We don't share a bed all the time. I snore.* With the plan being that we both get a decent night's sleep.
However, xelA likes to come and wake me up on the sofa bed super-early. And he insists on waking me up, rather than just climbing in for a cuddle like he'd do in the main bed. So I'm not sure I'm actually getting more sleep.
* I don't actually snore, and I've been for apnoea studies and I have normal sleeping. Instead I just have tiny tiny swollen sinuses caused by an chronic allergy to something they've not been able to identify yet. So it's not classic snoring, it's more that I just breathe really loudly like someone with a very bad cold. It's still annoying for someone sharing the bed, though.
On holiday once with the family (brothers, parents, brother's kids) my folks had the tremendous idea of renting not one medium-sized cottage but two very small cottages about 40 yards apart. Brother, sister-in-law and small kids would go in one, and everyone else would go in the other. The idea was that this would allow the kids to sound reveille as usual at 0530 but only wake up their parents (who are used to it) allowing the rest of us to sleep on until it was time to get up and start strriding vigorrously across the moors at about 8 or so.
In practice, at 0530 every morning the kids woke up, woke up their parents, and then toddled out of the door, down the track, and into the other cottage to wake up their grandparents and uncles as well, while their parents went back to sleep in the silence of a suddenly kid-free cottage.
"This doesn't seem to be working."
"Maybe not for you," my sister-in-law remarked.
Heebie, why did you trick me into watching what is apparently a trailer for a reboot of Doogie Howser, M.D.?
I'm not watching a video about this, heebie! No article or anything??? Lee and I are still sharing a bed because it lets me know when she gets home and because I don't want to be the one to move out of the bedroom. (Also she snores and I'm a light sleeper, but that doesn't factor into our problems particularly.)
I don't snore, but my wife claims I snore.
I alternate between clinging like a monkey holding on to a tree-branch, and elbowing Buck away from me because I'm either too hot or I need to fidget. He seems to tolerate both extremes fine.
My last girlfriend said I snored, but she didn't mind because she always slept with earplugs in anyway. My current girlfriend says I don't snore. It's a mystery!
I'm assuming 6 is your subtle way of informing us that you have a prehensile tail.
I really hadn't meant to be subtle about it.
Mrs. riata values sleeping together, but I hate it. But that's because I tend to have insomnia and she falls asleep in minutes. So, sure, the reading in bed together beforehand is great, but the hours of not being able to sleep, move around enough, and spousal snoring suck.
So, anyway, couples should do whatever's good for them. It's private behavior.
9: And I had guessed detacheable. One that continues to twitch as you scurry away. So more chameleon than gecko.
11: well, technically all tails are detachable. It's just that most of them are not constructed to be easily detachable.
Oh I snore. Bave is polite about it but I have a gut feeling my snoring is on a grand scale. It's just a hunch, though I also wonder if it's hereditary (I mean I don't actually wonder this) since Pa Smearcase sounds like a...lawnmower or freight train or something.
I am not great at actually being asleep with others, but I like the whole cuddling and waking up together part. (Waking up together repeatedly during the night is not so great, though.) Vexing!
re: 14
Sleeping in different rooms is quite compatible with slipping in for a cuddle in the morning. Assuming a small person isn't insisting on Dinopaws, or Krtek, or something.
Sleeping while touching someone else seems like it would be completely impossible. I've never done it. Same bed works great since I'm not a light sleeper.
The dwarf lord and I like cuddling enough that giant hotel beds are annoying. Where arrrrrre yooooooou? Our bed is slightly smaller than a queen, and he's tallish, but we have a firm mattress and a comically firm slat support. Snoring from either party is met with forceful, roll-over cuddling.
I know it gets more difficult to sleep together with age - stiff joints, weird temperatures, truly resonant snores - not looking forward to the change. Also I've been ice-footed and he's been warm our whole relationship, he should have his chance at the reverse after the climacterics.
Sleeping while touching someone else seems like it would be completely impossible.
I thought so too, but, thanks to my very persistent dog, I've learned how.
I would love it if our room was big enough to accomodate a kingsize bed. But sadly it is not.
One of the first signs that my marriage was doomed was the revelation that my then-wife could not bear physical contact during sleep. She had concealed this prior to marriage, sometimes with the assistance of pharmaceuticals. So bedtime became fraught with tension, and we ended up sleeping separately, which is the opposite of what God intended (God intended people to have sex, fall asleep all wrapped up together, and then wake up and have sex again).
Our bed is slightly smaller than a queen
Our Queen is significantly smaller than all but the tiniest of beds.
Cassandane snores, and for a while I kept a pair of earplugs handy just in case, but Breathe Right strips work much better. Hypothetically if they didn't work or she refused to wear them I might have started sleeping elsewhere, but it hasn't come up, and won't be an option going forward. (I could sleep downstairs, I guess, but our house is soon going to be crowded with a baby and grandparents.)
In the winter we like cuddling up, but not these days. We have a queen-sized bed, so that's rarely a problem.
I sleep on my side, facing away from her, as that usually brings my snores into a tolerable range. Otherwise, she applies elbows as necessary to break the snore; I sleep deeply, so never really wake for her kung-fu practice.
Her feet are icy in winder, and she doesn't wear socks to combat it. She loves playing "is it cold?" to which the answer varies between "yes" and "yelp!". In winter she snuggles close, but in summer leaves a gap. I generate a steady, significant heat year round, which draws the cats who often sprawl over my legs.
A woman I dated several years ago referred to the part of the night in which I moved away from her in bed so I could actually sleep, despite my earnest desire to be one of those people who can fall asleep touching another, as the part when I decided I didn't like her more. Not very nice! THANKS FOR THE REMINDER, JESUS.
Couples sleeping, stalkers creeping.
Not very nice! THANKS FOR THE REMINDER, JESUS.
I DON'T SEE WHAT I HAVE TO DO WITH IT.
In bed as in the battlefield, you have to give the last full measure of devotion, nosflow.
I snore but apparently not too loudly. My paramour also snores a bit, so we're even. I have difficulty sleeping with another person in the bed, as it complicates the gymnastics I go through while half asleep and trying not to disturb the cat by my feet. On ordinary nights I end up sleeping relatively well despite being contorted into weird positions, but when my SO is over I'm doubly constrained and it affects the quality of my sleep. While fully conscious I'm quite aware that it's absurd to go through what I do to avoid disturbing my cat, but in the twilight of half-consciousness it seems really important that the moggie be happy and content.
Can't you just shut the door to the bedroom with the cat on the other side?
I had a childhood cat that would sleep on my legs, allow me to slip out to use the bathroom or whatever, and then slip my legs into the exact same position, and we'd continue reading/sleeping/enjoying contentedness. I miss Splotch.
I'm a picky sleeper (total darkness, no ticking clocks, very cold room, white noise provided by a fan, quite firm mattress, don't really want anything but hands touching (at the most) when it's properly sleep time) and fortunately found someone compatible in every way. He occasionally talks in his sleep, apparently I'm a light snorer, so I think we're even in that regard. I do think that sleep is so integral to mental well-being that if you can't sleep together it's more important to get a good night's rest than sleep in the same room.
Can't you just shut the door to the bedroom with the cat on the other side?
Depends on the cat. Our house has two areas where a cat we used to have dug clear through the carpet to the wood floor underneath because he found himself on the wrong side of a closed door.
28 suggests that the thing about fortune cookies sounding better if you append the words "... in bed" to them might also be true for gallantry citations.
Sleeping while touching is good if and only if both people are naked or at least mostly naked. People who try to cuddle at night while wearing pajamas are monsters.
Our bed is slightly smaller than a queen
Is it custom made or where the hell did you get a bed "slightly smaller" than a queen?
Like someone mention above, I have been accused of snoring. But I have not witnessed this snoring so I am certain that it is a conspiracy against me by women.
35, a double or "full" bed is slightly smaller than a queen.
Standards vary by country but at some point I looked up dimensions for our renovations (so we could fit a full bed in a certain space) and I think it was a king is the width of two twin mattresses, a queen is the width of two cot mattresses, and a full is the width of two crib mattresses.
A "California King" is the size of sheets that are hard to find.
shiv and I sleep apart about half the week, when he's up late working, because otherwise, sleep goes like this:
1) I go to bed.
2a) Just as I drift off, he comes to bed and wakes me up.
2b) He comes to bed two hours after I fall asleep, which wakes me up.
3) I lie awake another forty minutes to get to sleep.
4a) The Calabat loses his mind at 2AM and refuses to sleep anywhere but on my face. (~3x a week)
4b) The Calabat loses his mind at 2AM but settles back to sleep in his own bed.
5) I lie awake for another 40 minutes.
6) Cat jumps on me because cat.
7) shiv starts the snore of the lawn mower.
8) I finally drift off again.
9) Calabat is up with the sun. shiv sleeps through it, so I either have to wake him to get the baby, or get up myself.
If he doesn't come to bed, I get at least three consecutive hours of sleep and maybe some more without being snored at.
It's been a particularly rough week and I'm out of solutions, except that if I have a mental breakdown due to lack of sleep, if I'm in the hospital, they'll probably let me sleep.
I'm defo on team sleep-together, to the degree that typically when a relationship ends I miss having a bedmate more than I miss the sex. And it's not because I don't have any of the temperature/snoring/etc. problems people are relating here, or that I can just sleep through anything. Although, maybe it's the opposite; I'm generally such a shit sleeper than being awakened by those things is no different than the shitty night's sleep I'd be having on my own, except that when I'm awake I get to have cuddles instead of staring at the ceiling feeling sorry for myself.
But I can compromise! I had one boyfriend who strictly forbade spooning so once he was asleep with back inevitably to me, I would scootch up behind him in spooning position, and then plant my forehead in between his shoulder blades without touching anything else. Worked for me and never woke him up.
Why just king and queen? In a proper bed taxonomy, each size would have a corresponding royal or noble rank.
But I can compromise!
Me too. I have made allowances for bodily separation during summer, because apparently I am a furnace. (...laydeez)
Back in January '14 we bought a tempurpedic-style mattress topper. It is completely amazing and transformational, but there is this heat-trapping issue. Last summer, I was pregnant, and so we just cranked the AC down out of sympathy for my desperate state. This year, we're doing a normal AC thing, and the topper is...kind of driving me insane. I feel like I'm laying on a furnace, and I keep trying to find a cool spot to shift around and find.
Now some companies sell mattresses made of memory foam topped with regular foam, because of weirdo hot sleepers like you.
Cala, ouch so much sympathy! Can you get one night a week of sleeping alone and other parent completely in charge of child? At least then you would have a fighting chance of maintaining sanity & physical health.
I think VW had some blue mattress topper he recommended that was more expensive, but hey, that's why we tried the topper instead of buying a new mattress.
What if you got a water bed and put a memory foam topper on it that was still thin enough to be cooled by the water and the whole 1975 vibe?
I sleep through nearly anything as long as I fall asleep first (which I usually do). I think the worse sleeper should get to pick the temperature/light level/noise level, etc (or be able to ask for separate beds), although nothing seems to help the poor boyfriend sleep well. He's a very light sleeper and hates to disturb the cats. If he starts snoring, he wakes himself up. I do miss reading in bed, but the light bothers him. (Yes, any light.)
The absolute worst bedmate I've had (including the dude who snored like a power saw) was my sister on childhood road trips. She grinds her teeth and steals all the covers. I have no idea how her husband manages.
48: wouldn't the mattress topper just sink after a few minutes?
I do miss reading in bed, but the light bothers him. (Yes, any light.)
The red, pulsing glow at the end of a cigarette?
I'm kind of surprised heebie doesn't already have a water bed. It seems very heebie.
The absolute worst bedmate I've had (including the dude who snored like a power saw) was my sister on childhood road trips.
Indeed. My sister kicked constantly. (I suppose she may have gotten better....)
We very seldom sleep apart, perhaps once or twice a year. A few weeks ago, a week after graduation, I drove out to Iowa with a truck to pick up my son and his stuff. My wife had a very hard time getting to sleep at home, she said.
We always use a noisemaker: air purifier, fan or air conditioner. If she falls asleep first I may watch tv with close captioning. If I fall asleep first she reads, plays a game or surfs on her tablet.
A few years ago her brother in the furniture business offered us a tempurpedic king with controls, actually two singles pushed together. It was a return of an old model for an upgrade, and even drastically discounted it was more than we'd have spent. Still, we scraped the money together and upgraded from our original marital queen. The impact was startling, curing ailments we hadn't known we had, and spoiled us for anything less.
I can sleep anywhere, it seems, but my wife can't and now beds have become an issue whenever we travel. This past weekend, our annual honeymoon reenactment, the bed at the BnB was better than average and still she didn't sleep well until the third and final night.
35.3: its just older than standardized store bought mattresses. My mother still sleeps on rope springs. We bought the largest mail-order foam mattress that would fit and added a piece of foam at the foot for a little more length... I don't know what my mother's mattress is. Surely a modern one.
Swope FM, I have done the forehead thing too. When I wake up convinced that nothing is trustworthy and it will never change it's comforting to lean on a sound sleeper and match breathing.
53
Yep. My sister kicked me out of bed and into the nightstand once and sent me to the emergency room. And she snored.
I've increasingly developed some impressive snoring as I've aged, especially if I'm drunk. If my wife's repeated elbows don't do the trick sometimes she retreats to the queen bed in the guest room across the hall.
Our regular mattress is a king size latex and it's glorious. My wife is the opposite of a cuddly sleeper. My air isn't even allowed to touch her. (Jabs me in the ribs, "STOP BREATHING ON ME")
We have a Tempur-pedic mattress, which we love (and which is probably giving us cancer or something), and we just got a mattress for the guest room, which I don't find quite as comfortable, but which is pretty nice for the price.
We slept on a waterbed from 1981-2009. The son took it to college, and ended up putting a topper on it -- setting the trend, obviously. The waterbed's in my garage now, if anyone wants one.
(AIMHB, I traded a shotgun for it. My dad, who'd given me the gun, wasn't impressed, but I definitely came out ahead on that deal.)
We'll be driving home from your town in mid-august.
We're leaving for Canada later than usual this year, so maybe we'll still be here . . .
"annual honeymoon reenactment" - this totally cracked me up, an I am sure entirely inaccurate image of military reenactment in the boudoir scenario came to me!
58: those don't seem to be tufted at all. That plus the carefully earnest branding makes me spitty, though not as much as the "Field Notes" brand, may they get chiggers in their undies.
Our mattress is foam-in-a-box of a different name, which I can't remember though Josh had one too.Maybe Bay Area based.
My problem is that Tim can't sleep without the radio on. There are certain BBC programs I can take, but there's one Canadian program with loud bits at the end of each segment which keeps me up. he has wireless earphones that he can use with the computer, but he complains. I wish that I could train him to switch to white noise.
The only waterbed I've ever seen in the wild belonged to a friend's parents. It had satin sheets on it, which I knew even as an 11-year-old signified that they like to get it on.
OT: What do you call a bolt with two threaded ends? Ideally with a small flat area in the middle that can hold a wrench.
I am so envious of those of you who can sleep right away.
A friend of mine in junior high not only had a waterbed for his bed, but had mirrored ceilings and a blacklight in his bedroom.
Was it Jack Tripper's skeezy friend Larry? Or Sam, from Cheers?
66: Or they're black and don't like wrapping their hair at night (and you know Rachel Dolezal would be all about headwraps, so don't start!) which is why I bought done for our bed and also fitted crib sheets for Selah. They're cool and refreshing for the folks who run hot but the cheap ones I got from Amazon pilled.
had a waterbed for his bed
That seems somewhat extravagant. Did he also have a La-Z-Boy for his Barcalounger?
I tend to sleep cold, enough so that I have a decent tolerance for warm nights, but am almost too hot* to be comfortable if someone else is present. Which I guess means it's good that I usually sleep alone.
*Ladeez.
72 -- We briefly rented a house in Billings that had a mirror on the bedroom ceiling. (And we a waterbed, obsly.) For folks who haven't tried that out, it's kind of funny: too far away for people who are nearsighted, and actually pretty far away for someone with good eyesight, especially in low light.
My daughter was born around 9 months after our first week there, so there's that.
63: you've been reading too much Thurber.
77.1 needs to be worked up into a routine about serious neck strain.
21: I find that when I sleep with Mamie, we both prefer opposite sides of the bed. But when I sleep with Miss Summersby, we linger in an embrace that can last all night. So, yeah.
Heebie: everyone already told you this- get a wool mattress-topper-topper!
I am a terrible, terrible co-sleeper. I like it fine, but I am a furious thrasher in my sleep and I always end up punching people in the face by accident. Or kicking them as I rotate my way around the bed mid-dream. Also I roll myself up in all the blankets and then wake up suddenly from being too hot and have to violently rearrange everything so I don't suffocate.
I don't snore though. And I don't care if anyone else does.
80: For obvious reasons, you don't go into much detail, but that doesn't sound like a well designed experiment. I can't tell if the factor you are trying to vary between conditions is love or sexual attract or just something exogenous to the individual woman, like more frequent contact or a more recently begun relationship.
I'm not nearsighted, and a mirrored hotel ceiling in Vegas was...mostly funny. Not sexy. Fortunately the other half is nearsighted.
81: my secret belief is that it will be like the smartwool socks, which everyone swore were all-weather, but are...all northern weather, perhaps? Not that we keep our house any hotter than anyone else, so I suppose it shouldn't matter.
I thought it went double 4'6", queen 5', king 5'6" and superking 6'. Anyway, ours is 6'. We very rarely touch accidentally. I do like to sleep snuggled up, but C just can't get to sleep like that, although every now and again he will gamely try. (And then wake me up extricating himself.)
Catherine of Braganza would allow me to fall asleep holding her but then elbow me savagely just as I went under which is a very bad time to wake up. My lovely orange seller sleeps enthusiastically wrapped round me, which I like a lot. But there is also a particular pleasure in waking alone in the palace, without even any servants, and being able to spread out like a starfish* all over the bed. Nelly and I did share a four poster on Our state visit to Moravia but it was so large that One was in some danger of waking in Bohemia.
*with one very truncated limb
85. That's right for British beds but I don't know how universal it is. There are also IKEA size and those horrible French things that are like a slightly oversized single. (To be fair, the French seem to have got over those for the most part.)
We have a queen, couldn't handle anything smaller, although when we were younger and more agile we could sleep on a 4' 6" or even a 3' at a pinch. We like to be able to be in contact while we're both awake and definitely not while asleep. We're both occasional snorers, but both able to respond to "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" without actually waking. (These days I'm on so many meds that have soporific side effects that I'd sleep through Gabriel's horn, she not so much.) Temperature is the big one, although I'm coming to like warmer more as I age.
*with one very truncated limb
On you maybe.
We have a queen
Yes, we know. I'd say hold out and avoid upgrading for as long as you can.
88: So that's why they call you a pointy head bastard
90. This gives some international comparisons. I think it has UK/Ireland King and Queen sizes mixed up, though. Main lesson, if you move to another country you need to take your bed or buy a whole new set of sheets.
I hadn't thought about this in years, but I experienced the difference in bed sizes growing up, after we moved to the States.
Apparently the Canadian double was about 1.5 to 2 inches wider then than the one in the US. When my parents replaced their mattress & box spring in due course they found it wouldn't fit their prized but rather inflexible bedstead. They ended up fitting extender brackets onto the rails, but they didn't work very well and I can remember my dad waking me up when I was a teenager to help him shove the mattress & box spring back onto its brackets.
I know that lots simple adaptations would have worked better but I wasn't into that or suggesting it then.
My problem is that Tim can't sleep without the radio on.
That would be a relationship deal-breaker for me. Honestly, could never, ever sleep in that situation.
95 I sleep to BBC Radio 4, NPR, or various podcasts usually from same (Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time, Leonard Lopate) no music though, it wakes me up.
I'm a furnace when I sleep and for the first time I have a king size bed in my job provided accommodation but, alas, no one to share it with. Ladeez.
96.2: You may be in the wrong place for snuggling, then. Maybe you could work at McMurdo Station.
Hey, I've got the AC cranked to 65 in here. Also totally willing to wear earbuds.
Mrs. Ego has trouble sleeping without the TV on. (Actually, she has trouble being awake without the TV on. The TV is always on.)
Fortunately, the TV does not keep me awake. When I'm sleepy, I sleep.
Size: the length and width of our bed is normal, but I find the thickness of the mattress weird. Particularly since we got a new bed frame around the same time as the new matress and didn't realize how much higher they would both be together. Cassandane uses a stepladder to get up there. I asked several times if she wanted to send the matress back, but she said no. (The stepladder is mostly due to the pregnancy; 10 months ago getting into the bed was merely awkward for her but didn't actually require tools.) Mirrors: none of the ceiling, but the closet door is nice occasionally.
I've been considering adopting a policy of just sleeping on the floor. But my apartment has old and kind of questionable carpeting so I don't know how comfortable I am with that, especially in the summer when everything is kind of humid. On the plus side though it means I'd always be able to sleep on something essentially equivalent to my bed at home, no matter where I was.
What if the sleeping couple in question is not yet adult? That is, Sasha has started dating and she and the Beloved like to "nap" in front of the TV. I personally would prefer if they slept apart, but I have no reason to think there's anything irresponsible going on. Kid passes all the necessary background checks, a good egg. Am I a good First Mom for not freaking out? Or a terrible First Mom for not insisting they leave room for the Holy Ghost?
Hmmm. Is this in a common TV room with others occasionally passing through? If so, seems okay and bundling-ish to me, though I might make sure there were no large blankets. Falling asleep in Sasha's room "because that's where the TV is" I wouldn't be down with.
How much space can the Holy Ghost occupy, anyway?
Is Sasha using reliable birth control? Does she have a good understanding of STD prevention, i.e., still can't skip a condom if you're on the pill?
105: Yeah, she gets all that stuff. And she gets all the non-physical aspects of consent and emotional issues. I have every reason to assume whatever choices she is making are thoughtful ones. I'm weirded out nevertheless.
Just do like John Travolta/Nicolas Cage in Faceoff and give her a dagger in case she needs to cool things off.
I would relax about it. She'll get up to whatever she'll get up to, and it'll probably be somewhat more restrained and sensible if it's on your couch rather than out in a cornfield (or your local equivalent).
