Secret Mum Club with Sophiena - The Sleepover Secret

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Soph is facing reality over Colby's upcoming residential, which naturally spirals into a debate on whether sleepovers are even necessary. Plus, the ladies are still buying pull-ups in bulk like they're prepping for a nappy apocalypse, and two listeners share their back-to-school glow-ups that'll have you reaching for the tissues (the good kind). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, this is the secret mumplab. I'm Safina and I'm Emma. And welcome to your Thursday's episode where we get to squeeze in all the extra bits and bobs from the week. I can't squeeze your bits. I'm sorry. I'm at home. I'll take a virtual squeeze.

Okay. Oh, it's gone scratchy because you're losing your voice. Oh, no, it's not there. It's gone. All of your comments, thoughts, questions and fun stories. To keep going through the weekend. Shall we jump on in? We're still remotely recording, honies.

Life is crazy for me and Emma right now. And we're just so incredibly grateful that we get to do these at home. I know they're not for everybody. But they're for us right now. And we're happy about that. Yeah, I feel very lucky. Everyone has accommodated my stupid schedule. Me and Stefan.

Hey, just... Not just you, honey. It's me trying to navigate through life. We're all in this together. I'm glad we're all taking the brunt of it because me and Stefan have an absolute mayor. Okay. It's so cute, so key. But it's time for the Correspondence Corner.

Ouch. You're okay? Our voices are really bad. Really, really bad. We both are swallowing razor blades. I don't know what is going on with this sexy, husky voice. And I sound like I've been, my voice sounds fine, but my cough is like I've been smoking 60 a day. Together, we are itching, scratchy.

Oh, my tea and scratchy show. Right, right, take it away, honey. This one is from Alice from Cambridgeshire. And she says, hi, Sophie and Emma. I just wanted to write in and share my experience of my daughter starting a new school this September. My daughter is seven years old and has just gone into year three, like Dotty. I'd been toying with the idea of changing schools for a while because there were a lot of issues with teachers constantly changing. The final nail in the coffin was when my daughter came home crying and said she wanted to leave the school.

She really struggles with change. she'd also found it difficult to make friends and was being bullied. I'd listen to Sov talk about moving Dotty to a different school and how positive it had been for her. And I just thought, I've nothing to lose at this point. My daughter started her new school last week. Her old school was a small village school with around 100 pupils in total, whereas her new school has over 300. So this was a huge change for her. She was incredibly nervous and drop off was very difficult for both of us. I walked her to her classroom, gave her the biggest hug and she burst into tears. Leaving her there was so hard, but the teachers were absolutely lovely. I held it to

until I got outside the school gates where I promptly burst into tears. The head teacher actually saw me and offered me a cup of tea. When I picked her up, she had the biggest smile on her face. The biggest change I noticed was that she came out as her happy self, not the doled down version of herself that I'd seen come out of her old school so many times before. Fast forward to pick up on Friday. And the first thing she said was, Mommy, I want to go to school tomorrow.

You're going to set me up. I cried happy tears. I'm so happy that my girly doesn't feel like she has to dole down her sparkle anymore. and can really be herself. It's the best decision I could have ever made. So to anyone who's debating changing their child's school because they're unhappy, just do it. I only wish I'd done it sooner, Alice.

Oh my God. Oh. How lovely is that? That feeling is so real of when they come out of the school. And I've said about it, didn't I, a couple of episodes ago, like she's just coming out, like absolutely beaming. Then there is no better feeling when you've gone from. from a from a place which was making them so unhappy and just like the down shoulders and the coming

out and I feel like it's a lot being that Alice's little girl is the same age as Dotty. I couldn't, you know, can't feel it anymore when they come out and for them to have to say and make a big decision and just say, I just can't do this anymore. Imagine making that decision. It's seven years old. Yeah. Like I as a full grown adult now will put up with shit and tolerate shit because I'm too scared of walking away or I'm not man enough to say oh enough's enough you know and I won't walk away

but to make that decision at seven years old and just go do you know enough's enough but then to see them flourish you do have that I completely agree with Alice that guilt in your tummy is like why did I try and make it work for so long and I live with that now um will I probably live with it for the rest of my life yes because would have her year to experience been a lot better yeah It took a whole year of her life. And I feel really sad about that because this is, you know, the most important years of their life, you know. And I just feel so sad about that. But I am so glad that ours was a positive outcome and it's now made somebody else's.

Yeah, this is after listening to you as well. And there could be other people that were like, do you know what? I've seen it work for Sof. I'm going to take the leap as well. But it's an impossible decision because you don't want to. be flippant and be like, oh, do you know what, the slightest thing, I'll just take you out of school then because it's a big deal for them to start a new school. But then when you do it and it works out, you're like, oh, I should have done this sooner. But, you know, you couldn't possibly know that that's

how it was going to work out. And let's be really, really honest, there is that 50, 50 chance. It's either going to work or it's not going to work. And I also, that lovely lady, do you remember the lady that wrote in that had met her husband at one school, her bridesmaids at at the school and she'd had gone to all these schools. And it's also okay to not just stay, if you're moving them out of a setting that isn't working for your child and the next setting doesn't work, it is also still okay. To move them again? Yeah, to move them again and keep going through schools until one is your perfect match. And I think there's a lot of stigma around that you're making silly decisions or, you know, that it's not the right thing to keep moving

them around schools and you're making the situation work. But I think it's, it's really, beautiful to hear people's stories and know that they didn't just settle for the first school and just stick it out because I also think which I imagine if Alice is anything like me or there's you know the situation there was a potential state where I just thought I'm just going to sit this out just keep just keep going and can you imagine the damage the damage it would have done on on our little girls going that you know anybody in this situation trying to stick it out doesn't bear thinking about. And I think the guilt of not doing it sooner is far less than the guilt of...

Not doing it at all. Not doing it at all. Yeah. It's a very brave thing to do. Yeah. It is. It's a big deal. It's kudos to our little girls, to be honest, because that is a...

She's gone from a tiny village school to a school with 300 children. Yeah. That's a big jump for her. And she's just flourishing. That's really beautiful. I know. Thanks for sure. Thanks, Alice.

And I hope she continues to have the best time. Yeah. Okay, ready for another one? Yeah. I don't actually know. I'll probably try and cry again. I'm an emotional wreck, guys. I'm on the edge.

We'll see. It says, hello, lovely ladies. I'm writing in to tell you about, oh, no, our emotional back-to-school moment this week. My oldest daughter, Aila, is in first grade this year. Unfortunately, our school doesn't tell us the teacher assignments until the day before classes start. Ayla is a very shy and sensitive girl.

She's so sweet but she finds it difficult to make friends. When we got the class assignment, my heart sank when I found out she was in class B, while most of her friends from the previous two years of kindergarten were in class A. I was devastated for her. I decided not to tell her beforehand because I thought it would make her even more anxious about starting school. Instead, I asked her, how would you feel if your friends weren't in your new class this year? Instead of getting upset or crying about it, she turned to me and said, that's okay, Mom. If they're not in my class, I'll make new friends and I'll see them on the bus. I almost exploded with tears after her first...

This back-to-school stuff is too much. After her first day, she got off the bus and ran over to tell me that she'd made two new friends and loved her new teacher. As a mum, seeing your child mature and grow is such a strange mix of sadness and pride. I wish nothing but a happy, safe and exciting school year for all your littles. Cheers. Brooke from Ontario, Canada. What the fuck? It's when they just make you so fucking proud. You're like, oh! That's when it gets you. Unless you're a parent, it's really hard to try and like rationalise your thought process. I know I'm online and I talk about it online and people probably watch me and think, fuck me, she's a broken record. She doesn't shut up.

But they are my whole entire world. They're my whole personality. It will be for many years to come until they have children of their own, you know. But to try and explain it to somebody that doesn't have children, it's not that they don't understand or that they're not thoughtful or whatever the situation may be. It's just that you can't get it unless you're living it. So the fact that it's just so, it's just so huge. Like, and again, this one hits really home of me because Colby was, we done the same with Colby,

is what we've done, Dottie. So Colby moved from a different school. It was an infant junior split and Colby moved from a completely different school. So the junior school he meant to follow on from his infant school, he didn't. We moved him to the one he's it now. Colby, Colby made no eye contact with nobody. Colby had no friends. Colby would come home and tell me that he spent lunchtimes on his own or he'd played football on his own. And it wasn't that he was unhappy at his infant school. He just didn't find his people. He didn't find his place. He didn't find his people. He just was kind of just happy plodding along in his own little world. But he'd get invited to parties, but it would only ever be the parties where the whole class got invited. He wouldn't

get invited when there was just like five or ten friends there. He was never selected for those parties. He was only ever invited if the whole classroom went. And even then he didn't want, he didn't want to go. So he never got invited to parties. And when he did, he didn't want to go. He spent a lot of time. Like in the house, he was so loud and so outgoing and so bold. And then we'd go for parents' evening. And they'd be like, oh, well, I say go to parents' evening. Parents' evening was on Zoom because it was COVID. And they'd be like, oh, he's very quiet. It keeps himself to himself. But he's very intelligent. He loves to learn. They used to sell these things. And they said that, you know, it doesn't really have a best friend. And he plays, but he doesn't really have a best friend.

I used to be like, oh, so colds, you know. And then moving him to the school that he's at now, it was like a whole, like I got a whole different child. Like he didn't want to go and then I was scared that he wasn't going to find any friends. And from the moment he started the school, he's got the same friends now. So it was year three and he's now year six. He's now preparing to go to junior, sorry, secondary school with the same group of friends. he's outgoing he's confident he's like the life and soul of the party and it's just there's just so

much i've just got so much admiration for them because it's just these things as an adult i would shit my pants it's nothing more stressful than getting a new job and having to meet new people and try and fit in or you know get people to love you for who you are you know and the fact that they just do it and surprise us every day is just a feeling that you just can't replace yeah they do they just take it in their stride. And there are things that seem really little. Like before I'd had kids, I would have been like, yeah, all right. What?

They like got on a bus and whatever. But when you have children, you understand, like, how huge these moments and these situations are. And they just make you so proud, don't they? So proud. So, so proud. And there's that bit of you that's just gone, you know, when you sit there and you think, we've actually done it. You know, we're done it.

We're doing it. You know, I've raised a child. Well, three children. But, you know, he's 10. He's going to go to secondary. school. Like we're doing it. We're doing it and he's great. They're all three beautiful humans. And there's just so much pride in that, you know, when you're sending them out into the world and they're achieving great things. There's just so much pride in that, isn't there? Yeah. Brooke,

I hope I was saying that right. Ayla, it's A-I-Y-L-A. A-L-A-A-L-A-L-A-A-L-A. Sorry. What a gorgeous name. Yeah, lovely. And look at her, just going out and smashing it. Yeah. All right. We've got another one here. Thank you. This is the last one. It's says, hi ladies. I'm currently listening to your episode from last week about potty training, and I related so much. My son, who is now eight, was dry during the day from the age of two, but he wore a pull-up at night until he was seven because he just couldn't master being dry overnight. I used to get upset because he'd say, why can't I feel it coming at night, Mom? So rather than letting him get upset about it, we just left him in pull-ups.

I did many a midnight Google search trying to figure out why he wasn't staying dry at night, but I always found people saying it was down to hormones and that it would happen when he was ready. And lo and behold, it did. My daughter, who has just turned three, has been dry day and night since she was two and half with no problem, other than the pooing. Much like Sadie, she would hold it until the very last second and barely touch her bum on the toilet seat before wanting to get straight back off again. She still runs around on her tiptoes now, denying she needs to go until the absolute last

second, but she'll now take herself off to the toilet when she's left with no other choice. So my advice would be, be patient with both. It would all come in good time, however frustrating it feels. P.S. I love the podcast. It kept me company on many long, lonely walks when my daughter was a baby. Lots of love, anonymous. Thank you. That's nice to hear. So I might have two and a half more years of pull-ups then, which I say. I just, you know, I just don't, there's just so many things in the world to be worried about. And I just, right now, I think, I don't know again if anybody can confirm

it or if there is anything gone like the NHS, because there is, there's so much advice. Our thing ours is the NHS Together app. And you can put and find out, and I did Google it when when we recorded the episode last week, there's so much information you can find with regards to, you know, late, late children that are still in pull-ups or are not dry at night. There is so much information that you can find on the NHS website and there is an age. But I just think there's so much going on in their minds that right now there's hormones flying around, there's everything going on, they're growing, they're developing, they're taking everything in from school.

It's just it's just the trigger's not there. But I have full faith that it does come. But if it doesn't, there's also so much support to help. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, I think we're just going to be buying pull-ups for a little while longer. I know. I saw Ellie Taylor, the comedian, put on a video on Instagram the other day.

She was like, I'm in a totally nappy free house. Her daughter and her son, dry day and night. I think her son is the youngest. I think she's just potty trained him. She was like, oh my God. She's like, this is a new era. I don't have to buy any more nappies. Don't have to have that moment, which I have all the time

where you look in the cupboard and go, oh, shit. We've run out of nappies tonight. We've always got to make sure, you know, there's enough in. And I was like, oh, I'm a little bit jealous of her. Like, I'm excited to get to that stage where I don't have to buy a nap or remember to buy nappies anymore. But actually, I was like, I'm not going to stress. I'm on the off.

I think I'm on the opposite. You don't want it to be the last nappy. Oh. I bought two packets. They were on two for 20 pound at Tesco. Sorry, two for 20 pound at Sainsbury the other day. I bought two lots. And I said to Chris, I can't not buy them.

He's in like the last, I don't even know what size he's in, but he's in like the next size, not the last size, the next size up pull up. And I just said to Chris, I don't know if I'm ready to give this up myself. I'm ready to keep buying nappies. That makes me feel like I've still got my tiny baby. And once they're in their pants, I'm like, oh, I know. There's nothing left.

That's it. Oh, no, no. I'm excited to see the back of them. I'm excited to see the back of my overflowing nappy bin that sits, that sits in my shed and stinks of piss. But, you know, each to their own. Each to their own. And I kid myself, every time I go and buy a pack from the supermarket, I'm like,

oh, this might be the last. Should I get the jumbo pack? I don't know if we're going to get through them all. And obviously, inevitably, we get through them all. And then I have to buy more because we're still using them every night. But yeah, I'm not going to, I'm not going to stress about it. You know. It'll happen when it will happen.

Yeah. I'd rather not be up in the night. change in pissy sheets, to be honest with you. You can get them super absorbent ones though. I keep seeing that on my FYP, the ones that are like super, super absorbing. Yeah, I get advertised those as well. And apparently they are good. Yeah.

You know, I'm just too chicken. I think, wait till the fifth. Although you use a moon cup for your periods, you don't use pads or tampons anymore, nothing, but you won't put Jojo in a sheet that's super absorbent that's going to soak up all his way. I guess it doesn't stop the pyjamas being wet. No, no. it. It doesn't stop. It doesn't stop him wean through the pyjamas. I think he would still wake up.

And at the moment, I just want a good night's sleep for everyone to do. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There is that. You know. But thank you. It's very reassuring to hear. Thank you for your messages. If you have any comments, thoughts, or funny stories, why not get in touch? You can email us hello at secretmumpod.com or we're Secret Mumpod on TikTok and Instagram. Next is time for one of your secrets. Back. We love a secret on the Secret Mum Club. And you're all so good at sharing. So Emma, what have you got today? Okay, this one says, hi, Sophie and Emma.

My daughter is 12 and has recently started having sleepovers at her friend's houses. I thought I was prepared for this stage of parenting, but apparently I was not. The first time she went for a sleepover, I asked the mum all the normal questions, who else was going to be there, whether they needed anything bringing over. But then, as I was driving home, my mind started racing. Who else is in the house? Will there be food she likes? What if they stay up all night?

What if they watch something they shouldn't? And then I realised I had become my own mother. The funniest part is that when my daughter came home the next morning, I asked her, did you have a nice time? She just looked at me and said, yeah, we watched TikToks until 2 a.m. Apparently, all of my worrying was completely pointless. I'm now wondering if this is just the beginning of the stage where I spend the rest of my life worrying while she rolls her eyes at me. Love Anonymous. I feel like I haven't stopped worrying.

I just feel like the day they came into the world, I've worried ever since. Yeah. It's a really hard one. It's a really hard one, sleepovers. You're not a sleepover fan, are you? Are you going to let them do it ever? I don't know. It's really hard to say because it's the future

and you know everything changes and you don't know what's going to happen in the future. But I just don't see the need of sleepover. Obviously they're fun. I'm not against anybody that does them and has them and sends their children to them. I think we're all entitled to feel how we want to feel about them. but I don't see the necessary of it.

I think you're going to have your time with your friends. I say to Colby, like if you want to go anywhere, I can pick you up really late. I just don't know the need of sleep because they're going to stay there and it's going to be tired. You know, my sisters, both me and my sister very this much the same is that we don't see the need of a sleepover. But Tobias has them. Eden has them. And Roxanne's mentality on it has come round and changed. So maybe mine will one day, but I'm exactly the same as anonymous in that I don't know who's there, who's coming or going, whether they're going to sleep, whether they're going to sleepwalk.

Colby's a massive sleepwalker. I'm scared about him sleepwalking. I mean, I've got a residential coming up. So he's going on a residential. And my mind is in fucking tatters. I'm in absolute bits at the moment thinking he's going to be on a school trip. He's staying away. We've done one residential before, but I just keep thinking, gosh, there's going to be strangers there that he's never seen.

seen, you know, is he going to eat? Is he going to sleep? What if he's sleep walks? What if he walks out into the forest? There's just so many things that go through my head and I just think, let's eliminate those. But even when I do say to the children, do you want to sleep over, if it's with my sister, yes, with my brother, yes. But anything outside of that, they're both not really that interested in a sleepover. And if I wonder if they're going to be as bigger thing for, sorry, if they're going to be as big a thing for our kids as they were for us. Because for me, it felt like it was a massive part of life. People would have sleepover parties.

I slept over at loads of people's houses. And actually, could have done without it, to be honest. I absolutely hated sleeping away from home. But I think I just did it because it's what everyone else was doing. Yeah. And that's the only thing. I'm not bothered about my kids doing it. And they might not be bothered.

But I never want them to be the only one that's not doing something and be left out, you know. But Kobe has had a sleepover at a friend's house. But it was a really good friend. So I know, you know, I know their family dynamic. I know the parents really well. It was a really safe place. Same as Dottie. Dottie stayed with a friend.

But again, it's people that we know really, really well and trust with our whole heart, you know. So I'm not fully against it, but like Dottie's been invited to sleep over parties, which as a no-no for me, not with a parent that I don't really know in a house with children that I don't know the children. I don't know their parents. I don't know the dynamics. I don't know anything.

So with regards to sleepover parties, no. But even if I say to Colby, do you want to sleep over? He's like, yeah, they're going to stay here, aren't they? They'll come to our house. I'm not sleeping at that. And I'm like, okay. So you would host one. Yeah, which is hard, isn't it?

Because then I'm not doing it in return. But I'll, so the child that we have sleep over and the house that Colby has slept at is the same child. So the parents know us very well. We know them very well. So it tends to be just the same. We've not had anything outside of that other than family. And same with Dottie.

The friend that she slept at is the friend that we have here. I think it's different when it's one-on-one than when it's like, I'd worry if it was like a group of like six or seven girls. Like, I don't know whether it's like what it used to be, but those sleepovers could be savage. A girl turned up back to my school with one of her eyebrows shaved off. So I honestly know that shit. Savage.

But Roxanne does do sleepovers with Evely. But Evely's got, so my sister's, got four best friends. They're like a group of five women. They've been together since preschool and the girls are still best friends now. They're on the same football team and they have sleepovers. But obviously, they're a group of best friend women. So the children are now best friends and they all do sleepovers and stay together. But yeah, I just don't know. It just, it's just something that just doesn't, I think because I'm so traumatized from my own sleepover experiences, like when I used to go for a sleep over. I used to hate it. I never slept. And then I'd cry for my mum to come and pick me up.

Yeah. Same. They weren't fun. The fear my mum put in me every time she picked me up, she'd be so mad, so angry at me. And then she'd be like, I'm not doing this again. And then the next month I'd ask and she'd be like, don't you dare ring me. And I was going to get you up at midnight. I won't. And I remember just lying in the bed like, I can't ring my mom. It's going to kill me. So like maybe it's my own trauma. I hated it. But who knows what will change by the time my kids are at that age. But I think, yeah, I think anonymacy, it just gets to a point where they do just roll their eyes at you. And it's hard because you get to a point where like, you never want to let them go, but you have to loosen the leash a little bit. Otherwise,

they're not going to live their own life. But I am dreading that phase. Let me tell you. And we're all learning, aren't we? We're all learning still every single day. We're doing this for the first time. So as long as you're both being open and honest with each other, this is what mom's scared of. Like this morning, I said to Colby, we had to go through the paperwork of his, of his residential because he's away for five days for his residential. I know. Literally is terrified. And I had to go through like the things and it sounds so stupid and, you know, I hope no one thinks bad of me. But I'm like if anybody, child, person, adult, whoever asks to see you naked or take your clothes off or try to touch you inappropriately, you need to tell somebody and do not do it. But you've got to have these conversations and I always say to Colby, it's not a conversation mommy really wants to have with you.

I'm not saying this is going to happen. But I have to tell you. because if I don't, then you're not going to know what to do or what to say or what to expect. So I'm always really open and honest with the children. And I do say to them, look, it's not conversations that mommy and daddy like having, but we do have to have them. Communication is so important. It doesn't matter on their age. I know she's 12 and people go, well, she's only a child, but she's a young adult.

She still deserves respect. And as long as you're both on the same wavelength, I think that's the most important thing, isn't her? Yeah. But also knowing that you're always there for her as well. I think because unfortunately my mum would get so angry at me not completing a sleepover, it then made me feel worse. And then I try and because I wanted to be just like my friends and they're doing it.

So why can't I? But now, obviously, if there was a situation where, you know, Cobby was like, what am I going to do, mum, if I can't sleep or I'm sad? I will drive and pick you up. It's no issues. I've got no problems with it. And I won't drive and pick him up angry or make him feel small. It's just, you know, it's just one of those things, you know.

Yeah. I'll pick you up at 2 o'clock in the morning. I like to think I'll be that mum, but I'll be fuming about the lack of sleep. No, I will. Maybe you love your sleep. Yeah, I do. I need it. But thank you, anonymous. Yes. Yeah, thank you very much. And have you ever had sleepover anxiety? Then let us know. You can email us, hello at secretmanpod.com or with Secret Mumpod on TikTok and Instagram. And we'll be back first thing on Tuesday. And we'll have more of your messages. on our next Thursday episode. And we'll see you next time on the Secret Mum Club.