The running joke about having a playdate with a friend to “catch up” is that no “catching up” ever really happens.
Parents are lucky to get one topic fully discussed between opening snacks, running to fix a “boo boo,” and making sure the kids are taking turns, etc. Moms typically need to schedule another separate, kid-free evening to actually connect.
One mom on TikTok may have actually cracked the code to a successful playdate where parents can actually enjoy their time together. Enter: The All-Day Playdate.
“This is the key to actually getting to enjoy time with your friend while simultaneously having your kids play together,” Cameron Oaks Rogers explained in her viral TikTok. “One of my best friends and I do this all the time. It’s our favorite thing to do on the weekends. We live about 30 minutes from each other, but our two boys align in age, and our older boys are inseparable.”
“We do all-day play dates,” she explains.
So, what’s an all-day playdate?
She says she goes over to her friend’s house with her kids in the morning. They’ll all play, hang out, and do the typical playdate stuff, but instead of going home for naptime, Rogers brings pack and plays for her kids, and they have a nap sleepover!
She goes on, “You bring pack-and-plays, you set it up in random spare rooms, and then everyone’s sleeping at the same time. And then you have those two hours of nap time when everyone’s asleep to actually enjoy yourself with your friend and converse without chasing around kids all the time.”
When the kids wake up from their naps, the playdate continues until dinner time when they all eat together.
“And it’s an all-day play date, and we love it, but it’s the best day of the week for our kids because they get to pretend they live together, which is probably their dream,” she joked.
Users on TikTok shared their thoughts on this concept of an “all-day” playdate.
“Having friends you can do this with is THE BEST,” one user wrote.
“My bestie and I started doing that with our firsts. Now we both have two kids and we have family sleepovers!” another said.
Another praised the idea, writing, “COMMUNITY!!!”
“We call it a napover,” another wrote.
“Wait, love!” the OP replied.
While this is obviously something that parents could only do with someone they felt really close with (and with kids that would nap in other places), it’s kind of brilliant.
