Sleepovers are one of the most fun childhood activities that kids are given the opportunity to experience. What kid doesn’t love to sleep over with a friend? Read on for some valuable sleepover tips!
Parents can prepare their children’s favorite foods and provide them with a surplus of entertainment options, (have you tried the coupons from Discountrue for such popular shops as Sears, yet?) but it takes some mental preparation on the part of the parents, too.
So how do parents manage to successfully survive an onslaught of children in their home?
5 Sleepover Tips
1. Limit The Guest List
Your children are going to want to invite every single friend that they ever thought they knew, but as a parent, you need to limit the guest list to the absolute cream of the crop. The more kids you invite, the bigger possibility of arguments or unpleasant situations. In a perfect world, your child will be inviting friends that they have already spent a fair amount of time with. This should help to keep disagreements to an absolute minimum.
2. Speak To The Guests’ Parents
Children have a way of seeing any night that they spend outside of their parents’ home as a vacation from the rules that they would normally follow. Be sure to speak to your guests’ parents before the sleepover, so that you can learn more about any special needs or recommendations. If a child has any food allergies, these need to be discussed as well. Share as much information with each other as possible.
3. Limit the Junk Food
While a group of energetic kids who are all hopped up on each other’s company will be a challenge, host parents should do their absolute best not to offer any sugary or salty snacks in the hours leading up to bedtime. Consider making some of your favorite recipes to share with your guests. Take a moment at the beginning of the festivities to let guest children know what time the kitchen will be officially closed, as this allows them to plan their night accordingly.
4. Don’t Force Any Activities
Remember when you were a kid and the “cool” parent would try to set up what they thought was a fun activity, failing to realize how lame it made them seem? Don’t let yourself become that parent. Provide various activities for the children to choose from, but don’t try to push any particular idea. Children naturally gravitate to things they find interesting and what might be fun to them may not be fun to you.
5. Prepare For All Possibilities
Toothbrushes, bath towels, medications, sleeping bags, stuffed animals, all of these items are commonly forgotten by overly excited children, so do your best to keep extras on hand when possible and maintain an open dialogue with parents, so that they can bring anything you can’t readily replace. Also, prepare yourself for the chance that one child will get cold feet and need to be driven home.
How have you prepared for successful sleepovers at your house? Any other sleepover tips you can add to the list?
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Category: Family Free TimeTags: sleepovers
