* Before I sent the invitations to the girls, I emailed or spoke with all the parents. I checked to make sure the girls would be available on the selected date, if there were any food alllergies/preferences & listed a few potential movies to see if they were OK. (I gave the standard horse-movie warning: We will be honest – with horse movies, usually at some point there is an injury to the horse. It is not fatal, and not particularly gory at all, and the horse will always recover beautifully, but it is a staple of horse movies, so just a forewarning. Please let us know if your daughter(s) are particularly sensitive to this.) This also allowed parents to let me know about soccer games or other early morning appointments, so I could plan breakfast, etc. My DD’s birthday is the 17th, so I always try to have the invitations out by the 1st so everyone has plenty of notice.

* My nieces (ten and eight) have never overnighted anywhere, but they came in their PJs and they did all the fun stuff (gifts, cake, playing) before my SIL collected them at 10:30 p.m. or so.

* My daughter has mixed her cousins with summer camp friends & schoolmates. The cousins worked out fine both years, but the one camp friend didn’t really mesh well and sort of riled up the whole group. Be cautious about mixing different friends, especially for the first time, for the whole night.

* Be clear and up front about lights out time. The camp friend has a meltdown because she wanted to stay up all night long. Since I knew her mother didn’t allow her to do it at her own house for sleepovers, I stuck to my guns, but the girls still didn’t go to bed before 1 a.m. Now, the lights out time is clearly printed on the invitation so the girls can decide if they want to come or not.

* Both years, I’ve driven someone home after midnight. (My husband was home with the rest of the girls.) Lots of hugs and reassurance goes a long way to helping that child not feel horrible. And while all the parents say they will come & get their kids, since I was still awake & dressed, it was no big deal for me to bring them home.

* Have a few activities planned, but be flexible. The girls all invented some game, and it kept them occupied most of the evening. The first year, they all decided they didn’t want to watch the movie my daughter had selected, so I ended up with my daughter and one other friend upstairs watching the movie, and 9 little girls milling about the living room because they were bored.

* Be cognizant of your pets. We have 4 cats, and while our Abyssinian thought 10 little girls to love and adore him was just the bee’s knees, the other 3 were not as happy. The noise and activity could startle them into unpredictable reactions. My little kitty was sniffing everything out upstairs, and was so startled as the girls came (loudly) running up the stairs, she fright-peed on one girl’s sleeping bag. It went immediately into the washer, and we pulled out one of our back-up sleeping bags for the girl (and made sure her parents knew about it the next morning, in case they wanted to rewash it). One of the others went outside when the first girl arrived and we didn’t see him until the next morning, and I think the 4th one spent the night inside the couch or inside the box spring in the master bedroom.

* Buy twice as many juice boxes as you think you will need – these kids are camels!

My biggest piece of advice: fewer is better when it comes to sleepovers. We have a set of triplets & three sisters (the cousins) so our group starts out big, but my daughter said she didn’t want as many girls for her next sleepover; we might do a couple smaller ones to make sure everyone can attend.