Why I Banned Sleepovers

I hate hosting sleepovers. Actually, I’m terrified of them.

For years, sleepovers have been banned in my home. Following two utterly disastrous ones, it seemed a perfectly reasonable parenting move.

The first time my daughter, Rowan, had a sleepover she was about nine. She had begged and begged for permission for a friend to sleepover. I finally broke down and agreed to have one of her friends spend the night.

Well, that nine-year-old friend woke me up at 3:30 am, standing beside my bed, looking down at me, coughing into my face.

‘I have a cough and can’t sleep.’ She said. Immediately, I started freaking out. She had arrived at my home healthy and somehow had developed a cold in the middle of the night. Was a cough grounds for calling her parents? (But it’s 3:30 in the morning!) Should I call and ask her mother if I could give her some cough syrup? (But it’s 3:30 in the morning!) I had no freaking idea what to do with this child, and I didn’t want to make a phone call that began with, ‘This is not an emergency but…’.

So I plopped this girl in front of the television, because she wasn’t asking to go home, even though, inside, I was praying she would beg to go home, so I could at least have a great excuse to call her parents to come get this kid.

But this kid seemed happy to be hacking away in my home in the wee hours of the morning. I went back to bed, only to be woken up 45 minutes later by the girl, who just wanted to tell me she ‘still couldn’t fall asleep.’

Instead of giving her a sleeping pill to knock her out (the thought did cross my mind) I told her to just watch whatever she wanted on television and taught her how to use the remote. (She probably watched more television at my home that day than any mother in their right mind would allow.)

When her mother picked her up, after what seemed like an eternity, I told the mother, ‘She seems to have a cough, but other than that, she was perfect!’ (Much nicer than saying ‘Your child will never be sleeping over here again.’)

I told Rowan I was banning sleepovers until I recovered, which, I estimated would be by the year 2030. I need my sleep. I do not work well on anything less than 8 hours of sleep, thus, automatically making me a sucky sleepover host.

I lifted the sleepover ban when my daughter turned 11. By this time, she had been invited to numerous sleepovers. I felt I had to reciprocate to at least one other nice, brave mothers who had hosted my child.

The highlight of the second sleepover was when I was awoken by the constant ringing of my door bell, knocks from the doorknocker, and the dog flipping out over both. In my sleepy state I wondered if someone was breaking in.

When I finally opened the door, I found the bleary-eyed, bathrobe-clad mother of one of my daughter’s friends. ‘My daughter called and told me she wanted to be picked up because she’s homesick.’ the mother said wearily. It was 4 am.

I was mortified and shocked that a call had been made (by that point, all the girls had cell phones). I was also mortified because, optics-wise, it looked like I was not in charge. (Which I wasn’t. I was asleep.)

When I talk to my daughter about sleepovers, I realize that some mothers are meant to host sleepovers, and some mothers, like me, are just not cut out for this kind of gig.

My daughter has told me stories of mothers making chocolate chip pancakes and setting out bowls of cut-up fruit for the kids in the morning, then taking them to the park to play. My method is to put out whatever cereal is on hand and to make a comment along the lines of ‘Yeah, have cereal and, oh, also, call your mom to come get you, like, now would be good!’

I also don’t bother to tell them to go to bed. After all, part of the fun of sleepovers is trying to stay up as late as possible. So, yeah, I’m not sure parents would really want me to host sleepovers anyway. Their child may arrive perky and happy but they leave having had only a couple hours of sleep, which leads to cranky children for the parents to deal with, and then I also feel like that’s my fault too.

Let me be clear: this does not make me a fun mom. This makes me a mom who has no interest in making pancakes for children who have kept me up all night. Actually, I have no interest in hosting groups of children at all. I’m terrified of what could potentially happen on my watch.

So I banned sleepovers, again.

After three peaceful years, I lifted the ban. Again. My daughter told me (every day, for 583 days) that all she wanted for her 13th birthday was to have a big sleepover. I relented, but inside, I freaking out.

Two of the girls invited had never slept over anywhere. Each of their respective parents called me beforehand. For what? I’m not exactly sure. But I gave them the rundown of the evening and told them that I would be present at all times and so would our nanny.

The sleepover hadn’t even started yet and I was already exhausted.

My daughter, who somehow manages to make almost perfect grades in math, told me she was inviting 8 girls over. Well, 13 showed up on my doorstep, which makes me wonder how she can understand calculus but not correctly tally the number of friends she’d invited.

I thought I could just order pizza and call it a night, but my daughter’s friends have a laundry list of what they can and cannot eat, due to both religious and health reasons. No pork for one. No dairy for another. No nuts for another. Only organic for another. I took them out for dinner, because it was easier than shopping for these kids with such wide-ranging dietary restrictions. Honestly, I also wanted to hire a night nurse just in case one of them needed medical attention. I didn’t want to be known as the mother who had to take a kid to the hospital because she didn’t double-check every single thing these kids consumed.

I hired a fortune teller (who I warned again and again to only give the girls good and exciting news about their futures), and that killed about two hours. (I consider it one of the smartest things I’ve ever done as a parent.)

Did I watch them all night? No! This mommy needs her sleep. I told the girls to all be respectful of each other and, um, of the carpets, if they planned to eat anywhere but the kitchen, and I went to bed.

At 1 am, I dragged myself out of bed to check on them. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Were on their computers (They came to my house directly from school.) I liked it, actually, because as they watched their screens (was it YouTube or porn? I didn’t check. See? I’m not good at hosting sleepovers!) they we’re quiet. I got up again at 3:45 am and heard only whispers. No crying. No yelling.

The next morning, I asked the 1,835 girls in my house (or at least that’s what it seemed liked) what they wanted for breakfast. They all wanted to walk to Starbucks. (OK, I admit, I gave them two options: leave and walk to Starbucks or have Raisin Bran.) I handed my daughter some cash and sent them on their way. Then I wondered, was I supposed to ask each and every parent if this was okay? I suck at this sleepover business.

My daughter and I had already bargained over ‘pick up time’. I wanted an 8 am pick up. She wanted 2 pm. And so we settled for noon. The last girl to leave my house left just after 3 pm.

For all intents and purposes, it was a success (no one called their parents. No one had an allergic reaction. They were all ALIVE! YAY ME!) But the ban is back on.

At least until she turns 16, which gives me three years to catch up on my sleep.

What are your wildest sleepover horror stories?