Host a Sleepover

When you're a kid, one of the most fun and exciting things you can do is to host a sleepover. The hard part is making a plan and ironing out all the details. Once your friends arrive, as long as you have some fun ideas up your sleeve, you'll be on your way to having a fun and unforgettable night. If you want to know how to host a sleepover this is right for you!

Steps

Making a Plan

  1. Think of a fun theme for your sleepover. People often have a sleepover for their birthdays or just because they feel like having some friends together. However, if you want to be creative and get wacky props and costumes in the mix, then you can consider having a more elaborate theme for your sleepover party. Here are some fun examples you may want to try out:
    • A different time period themes, such as the 80s, the 70s, or the 60s
    • Crazy hair day
    • Backward day
    • Dressing up as your idols
    • Western day
    • Hawaiian day
    • Host a Pink Sparkle Party
    • Pop-Star day
    • Host A Twilight Sleepover
    • Harry Potter day
    • Have a Pretty Committee Sleepover (based on a book)
    • Have a Chocolate Slumber Party or a vanilla party based on what you like
    • A tea party
    • Hold a Hunger Games day (Dress as Prim)
    • Dog day (you can dress as your favorite animal)
    • Everyone dressing as their favorite celebrity
    • A holiday theme like Easter, Valentine's Day, or Christmas.
    • Divergent Day
  2. Decide on your guest list. Talk to your parents about the maximum number of people they will let you invite to your sleepover. Typically, sleepovers have around 2-8 guests, but it depends on what you're going for. Invite people who you want to hang out with, who make things more fun, and who will get along with each other. Also, try not to hurt any feelings by not forgetting someone in your group of friends.
    • If you have a shy friend who doesn't know anyone else, you have to decide if that person will actually have a good time, or if you will spend the night worrying about including the person in all of your games. Try to invite people that know each other, so they will enjoy with each other and feel more comfortable.
  3. Write and send out the invitations. You can mail your guests, use email, call, text, use Facebook, or even tell them in person. Also, try looking for invitations that fit your party theme, so people get a general sense of what the party is about. Remember to include any special information, like what the guests may want to bring. Tell your friends in private, so other people don't feel left out.
    • You should tell your guests what time to arrive and around what time they should leave. Some people actually like to keep hanging out the next day until they get bored, but if you have something to do or your parents want them out of the house at a certain time, you should mention it in the invitation. You can also let them know if you'll be serving breakfast at a certain time.
    • It doesn't have to be so formal, either. If you just want to call each friend and tell them about it, that's fine, too. It's all about how much effort you want to put in.
    • If you want to make nice online invitations, you can check out a website like Paperless Post. They'll charge you a bit for each invitation, but not as much as you'd have to pay for most fancy paper invites.
    • Don't be disappointed if some of your guests can't make it. Some parents don't let their kids sleep over other kid's houses.
  4. Get all of the party supplies you need. Sit down and make a list of everything you'll need to make the sleepover a success. Don't forget food, dinner, snacks, movies, soda, decorations, or anything else you might want. Be sure to check in with your guests about whether or not they have any food allergies, or if they are vegetarians.
    • You'll probably need to go with your parents to get the stuff you need. In general, get a little bit more than you expect to need, so you don't run out of food or treats for your guests.
    • If you plan on having your guests stay for breakfast, then you should also plan to make sure you have some breakfast food, such as pancake mix and fruit, ready and waiting.
    • If you plan on playing any games you don't have, then make sure to buy them or to have a friend bring one over.
    • If you want to watch a movie, have it ready in advance.
  5. Make a plan for keeping your siblings busy in advance. You may have a younger brother or sister who wants to hang out with you during your sleepover, but you may just want to hang out with your friends and do your own thing. If this is the case, then you should talk to your sibling about letting you have some time with your friends in advance. You can even promise to do something in return, like hanging out with your sibling one-on-one the next day.
    • If you can plan it so that your siblings are away with other friends during your sleepover, then even better!
  6. Make sure your friends don't have any allergies. Once your friends RSVP to your parties, you can check in with them to make sure that they aren't allergic to animals if you have any; if they absolutely can't be around pets, then they should know that they won't be able to make it. Most people who are allergic to pets have allergy medication that can help, so letting them know in advance could save the night for them. Some people also have allergies to certain foods, such as peanuts, so check in with them in advance about this so all of your guests stay healthy.

Hosting an Awesome Sleepover

  1. Be polite when your guests arrive. They will most likely come in with their parents, so be friendly to them and show them that you're a nice kid with a nice home. Tell your friends where to hang their coats, where to put their shoes, and where to put their sleeping things. Ask if they would like any food or drink. Give them a tour of the house if they are unfamiliar with it. Be sure to mention the places they can and cannot enter. Show them where the bathroom is, too!
  2. Prepare the food. If you (with the help of your parents) already picked up some food to eat and make, such as hot dogs and hamburgers, then you should make the food if the guests arrive around dinner time. Don't leave people standing around hungry. You can offer them soda or snacks, like chips and salsa or guacamole, while you're waiting. You can also order pizza in, which is pretty commonly done at sleepovers, or even order Italian food, Chinese, or even Thai food if that's what your friends like.
    • Make sure to keep snacks, such as chips, vegetables, and dip, or pita and hummus around so the guests have something to snack on while you get ready to order food.
    • For sweets you could make cookies, brownies, cupcakes, go to the store and buy lots of sweets and popcorn because people always get hungry.
    • Make sure you have enough soda for everyone to drink, as well as the option of water, orange juice, or other beverages for people who don't like fizzy drinks. If you don't want people to get hyper and stay up all night, you can limit the caffeine intake later.
  3. Play some music and dance around. If your friends like listening to Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, or whoever is popular in your friend group, then put on some music and enjoy the great tunes. Get silly and dance around for a bit — you'll probably need to burn some of the energy you got from all of that food and soda! You can even have a dance off if you want to get fancy.
  4. Have a pillow fight. Pillow fights are fun, exciting, and high energy. They normally happen spontaneously, so if you're in the mood to have one, just start gently hitting one of your friends with a pillow and wait for the fun to begin. You should first get down to where everyone's things are so that everyone has a pillow to throw. Just be careful not to hurt anybody and to make it clear that you're just playing around.
  5. Play video games. If you and your friends like to play Wii or other video game systems, then you should make sure your guests bring their remotes in advance so as many people as possible can play. Just make sure to keep things light and not too competitive. If you notice that people are starting to feel left out, then you can do something else. Remember that not everybody likes or wants to play video games, and you don't want to leave out your less tech savvy friends.
  6. Take photos. You want to remember the night! You could even have a mini photoshoot with your friends. Bring out your camera or your phone camera and start snapping pictures of you and your friends doing silly things. You can even bring out some ridiculous costumes and old clothes and goof off while wearing those. If your parents are still up, you can ask one of them to take a picture of all of you so you have a group photo.
  7. Be respectful of the guests who want to go to bed earlier. Not everyone may want to stay up until two or three in the morning, so you should let the people who want to sleep get some rest. If everyone else is being loud, you can even let the guest sleep in your bed or in a different part of your house so he or she isn't bothered. Get permission from your parents in advance.
  8. Play some fun night-time games, like Truth or Dare, or Pop Goes the Party. Games are a fun way to enjoy a sleepover. Make sure the games are easy to follow and don't take that long to play. For example, Monopoly is a great game, but it takes too long to play it; pick something that is better for the attention span of you and your guests.
  9. Tell scary stories. Get a flashlight and take turns telling ghost stories. You can even think of a scary story in advance, or tell all of your guests to come prepared with one. Whoever tells the scariest story can win a prize. Just make sure none of your guests are too freaked out; not everyone likes to be scared or to be in the dark.
  10. Watch a movie. Watching a movie or TV is another great thing to do at a sleepover, but this should be done later in the night after you've burned some of your energy and just want to lie down and be entertained. It would help to decide on a movie in advance, whether you want to watch a horror movie or something fun and romantic. Sometimes people can spend so much time deciding what movie to watch that you end up just watching nothing, and you don't want the decision process to be a buzzkill.
    • Bring out the popcorn, cookies, and other treats. This will help make the environment more festive and party-like. You can even bring out some treats people would commonly see in a movie theater, such as M&Ms or Sno-caps.
  11. Be okay with just talking. Though planning a million games and activities can make for a fun sleepover, sometimes the most fun you can have is just by sitting around and laughing with your friends. You can gossip, tell stories about your embarrassing moments, look through the yearbook to talk about your crushes, or just get to know each other better. If people are laughing and having fun, you don't have to change the mood by coming up with a ton of activities to do. Just let people enjoy themselves.
  12. Make sure everyone gets along. If you're hosting and someone starts arguing or upsetting other people, take charge. If people are being noisy and keeping others awake kindly tell them that if they want to talk, they have to talk in another room. Try not to take sides and to listen to both sides of the story. You don't want to make enemies at your own sleepover.
    • Be on the lookout for tension that may arise. If you notice that guests start arguing a bit, you can change the subject to try to avoid conflict.

What To Do the Next Morning

  1. When you wake up, make sure to be nice but quietly wake up all of your guests. You should only do this when it's time for people to leave. If you just happen to be up early, you shouldn't be rude and wake everyone else up for no reason. Be respectful of the people who want to keep sleeping. Once people start getting up, give them some time to get their acts together instead of trying to rush them to breakfast.
  2. Ask if your guests are ready for breakfast. If most people are hungry, tell your guests all their breakfast choices. If your parents are awake, ask them if they could make breakfast for you all. Try to get something most people normally don't have all the time, such as homemade Belgian waffles, but remember, have simple cornflakes or another plain cereal as an option too. Not everyone likes a big breakfast, and your friends may still be stuffed from all the awesome food you had the night before!
  3. Walk your guests to the door. This is something a polite host should never forget to do. Even if you're getting sick of having guests around and are ready for some alone time, you should be polite enough to walk your guests to the door and to thank them for coming. If their parents are waiting in the doorway for them, then greet the parents and thank them for stopping by. You can even offer to help carry your friend's things to the car.
  4. Clean up. Throw out popcorn and plastic cups off the floor and into the trash. It was your party, so you have to clean up the mess, not your parents. If you do this yourself, then your parents will be much more likely to let you have another sleepover. If it was possible, you could have cleaned up a bit throughout the night or even had some friends help you if there was some downtime, but it's not fun to interrupt a party for cleaning. Once you've gotten everything back to normal, you can relax and enjoy having some time to yourself!

Tips

  • Always check that everyone is having a great time! Make sure that you aren't just giving attention to just one person. Include everyone.
  • Play truth or dare, or other fun group games. Have rules and draw the line about personal questions. You never want to have feelings hurt, so make sure it does not get out of hand or your friends won't want to come over again.
  • Have an interesting combination for breakfast and let your guests choose what they want to eat because everyone likes different things.
  • If someone is a vegetarian or vegan, make sure that you have plenty of fruits, vegetables, and great tasting foods that will fill them up so that they aren't hungry, just make sure that there is food for everyone to enjoy!
  • Make sure you make a good impression and clean up your home before having people over! Especially the bathroom and where you will be sleeping.
  • If you like to go to bed early then a few days before practice, stay up late. However, the night before the sleepover go to bed early so you aren't tired on the night.
  • Always make sure that all of your guests are comfortable and enjoying themselves.
  • Make sure to have plenty of music! Keep the volume down, because you don't want the neighbors complaining. That will ruin the whole night.
  • Make sure that you plan everything you are going to do in your slumber party, and make sure you plan it out with your friend(s) because if you don't then all the things on the list, you might not even be able to do anything!
  • Don't get movies over your age rating unless your parents and your friend’s parents are all okay with it. You could get in trouble otherwise. Also, try to keep the movies light - a tearjerker or sad, upsetting movie could bring down the mood. Comedies are fantastic for sleepovers.
  • Get your guests to bring magazines, CDs, and a good list of dares. If everyone brings something, there will be more to choose from!
  • Take pictures! You'll want to remember this night. After the party, email the photos out to your guests. You could even make cute scrapbook pages or frames during the sleepover as a fun activity or even better put the picture in the thank you card.
  • Don't worry too much about what people think of the party, just enjoy yourself. If your guests don’t like it, they'll give you hints. They won't tell you if they don't like it so you'll have to watch out for any small hints or see if they're not joining in with anything.
  • Have a Have the Perfect Pillow Fight! But don't get too aggressive or break anything.
  • Likewise, do not invite someone over for a sleepover if you do not know them well. They don't have to be your very best friend, but you should at least be fairly good friends. A good rule of thumb is: if you have never been to this person's house and they have never been to yours, you don't know them well enough to invite them to a sleepover.
  • Make a craft a keepsake! Make simple picture frames out of Popsicle sticks and place a photo of the sleepover in it. This will be a reminder of all the great fun your guests had.
  • If you’re planning on pulling any pranks during the night, a good idea would be to ask if it is okay with everyone if some mischief happens. If someone says no, then just don't do anything to him or her! It may ruin the surprise, but they don't know whom it's going to happen to, and maybe they'll just be a little less likely to go to bed early!
  • Decide where everyone will sleep. Airbeds, which are like blow up mattresses, are comfortable. Ask your friends to bring a sleeping bag and pillows and blankets to sleep on airbeds or mattresses on the floor.
  • When you choose invites, choose wisely. Sometimes people focus on inviting all the cool kids, and so they don't choose their friends to come.
  • If you tell scary stories at your sleepover, be sure to tell them when it's dark outside.
  • Do makeovers! Not serious ones, but ones you wouldn't wear in public.
  • Make sure everyone knows where the bathroom nearest to the place where you're sleeping is. Plus, leave some books or games around in case someone can't sleep. Don't forget to pass out some flashlights so no one will get scared.
  • Make sure any annoying siblings are occupied during the party.
  • If your parents tell you to go to sleep then do so, you don't want to keep them up all night long so they're grumpy and upset in the morning, also if you have a little brother or sister see if they want to join in with the fun!
  • Make sure that you have food that everyone can eat, for example, if you have a friend that's vegetarian, don't have hamburgers.
  • If you own a pet, let everyone play with it.
  • Don't stay inside of your house the entire time! Go outside and play games out there too.
  • Make sure everyone is comfortable with who they're sleeping over with. It's better not to bring all of your best friends from different places together- then they seem to divide into groups and not have any fun. Nevertheless, if you're set on having all of your friends over, make sure they are all introduced and maybe play a game for all of you to get to know each other better.
  • If there are some embarrassing items you have around your house, such as baby pictures or toys from when you were younger, ask your parents if you can move them, but if they say no, don't move it.
  • Try watching do-not-laugh videos to have fun. Usually, this puts everyone in a good mood and gives you a reason to laugh and giggle.
  • Make sure you are nice to everyone, this way, nobody feels left out.
  • If you wake up before everyone else, don't just sit there. Start planning what you're going to do next when the new day begins.
  • If you invite two people who really dislike each other or don't communicate at all, just give them some time to talk or become friends.
  • Don't invite people who don't know each other well. In some ways a sleepover can bring people together, but if you don't know someone, that's when guests start to feel uncomfortable and want to leave.
  • Make sure everyone is enjoying the sleepover, do activities that you know you're friends will enjoy because remember it's not all about you. Be polite and have some fun!

Warnings

  • Don't watch TV the whole time; everyone will get bored.
  • Make sure your party does not get too out of control. If you ever feel uncomfortable, doing or saying something then talk to your parents immediately.
  • Be sure to have popcorn. It's a classic treat for a movie that everyone is sure to love. However, if you are aware that your guests have braces, you may want to consider that when selecting snacks.
  • Don't start to pick on another friend just because one of your other friends doesn't like them.
  • If someone is scared of your pet, (if you have one) make sure you put them in a different place so your guest feels safe.
  • If you plan to serve chips, shaking them in a colander over the sink first helps to get rid of crumbs before you serve them.
  • Make sure not to make it too over the top. It is just a sleepover so make sure you keep it reasonably simple and don't invite too many people, especially people that have problems with each other. The last thing you want is a fight.
  • Depending on your age, some guests might get a little homesick. Try to avoid this by keeping things busy and fun, and if someone does want to go home, make sure to tell your parents and they will handle the situation, or let them call their parents so that they feel better.
  • Make sure everyone knows where they can go and where they can't in your house. If they were to go in a prohibited room, not only would they get in trouble, but you would too!
  • It's fine to take photos and post them on Facebook, but do not post: embarrassing photos, sexually suggestive photos, photos that show an illegal activity (such as underage drinking), or otherwise anything that could get you in trouble and/or made fun of. Also, if someone has asked you not to tag them in a photo, do not tag them. If you already tagged someone and they have asked you to untag them, untag them immediately.

Things You'll Need

  • Pillows, sleeping bags, etc.
  • Snacks (cookies, chips, etc.)
  • Stereo
  • TV
  • Games
  • DVD, or a Blu-ray player
  • Movies
  • Video games
  • A small table (for food or board games)
  • Makeup and hair care samples (or tell everyone to bring their own)
  • Nail polish
  • Recipes for homemade face masks, body scrubs, etc.
  • Fun music - try to mix it up with all kinds of music from classic rock, to pop, to 80's, and so on and so forth! It will get everyone up and dancing!
  • A conversation topic box
  • A phone
  • Camera
  • Ask your friend bring a controller for the game system you got!
  • A computer to view pictures or watch some YouTube videos!
  • Lots of fizzy drinks (Coca-Cola®, 7UP®, Snapple, etc.) and water
  • Flashlights to enhance your ghost storytelling experiences
  • Basic supplies (Clothes, PJ's, Toothbrush, etc.)
  • You might also want to get or make some decorations if you are planning a theme.

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