Having an adult sleepover with your female friends can change your life

Girls’ nights out have started to feel like speed dating, with everything set on a timer: the restaurant reservation, the babysitter, a middle-aged woman’s ever-diminishing tolerance for noise. “Ladies’ Nights,” as they were known at their late-20th-century inception (shout-out to Kool & The Gang), weren’t even designed to satisfy women’s desires. A discounted drink to increase female patronage on a slow night was just bait—to lure male patrons willing to pay full price.

That’s not to say that girls’ nights in haven’t fallen prey to late-stage capitalism. Typing “adult sleepover” into Google’s search bar will take you down an Instagram rabbit hole to a yassified version of your childhood slumber party, replete with matching satin pyjama sets, balloon arches and personally-branded Prosecco. And, because it’s Instagram, group dances!

Performing choreographed dances in matching pyjamas is about as appealing as getting my annual mammogram. What I want more than anything these days is time. My girlhood sleepovers offered time in excess. When my sixth-grade bestie Denise swore during one slumber party séance that she saw my name flicker in the candlelight—which meant, as she explained it, that I would die that night—daybreak couldn’t have come soon enough. (The only thing that failed to survive was my friendship with Denise.)

I set out to schedule some low-key sleepovers across the two weekends a month when my kids were with their dad (which, admittedly, is one of the main reasons I could even consider this social experiment, as I have a house to myself every other week). But I lost one weekend to COVID and suddenly found myself cramming three sleepovers into the span of five nights in order to meet my deadline.

To ready myself for this five-night deep dive, I consulted a local expert: my 12-year-old daughter. In the few years since she’d started having sleepovers, she had tried every version, from full-blown, stay-up-all-night slumber parties to intimate one-on-ones; overnights with only boys (except her), only girls and a mix of all genders.

So, what was the key to a successful sleepover, in her seasoned opinion?

“Snacks,” she told me, flatly. “You’re going to need snacks and sooo many drinks.” She also revealed the number-one rookie mistake: pulling up in an outfit. “What you actually want is to come in the most comfortable, beat-up shit you own.” (Matching pyjama sets, be damned!)

Danisha, the deputy director of a nonprofit supporting Black and Latine children in private schools, arrived for the first sleepover around nine on a Friday night. We’ve been close for a decade, since her son and my daughter became fast friends in preschool, bonded by their love of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and roughhousing. She’d spent the afternoon and the better part of the evening at her son’s sports-doubleheader (first, flag football at school, then YMCA basketball), with both games going into overtime. During game two, she learned her childcare fell through, and with her husband out of town on a boys’ trip, she had a choice: cancel our sleepover or leave her son, now 13, alone overnight for the first time.