My Daughter's First Sleepover: Little Tips for Unforgettable Memories & Saving Your Sanity
- Anna Rae
- Jun 13
- 5 min read
Hosting my daughter's first sleepover felt like a big milestone. It was the perfect opportunity for her to build friendships, gain independence, and create some amazing memories. At the same time, I was STRESSED, but with some planning and a few simple steps, the sleepover was a success, and fun was had by all!
Setting the Stage for a Successful Sleepover
Ok so to start with, I made a list of all the problems that I needed to solve.
Who is coming? And when?
This one was easy; my daughter had 3 friends she wanted to invite, and four 10-year-old girls seemed manageable for our first go. We had the girls arrive any time after 3pm and leave the next day around 10ish; that way we still had Saturday daytime and most of Sunday to relax.
How do I contact the parents?
My daughter made her own invites, and she added my number so that parents could let me know they were happy for their kids to come and to let me know if there was any food they couldn't eat.
What is everyone going to eat?
Once I had confirmed that there were no allergies to worry about, I decided to keep things simple and went for good old-fashioned PIZZA. I bought 2 large pizzas from Tesco, cheese and pepperoni, as well as a bag of frozen french fries and some garlic dough balls. I laid it all out on the kitchen island, and the girls helped themselves.
I had also ordered a bunch of sweets, doritos and fanta as sleepover snacks. I couldn't believe how much these girls ate. Absolutely no shame at all; growing girls need their snacks. I was just seriously underprepared, and somebody ate all my Babybels. Note to self: buy more snacks next time.
Where is everyone going to sleep?
This one was also pretty easy, as my daughter's bedroom wasn't an option; it isn't big enough for four people anyway, but it is currently being used to store the bathroom sink and cabinet while the bathroom is being decorated. Instead I let them have downstairs, and I set up our beanbag mattress in the living room. We had 2 girls sharing the sofas and 2 girls sharing the mattress.
I do have to mention this beanbag real quick because this thing is AMAZING. Not only is it an enormous beanbag and does it make an amazing reading corner in my conservatory, but you can also take the outer cover off, and it unfolds into a KING-SIZE MATTRESS. Instead of beans, it is full of small pieces of memory foam, so it retains its shape for much longer.
Highly recommend, 10/10.
What is everyone going to do?
For this one I asked my daughter what she wanted to do with her friends, and she didn't actually want any planned activities; she just wanted to relax with her friends. The only thing I did do was set some ground rules, nothing too extreme.
Sleepover Rules
Stay out of the kitchen. (Nobody listened to this one, my poor babybels.)
No phones unless you're contacting parents. (My daughter doesn't have a phone and I was trying to encourage some screen-free time like the sleepovers I had as a kid!)
Bedtime is 10pm (This one also didn't work; they were all finally asleep by midnight. Luckily, I was able to announce via Alex to please go to bed.)
Stay downstairs. (This one is only because I had given them downstairs so that me and my son had some quiet space upstairs; he gets anxious with new people.)
This leads me to my next problem...how do I keep the other child happy during the sleepover?
Surprisingly, this one wasn't too bad. Originally he had kicked up a bit of a fuss about the sleepover; he is 7 and can be uncomfortable around new people, but he dealt with it like a champ. I offered him a sleepover of his own with Mum; we bought our own sleepover snacks, and he was allowed to pick the movies we watched, and he could sleep in my bed with me; he was happy. We did some colouring, watched Transformers and ate a box of Maltesers.
Sleepover Surprise
Ok, now we get to the fun bit! So because I hadn't been asked to plan any specific activities, I decided to make up some surprise goodie bags instead. I thought these would give the girls something to do, and it also created a nice little memory. I didn't go too overboard, but you could easily make these cheaper if you wanted to.
The first thing I needed to do was find some cute bags to put everything in. I ordered these little rainbow gift bags from Amazon, Talking Tables do loads of different designs if you don't like these ones for both girls and boys. I would recommend Talking Tables for any party-related items; they are brilliant.
Everything else I bought was from Amazon too so I will list it all here.
Once everything had arrived I bagged it all up and I used the fluffy headband to top off the bags so that they couldn't see inside. You could also use some tissue paper but I was trying to keep things as cheap and simple as possible.
In total on the bags I spent roughly £12.50 on each of the girls' bags. I didn't think this was too bad given that the pizza was really cheap and they didn't want anything for entertainment.
In total I think the sleepover cost me approximately £75, including all the food, drinks, snacks and goodie bags and it was worth every penny.
You could definitely omit the goodie bags and do a brilliant sleepover for £20.
Final Advice
My final words of wisdom would be to not overplan it. I was worried I hadn't put enough thought into it, but as long as the kids have somewhere to sleep and plenty of food, they are happy. The best thing I did was keep things simple with some pizza and essentially bugger off upstairs and leave them to it. I did have to turn the volume down on Alexa a couple of times just to avoid a feud with the neighbours and tell them to go to bed once it hit midnight, but other than that, I just let them be kids. We only get to be kids once, and it is over far too quickly.
Best of luck with your sleepover! Anna x
P.S Full disclosure, all links in my blogs are Amazon Affiliate links; this means I get a small cut of the purchase for recommending the item at no extra cost to you. I would never link anything I didn't wholeheartedly recommend. If something is shit, I will tell you that it is shit.
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