sleep-overs

[sleepybed]

I'm a single mother with a 7 year old daughter. We both sleep in the nude and all ways have done. Trouble is now my daughter has started school and has new friends she wants to have them for sleep-overs. What should I do? My daughter has never had a desire to dress for bed and neither of use owns a dressing gown as we are both comfortable being nude in front of each other.

[Siouxsie]

Recent research suggests that over 51% of Britons sleep nude, at least in Summer, with a high proportion of that 51% sleeping nude all the year round. Since it's highly unlikely that all of these are people living alone or childless couples, the chances are that many of your daughter's friends also come from homes where sleeping in the nude is the norm. There would seem to be a number of ways of approaching this problem. First of all, you could get yourself and your daughter a dressing-gown each; not for mutual modesty, as you seem to be managing that quite successfully in the buff, but for occasions such as meeting the postman at the front door and, in this context, meeting visitors as you cross from bedroom to bathroom. If your daughter is hoping to host a sleepover, you could try getting her to find out, or finding out yourself from their parents, what her prospective guests themselves wear in bed. You might find that more of them prefer to sleep nude than you originally thought, but that doesn't really solve the question of what should actually happen on the night. When our kids had sleepovers, sleepwear was the least of the problems. Although our own kids were regular nude sleepers, as were the majority of their friends, when it came to bedding down in company in the sitting room, there seemed to be a general unwritten concensus that overt stripping was not on. People generally slid into their sleeping bags in their underwear - some, the home team in particular, subsequently stripped completely, some didn't, but almost all sensed that it was not the done thing to prance to the bathroom at two in the morning in the altogether. At the practical level, it would probably be best to leave it the kids themselves. On this occasion, your daughter has the advantage of being at home. She can do the good hostess thing and let everyone go to the bathroom first, so that when she is finally ready to bed down, she get get a measure of the prevailing concept of nightwear. If she is wearing a T-shirt, briefs and jeans, she can then take one, two or three garments off, as appropriate. The bottom line, however, is that sleeping nude is not the rare, scandalous activity that it was a couple of generations ago. Many people, of all ages, shapes and sizes, do it on a regular basis, and those that don't are well aware that they are in a decreasing minority.

[SaraJane]

Like your daughter, our 8-y.o. prefers to sleep nude, an arrangement that we are quite happy with as we both do likewise. We haven't encountered the sleepover issue yet - We're not anticipating that sort of event for another couple of years, but we do have visitors sleeping overnight from time to time, and generally prefer to wear dressing-gowns outside the bedroom on these occasions. Why don't you get your daughter a light-weight dressing gown, not for wearing now, since you are obviously quite relaxed about seeing each other nude, but for events like school trips, visitors sleeping over etc.

[Sally_Dee]

Don't want to sound discouraging, but you really ought to think carefully through the implications of hosting a sleepover where the kids sleep in the nude; assuming that is what is being proposed. You and your daughter are obviously both quite happy sleeping in the nude, and presumably have no hang-ups over seeing each other in the buff. Try putting the boot on the other foot, and imagine that your daughter was invited to a sleepover at someone else's house, a likely outcome of having one in your own home. Quite apart from the issue of the kids seeing each other in a state of undress, would you, or your daughter for that matter, be happy with the parents of other children seeing your daughter nude, in her underwear, or even in nightwear. Which one you can honestly answer "yes" to gives you a good indication of how to handle a sleepover in your own home. My own daughters always sleep in the nude at home, and have done since they finished with nappies (their own preference), but when they have friends sleeping over, and especially when they go to sleepovers at their friends' houses, they religiously don longish T-shirts, as do their friends.

[Cassandra99]

I'm a single mother with a 7 year old daughter. We both sleep in the nude and all ways have done. Trouble is now my daughter has started school and has new friends she wants to have them for sleep-overs. What should I do? My daughter has never had a desire to dress for bed and neither of use owns a dressing gown as we are both comfortable being nude in front of each other.

Interesting to see that your daughter is happy to sleep in the nude at such a tender age. Since this thread has gone a bit cold, perhaps it's time to rephrase the question slightly.

How many of you parents out there have children who sleep in the nude?
If it was their idea, are you happy with this approach to night attire?
If it was your idea, did you introduce it by example, by encouragement, by insisting or by just putting your children to bed without nightclothes?

[Emma_123]

I'm a single mother with a 7 year old daughter. We both sleep in the nude and all ways have done. Trouble is now my daughter has started school and has new friends she wants to have them for sleep-overs. What should I do? My daughter has never had a desire to dress for bed and neither of use owns a dressing gown as we are both comfortable being nude in front of each other.

Have you had a sleepover yet?

[Mumsasquare]

[/quote]
Since this thread has gone a bit cold, perhaps it's time to rephrase the question slightly.

How many of you parents out there have children who sleep in the nude?
If it was their idea, are you happy with this approach to night attire?
If it was your idea, did you introduce it by example, by encouragement, by insisting or by just putting your children to bed without nightclothes?[/quote]

We have three children, now in their early to mid teens, who all sleep in the nude and have done since infancy.

Once they were big enough to notice that DH and I slept nude, and to talk sensibly about it, we told them that when they were out of nappies, they could sleep nude too, if that was what they wanted, and that in the meantaime, they didn't need to wear anything else in bed, if that was what they wanted. All three opted for the nappies-only option straight away and, once they were dry at night, for the birthday suit option equally rapidly. I think that going about it this way had two immediate results - they quickly got quite proficient at staying under the covers, and they got dry at night very quickly.

[Guest]

Since this thread has gone a bit cold, perhaps it's time to rephrase the question slightly.

How many of you parents out there have children who sleep in the nude?
If it was their idea, are you happy with this approach to night attire?
If it was your idea, did you introduce it by example, by encouragement, by insisting or by just putting your children to bed without nightclothes?