National Sleepover Day Date in the current year: May 9, 2025

A sleepover, also known as a pajama or slumber party, is a social gathering where kids or teens spend the night at a friend’s house with minimal adult supervision. Of course, at sleepovers, kids do more than just sleep (hence the “party” part). Popular sleepover activities include watching movies or TV shows, playing games, doing skincare routines or makeovers, listening to music or dancing, telling stories, doing arts and crafts, building blanket forts, baking simple cookies, and talking late into the night. The specific activities vary depending on the age, gender, and interests of the participants. And, of course, there are delicious snacks!

Sleepovers are often seen as a rite of passage for children and young teenagers because they help develop social skills, strengthen friendships, and foster independence. The prevalence and style of sleepovers varies by country for cultural reasons. For instance, they are quite popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia but less common in Asian countries, where there is a greater cultural emphasis on family privacy. In the United States, sleepovers are often seen as a cultural staple. Many teen movies and TV shows, especially those from the 2000s, feature at least one sleepover scene.

Although sleepovers are primarily associated with children and teenagers, they can be beneficial for adults, too. Sleepovers give us a chance to decompress, strengthen friendships by spending time together, provide a safe space for open conversation and emotional support, offer a break from daily routines and responsibilities, and encourage self-care.

National Sleepover Day was launched in 2017 by beauty brands bareMinerals and Sephora, lifestyle magazine Cosmopolitan, and fashion influencer Olivia Culpo. Together, they staged the “ultimate slumber party” right in the heart of New York’s Times Square to promote bareMinerals’ Original Loose Powder Foundation, which was marketed as pure enough to sleep in. The organizers transformed a section of Broadway into a giant bedroom where women could get makeovers and engage in open conversations about their interests and concerns as well as lighthearted pillow talk. The initiative encouraged others, especially women, to host their own slumber parties the following year, and thus National Sleepover Day was born.

National Sleepover Day celebrates spontaneous sleepovers and encourages women around the globe to open up, share beauty secrets, and express themselves using the hashtags #SleepInTheBare and #NationalSleepoverDay. The best way to celebrate is to invite friends over for a slumber party and have a good time: watch your favorite movies and TV shows, braid each other’s hair, make cocktails (it’s an adult sleepover, after all), dance and lip-sync to your favorite songs, and have heart-to-heart conversations.