Our seven year old has two friends staying over tonight for their first ever sleepover. We tried really hard to let them burn themselves out - we really did.
By the time 10:30pm rolled around, and one of them got cranky, I stepped up to the plate, and while asking them to please get back into bed, and please try to get to sleep, had a flash of inspiration.
“How about a bedtime story?”
I have never seen such excitement, or transformed behaviour.
The next twenty minutes found me sat on the floor of the room, reading Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo to them - adjusting the text as I went (I stole it from our eldest’s room) for younger ears.
One by one the children began snoring. Just before I left the room, I stopped reading to see if anybody stirred, and one of them started talking in her sleep