I sleep under a bedspread (comforter, whatever) and a sheet all year.
The only time I don’t sleep under the bedspread is in motels, I’ve heard they don’t wash them and I believe it.
Does a quilt count? We used to have the standard comforter/sheet combo. But the dogs sleep on the beds, and I absolutely could not find a comforter which a worth a shit after it was laundered. So now we do quilt/light down blanket/sheet.
When I was a kid, we lived near a five star international resort hotel. It had a huge dry cleaning facility that all of our moms used – not so much for clothes, but for bedspreads, drapes, valances, slipcovers, rugs etc. There was a month during, I think, the Spring when they wouldn’t take large items from outside of the hotel because that was the month when they cleaned the drapes and spreads from the hotel rooms. So, I’m thnking that once-a-year-if-you’re-lucky is frequency to expect from hotels.
Your bedroom obviously doesn’t have hardwood floors… The bedskirt is there both to hide the lower mattress and frame of the bed and to keep the dust out from under the bed. We just moved into a house with wood floors in the bedrooms and got a sleigh bed that you can’t put a bedskirt on, so whenever you open the bathroom door a little “tumbleweed” rolls out from under the bed.
sigh I need a roomba
ETA: WTF is up with duvet covers? It’s impossible to find one for under $100, and what are they besides two sheets sewn together? Even when I do see them at department stores they’ll come in three choices, all ugly primary colors. I finally found a dark green cordouroy coverlet (oooh, another type of bedcover) and a satin king-sized sheet which I cut down and sewed together to make a lovely duvet cover. It looks nice for the 16 seconds it stays on my bed before it slides off.
I’m sure if it was on top of the pile of clothes on the bed, I would sleep under it 
And I’ve made some lovely ones by sewing two sheets together.
At home - yes, the bed spread is an important part of keeping me warm.
At a hotel - no, that thing is scratchy and might be unhygenic. My thick warm pajamas will keep me warm.
In my case it’s to hide the dust bunnies under the bed from view. I guess they get there through the unskirted head of the bed??
Someday I’ll have a real bed and not just a metal frame and then I won’t need the bedskirt. But my mom made it for me, to coordinate with a beautiful quilt she made so I keep it on.
I use a duvet, but in hotels, the beds usually have sheets and blankets and if there’s a bedspread I’ll use if the room is cold.
I’m so happy to find this discussion as my sister and I are arguing about it today. She believes a bedspread is for show only but then hers is fancy. My bedspread is plain and lightweight and I put a decorative quilt on top. I sleep under both. She says I’m wrong, you never sleep under a bedspread. I guess, by the replies, there’s no winner to this debate.
This is a fascinating window into a belief system which I have never encountered. In my childhood, one slept on top of a fitted sheet and under a flat sheet, then a blanket or two, then a bedspread. I remember ours were chenille. Although I did go through a grungy period after I left home during which I slept in a greasy down sleeping bag (for years without washing, bleah), upon regaining a vestige of civilization I once again slept in the same sandwich, usually the topmost layer being a quilt of some kind. The reason for the quilt is that dog hair really sticks to blankets.
I must have slept in numbers of guest bedrooms after which the host was too tactful to scream YOU SLEPT UNDER THE BEDSPREAD YOU BOOR! thus preserving my naivete.
I do, but I’m the only person I know who has one - the term I use is an eiderdown, but that has its pitfalls too. It’s the thin, heavy, usually patterned thing that is not a sheet or a blanket or a duvet, and always goes on the top of everything else.
I bought it because it’s machine-washable (despite being gorgeous, William Morris design, looks like I stole it from a museum) and has the weight and thinness I need in summer, when I need some sort of cover, and sheets get too tangled.
In winter it adds tons of extra heat and has that weight that makes you sleepy. Like those weighted blankets people buy, but kingsize and beautiful.
On the occasions that I have a cleaner that changes my bedding they fold my eiderdown at the end as if I’m never going to either sleep under it or look at it, even though I always make up the bed with the eiderdown on the top. No, it’s on my bed in an arrangement that says I’m going to sleep under it, please do that.
My husband’s uncle used to have a rickety old house. The beds had bedspreads over the real bedding. The bedspreads kept the bedding safe from the plaster dust and mouse droppings that fell from the ceiling.
No, of course we didn’t sleep under the bedspread. But we spread it very carefully over the bedding when we left.
I don’t have a bedspread in my home. Just a quilt or comforter (depending on the season) over the sheets. I sleep under those.
I think of hotel bedspreads as more like the uncle’s. They are there to protect the sheets when the bed isn’t being used. They never look or smell like they’ve been cleaned. I don’t take them all the way off the bed, but i fold them down far enough that they aren’t close to my face.
The thing on top of my bedding is a quilt and yes I sleep under it.
I also have different weight quilts for winter and summer.
I’m a big fan of quilts; they are practical folk art.
Objectively, I like them for much the same reason. Both of my grandmothers knitted quilts for me at various points before they died.
Subjectively they’re cat hair magnets that are almost impossible to clean without damaging them. So I never, ever use them.
I don’t see bedspreads around anymore, except in hotel rooms. When I was growing up, there was a bedspread on every bed but they were lightweight, decorative things. When we went to bed we were supposed to fold it down to the foot of the bed and then sleep under the top sheet and a blanket (the kind with the satin edging!). Bedspreads always gave the beds a nice neat appearance. At least they did, when we made our beds!
Now my beds all have comforters or quilts (depending on the season) as the topmost layer. We sleep under them along with the top sheet. When it’s really cold (below 0), I put a polar fleece blanket between the top sheet and the comforter.
This.
I meant to say that my grandmother’s house also had bed spreads. They were clean, but they were decorative and the fabric was knobby, not something you’d want to sleep with. We folded it down neatly before going to bed, and then spread it neatly when we made the bed.
But I’ve rarely seen a bed spread in recent years. I suspect they were more popular when open windows let soot and pollen into the bedrooms, and they protected the more-expensive blankets from getting dirty. But now that few homes burn coal for heat, and many use AC and keep the windows closed much of the year, they just aren’t very useful.
The distinction between comforter and bedspread is new to me, so thanks for that. As they say, ignorance fought!
I’m a warm sleeper. I’ve had comforters, but they’re too heavy for me. I just use a blanket.
Samesees
The only exception is if I am given instructions telling me to put the decorative bedspread (or quilt) aside.
A previous poster asked an interesting question. Is the term “bed spread” synonymous with “quilt” or “comforter”? We have a decorative thick duvet comforter as the “top layer” on the bed. Under that is a more conventional “blanket” then the top sheet. Add to that, we have the decorative pillows for display only. They all come off at night but we do sleep under the duvet cover cover as well if the bedroom is cold enough when sleeping, which, by choice it usually is.