How much sleep ever happens at a sleep-over? As little as possible!! “Wake-over” might be a more appropriate term, but that doesn’t sound good. Grow-ups would stop at the word “wake” and think someone died; and kids would think sleeplessness was encouraged.

When staying overnight with friends, even if put in bed with the lights out, kids stay awake and play for hours past their usual bed time, and then drag each other out of bed before the crack of dawn in order to make the most of their time together! During a 24-hour visit, kids are likely to sleep only 4-6 hours. That’s a 1:4 or even 1:6 ratio of sleep to play.

If you went to your job and only worked 2 out of 8 hours (or 2 out of 12 hours), wouldn’t that be called a working vacation day?

As a side note, the more deprived a child is of participating in sleep-overs, the less he or she is likely to actually sleep at one when given the chance. A child who regularly stays overnight at someone’s house, or who regularly has a child visit overnight, isn’t so excited and so is more likely to give in to the regular need of at least eight or nine hours of sleep.

So if the term “sleep-over” does not describe what happens at one, why is it used? Because it conveys that the child will be staying overnight, which doesn’t usually happen on “play-dates”.

So, how about a new term, “play-over” (as in, come play and stay overnight)?

…Nope, no one will bother to adopt a new term, especially when it’s fun to laugh at how little kids sleep on sleep-overs.