Sometimes the simplest birthday party ideas work best. My daughter Coco is soon turning five and I don’t think that there is anything more exciting in her world than a sleep-over birthday party. Last weekend she went over to a friend’s house, and five little 5-year-olds had the best time ever slumbering away, eating cake, pretending to be ballerinas, and giggling in general (the photo is of the sleep-over posse — don’t they look like they are having a pretty good time?).
And I can understand it — sleep-over parties are great. I still actually remember my first ever sleep-over party as if it was yesterday — my parents let me and my friends stay up to watch some of the Eurovision song contest and it was the best thing that had ever happened to me!
Sleep-overs are also pretty easy to organise, as far as birthday parties go, because they are always going to be a success. And here are a couple of tips that can help for a successful sleep over party:

1. Get the kids over early so that they can eat together and play until exhaustion, a key move is to whip out a DVD for the children to enjoy and relax.

2. After breakfast, it can be fun to get the kids to do a bit of an organised activity as they might need something to focus on (in the case of my daughter’s sleep-over party, the girls made a theatre stage in a shoe box and placed some ballerinas in it, which I thought was a brilliant idea)

3. Do end the party in the morning as the kids will likely have fallen asleep a bit later than usual and very likely will have woken up early, so for every one’s sanity it is advisable to end the party while it is still peaking.

Do let me know if you have any other ideas about how to make a sleep over party even better… as I am going to be hosting one in a couple of months time.

– Emilie