How to Plan the Perfect Girls Sleepover

An all-girl sleepover is a great way to bond with the girls in your youth group. Here's everything you need to know to plan the perfect girls sleepover!

Pick a date for your sleepover

Before you can think about party themes, games or food you'll need to settle on a day to have your sleepover. For the most party Friday or Saturday night works best since these are days that people set aside to do fun things and are less likely to have other commitments like school practices, etc. Try to give all the girls at least a couple weeks notice to increase the likelihood of everyone showing up. A week before the sleepover, ask for confirmation from all the girls so you can plan on food, sleeping arrangements, etc.

Find the perfect location for your sleepover

Depending on how many girls you are planning for you can choose to host the sleepover at your own place or even one of the girls houses. If you're expecting a large group, get permission to use your church facilities provided that it has a kitchen, space to spread out and enough bathrooms.

Choose a theme for your sleepover

Every sleepover can be different from the one before. The key is to pick a theme and let all the girls know what this sleepover is going to center around. You can have a Beauty Night Sleepover and give each other makeovers and do each others hair. Or maybe a Movie Night Sleepover where you can rent classic chick flicks and pig out on junk food all night. You can put a community service spin on your sleepover and do something like make a bunch of sandwiches to donate to the local homeless shelter or have everyone bring gently-worn used clothing to donate to a women's shelter. Ask your girls for suggestions on sleepover themes to get them involved in the planning of the sleepover.

Remember 'Safety First'

Since you're dealing with underage teenagers, make sure you have permission from each othe girls parents. Find a generic permission slip online and have each girls parents sign them and bring them in a week before the sleepover. Make sure each girl has a ride to the sleepover and a ride home the morning after. If anyone has allergies or health problems you need to be aware of, ask them to mark all this on the permission slip as well.

Get the party started

Have a plan for what activity you are going to kick the party off with - whether it's dinner, a getting-to-know-you game or some other activity. The worst thing you can do is be unprepared and have all the girls wondering what they're doing there.

Make sure you have plenty of food

If you're planning on serving dinner, have all your ingredients ready beforehand. You can ask for each girl to contribute a few dollars to the "dinner fund" and then also ask them to bring a snack so you'll have plenty of food to last the entire night. Believe me, girls will eat a lot at a sleepover, so if you don't make it clear that they need to bring snacks, you can expect them to raid your cupboards and fridge.

Expect the best, plan for the worst

Inevitably something will not turn out how you planned, you'll have more girls than you expected show up or your DVD player will choose to stop working. So have a back-up plan in case things go wrong.

Have fun!

But the most important thing you can do at a sleepover is to have fun! Relax. Give the girls lots of opportunity to talk and bond. Try to have as many one-on-one conversations as you can, but get involved in group conversations too. If the girls are smiling and laughing, you can rest assured that you're doing something right.