12 minutes.
- At 2:14 a.m. your son will wake up, change his mind about the group camp-out, and kick you out of his bed, a bed that smelled like sweaty socks and foul morning breath. And you will miss that bed.
- You will end up sleeping in your daughter’s pink princess canopy bed with matching blankets and so many stuffed animals you will end up with two feet of sleeping space. You will angrily toss and turn and yawn and sigh, trying to combat the fact that you are now overtired to the point of insomnia. You will get approximately 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep before your damn alarm announces that it’s time to make breakfast for the kids and a gallon of coffee for yourself.
- Your husband will wake up with a small human sleeping next to him and then go downstairs and walk into the kitchen with a confused look on his face, like a person with a hangover trying to piece together the sketchy details from the previous night.
And the moral of the story? Put off sleepovers as long as you can. Or, better yet, ban them altogether. Because, let’s face it, nobody sleeps during a sleepover. Nobody.
46 Responses
With your eyes of bloodshot and the gallons of coffee you have consumed…your mind and body deprived of rest and knowing full well you not be able to regain the lost sleep you realize you got swindled ( dare I say it) again. Haha(ooops) that slipped out
So true. It’s a good thing they’re all so cute.
I know, right?! They are HORRIBLE. I just told my kids years ago “I don’t do sleepovers.” And for some reason, they believed me. Maybe it’s because that was so bitchy, they didn’t want their friends coming over to witness the rest…But seriously, for those of us with chronic medical issues (and that is 3 out of 4 of us, night time is for SLEEP. We have done 1/2 sleepovers, and the rare overnight as a means of babysitting out of necessity. But it’s always dicey, and I get monsters returned to me the next day…
You are so smart. SO SMART. If I could turn back time… (You’re welcome for the Cher earworm.)
It wasn’t lost on me that your husband slept through the whole thing. That happens here too. I don’t have a princess canopy, but I do have a top bunk to nestle into. They can’t find me there!
You make a very compelling case for a bunk bed!
So been there. It’s like having infants all over again, but you can’t yell at the kids that aren’t yours. So painful!
SO painful. Luckily they’re good kids.
…And then, each child wants something different for breakfast and will request a lot of it, but will only eat two bites and 90% of your extra fancy orange juice gets poured down the drain. And at least half of the group loses something like a sock or a phone charger and you rush around to find it before their parents come to get them. And one parent will show up 45 minutes late to pick up their kid. And you smile politely through gritted teeth to said parent while saying what a pleasure it was to have their child spend the night and that it was no problem at all that they were late.
Whoa, sorry Foxy…I just hate sleep overs SO much! Your cautionary tale is spot on and just reading about it has got me clenching my teeth and fantasizing about a nap and it’s only 8:45.
YES to all of those things. ALL OF THEM. Sleepovers totally suck. And I want a nap now too.
I had boys..my boys occasionally had overnight guests, but it was mostly okay. The youngest is 16 and on weekends, I’ve found that my family room has been overrun with large, stinky teenagers. Only once did I have to tell them to be quiet. They woke me up about 3:00am and I let them have it in all my foul mouthed glory.
My son says his friends think I’m the cool mom. Hahaha.
Well, you and all of your foul mouthed glory are very cool. It’s true.
Hate, hate HATE sleepovers. Fortunately, I have found that boys are less prone to sleepovers (and more likely to fall asleep if there actually is one) than girls. My daughter wanted a friend over almost every weekend. I think my son has asked a grand total of twice.
Unfortunately my son is younger and has seen his older sister have sleepovers and now wants them too. ALL OF THE TIME.
Oh it gets so much better when they are teens and can get their own damn fans for their ‘too hot to sleep’ friends. The noise level of high pitched laughing among teenage girls gets to maximum level so get some heavy duty industrial strength earplugs.
It’s even gotten better since I wrote this piece. I think there should be a minimum age requirement for sleepovers. Oh the things I wish I had known…
I’m with you there. I don’t think my kids had really anyone sleep over until they were almost to middle school. I have seen way too many things during regular play dates for me to want to wait until they were a little older. Even then it doesn’t insure a solid night’s sleep.
You were very smart though. I bet there was a lot more sleep in middle school than there was in grade school.
I hate sleepovers. And also “we want to sleep in the tents in the yard” nights. These may not involve any children beyond my own, but they’re as bad as a sleepover because they get as little sleep and are as cranky the next day. Sleepovers and in-the-tent nights can ONLY happen on Friday nights so we have Saturday night for everyone to recover!
I don’t sleep in tents; I make my husband do that. Yes, they are horrible too. I like the Friday night requirement. Between that and the minimum age requirement, I think we are helping a future generation of parents.
Hahahaha to the image at the end. You are way too good at those.
I remember always being that kid who stayed up all night at the sleepover. It was my badge of honor. Parents probably hated me.
Apparently two of my bro/sis-in-laws do a sleepover on Christmas Adam Adam every year (the day before the day before Christmas Eve) and they want me and Alex to join in. Adult sleepover plus all their kids. They offered each of us a couch.
Yeah. I’m good.
As long as you didn’t bother the parents, I’m sure they didn’t mind. You weren’t going to be their problem the next day. 😉
And good call on the Christmas Adam Adam sleepover.
Wow. Sounds like Nightmare on Elm Street (a true horror story in suburbia)! Poor you! They do get better. When they hit the teen years, they don’t want you around for their sleepovers. In fact, they prefer if you go to bed early!
That’s what I hear. Maybe that’s the one thing I can look forward to about the teen years. 😉
The trick is to send your kids to other people’s houses for sleepovers and then not reciprocate. But then, I guess all your kids’ friends’ moms will hate you, huh?
You are very smart, Janice. VERY SMART.
Not true! Husbands sleep just fine! LMBO I have soooooo been there, my friend. Sleepovers are the devil.
LOL! So true. So very very true.
Back when I was married, it was the second marriage for me, and the third for my wife, and between us we had four kids to combine. EVERY night was damn sleepover . . . for years.
It’s no wonder the marriage didn’t last.
Sleep deprivation can wreck all sorts of havoc, for sure.
My kids are still young enough to push off awakeovers for a few blessed years.
Then it’s not too late to adopt the NO SLEEPOVERS policy. 😉
Our sleepovers were only for” you’re too drunk to drive, you’re staying here”. When they sober up, go home. I did have my oldest son’s female friend stay one night. I told my son that she got his bed in the basement and he was sleeping on the floor in his brother’s room which was on the second floor. No way were they sleeping in the same room in my house….no happening…no way ….no how.
You stayed up all night with a shotgun, right?
We don’t have room for sleepovers, thankfully! However, back when we only had two kids, I was helping out a friend and let her daughter spend the night. She couldn’t fall asleep, so I brought her in my bed. My husband was quite freaked out to find a child he had never seen before in his bed the next morning!
HAHAHAHA! I bet his reaction was priceless!
My sleepover tale is one of children who actually fell asleep by the not-too-unreasonable time of 11:30 PM only to wake up at FOUR THIRTY AM and try to sneak downstairs to play Nintendo.
Assholes.
Assholes, indeed. (Unless they stayed quiet and made you coffee.)
I feel like I’m doing penance for all the shit I pulled at sleepovers as a kid at other people’s houses. I hate them. They are sheer torture. Of course the queen mother of all bad sleep overs at our house was the not so great poop incident of 2000…whenever. I don’t remember what year it was. I’ve blocked it out.
Our daughter had her first sleep over last weekend, she’s a “OMG!! It’s dark, I heard the dog fart but it might be a monster! Quick! Run & get into bed with mom & dad!” kinda girl. I specifically told her she can not do that at her friends house. Where did she end up sleeping? In bed with the mom while the dad slept in the guest bed. She says it’s because her little friend snored so loud she couldn’t sleep meanwhile at home she can sleep in our bed with my husband “the chainsaw” next to her.
Worst ever is daughter’s 1st (& only) sleepover at 8 & her friend gets her first period. At 8!!!!! Girl knew NOTHING. Her mother never picked up the phone, so I had to explain everything & tell her she wasn’t dying!
OMG, yes! To every single one of these reasons. I HATE sleepovers, but I’m a freaking pushover, so my kids have far too many of them. I try to to hide in my room, but they ALWAYS FIND ME! And our house is small, so there’s no escaping from the noise. 🙁 I just keep telling myself they’ll only be young once. It doesn’t help.
Why, why, why didn’t you call this little demons mom to come get him? My kids know that non-sleeping, non quiet sleep over guests get returned. And they never get invited again! We have only successful sleep overs thanks to this rule!
What about the birthday party sleepover where one child starts vomiting and while you are calling parents, cleaning up (husband wakes up, throws some towels down to you and goes back to bed) another child sits straight up in their sleeping bag and vomits all over herself? Oh…and the first child had never vomited before so had no idea to go to the bathroom and just stood there repeatedly vomiting. That’s some fun shit right there.
My daughter won’t DO sleepovers, which mean ALL OF THEM are at my house. Lucky me.
This is being a bit offensive to sleepovers. My cousin, Katie, I hate having a sleepover. Even if I’m tired she wakes me up and forces me to go on MY computer and shop for stuff that she wants. And if I try and suggest something I want she says why is it all about you. She says I snore and that I smell of stinky poo.