Tips for a Successful Sleepover

First of all, allow me to assure that yes, I was told I was crazy.  "You're hosting a sleepover for your 4 year old?  Um, yeah, good luck with that."  But thanks to an episode of Doc McStuffins that featured exactly that, my child was obsessed.  So I called up the mom of the requested friend (who I happen to know is almost as crazy as I am) and made the arrangements.  And I don't mind telling you, it was pretty cool.  So if your kid watched that same episode of Doc and won't let the idea of a sleepover go, here are a few tips for pulling it off...

1.) Planned activities are your friend.
Anyone who goes into a night like this without a plan is asking for trouble.  Bored children will be forced to find something to amuse themselves, and your house is likely to pay the price.  So to avoid the toilet-papering of my dining room, we made jewelry boxes.

Lila didn't get a jewelry box, but she was not about to be left out of an art project.

We topped them off with some glitter initials we found at the craft store.  Gorgeous - and time consuming.

2.) Do not serve meatloaf.
Have plenty of kid-friendly food on hand.  Nobody needs a broccoli-related tantrum at a sleepover.  We went with pizza and ice cream sundaes.

Some intense conversation going on.

 

3.) Run them into the ground.

This one is the most important.  No matter how wigged out a kid gets about sleeping away from home for the first time, or how badly two little girls want to keep each other up all night, sheer exhaustion will ultimately win. 

 

Catch me if you can!

Swing-Ball.  Andy's invention.  Very popular around here.

 

Notice that it's dark out.  "Running them into the ground" must continue until bedtime.

The kids came downstairs at 8:30 and asked to go to bed.  They crawled into their sleeping bags, and other than a few minutes of first-sleepover trepidation, we didn't hear a peep out of them until 6:15 the next morning. 

 

Score 1 for Mom and the perfect sleepover.