I’m reading a book about France and the French written by a Canadian couple: Sixty Million Frenchmen can’t be Wrong by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow. (It’s a very good book, by the way). One of the exotic habits they attribute to those wacky French is that they sleep with the bedroom door closed (in their example, the older French couple had houseguests).
Well, I haven’t slept with the door opened since I was about eight or nine years old, houseguests or not. It just seems natural to me. Is there a big U.S.-Canadian difference here, or am I just weird?
Sorry, I’m not Canadian. I do sleep with the door open, but only enough to let the dog in and out (he is a bit pampered). I used to sleep with the door closed and the window open (enough to let the cat in and out).
If I had no dog/cat I would sleep with the door and window closed for perceived-privacy reasons.
Ya can’t really go by us. Mr zoogirl and I sleep in the livingroom 'cause it’s a really tiny house and the boys have one bedroom while the critters, computer and stored stuff take up the other. We have the kind of couch that makes up into a bed by letting the back drop down.
When we did have a room, the door was optional until we had kids. Once they were mobile, it was closed. We did leave it open if someone was sick, though.
Seriously, I’ve always prefered sleeping with it closed (window open a crack for air - even in winter). All our family has done that, so I’ve done it that way since I was a kid. Occasionally my son will have an attack of the Scary Monsters Under the Bed[sup]TM[/sup] and will come and sleep with us. Then, I’ll leave the door open a bit with the hallway light on, so that he doesn’t flip out even more at the dark.
I love sleeping in total, complete and utter darkness. I think that’s another reason I like it closed.
Open. In fact, I took the door off the hinges and stored it behind a bookcase because I didn’t see any reason to EVER have it closed. (I live alone though).
Open always. Ever since I moved out of may parents house, I’ve always had the door open.
I like a bit of soft reflected light, I like the feeling of more space and I hate the stuffy smelly bed-air smell when the door is closed. It only gets closed if we have guests over, otherwise as wide open as possible.
When I was a child, my parents always left my sister’s and my door open while sleeping, they left their own door open too (except for the occasional you know). I always thought that was normal. Then on TV shows I saw people closing their kids’ doors when sleeping. Always struck me as weird.
When I was teenagery I always kept my bedroom door shut, for privacy and such.
Irish/English couple. Closed until we got a cat, but now slightly open so the cat can come in early in the morning and stomp on my balls when she wants to be fed.
Ours is usually open unless we have guests. I suppose the habit started when our daughter was a baby and we wanted to be sure to hear her if she woke during the night. Then we wanted it open to hear her come in at night.
Part of the reason in our present house is that the heat/air conditioning seems to favor our room over the rest of the house, so we leave it open to equalize the temperature. Otherwise, we’d be sleeping in an oven in the winter and the rest of the house would have frost.
I sleep with the door most of the way closed, to help minimize light. I leave it cracked open because otherwise my cat will decide at 5 am that she needs in now and scratch furiously at it.
I prefer sleeping with it open, but since I wake up a couple of hours later than everyone else in my house and they tramp around and yell in the morning, I currently sleep with it closed.
Well… when I had a room last I slept with the door shut.
I had roomies and it was the best way to get privacy, and keep the noise down from the living room. (I had to train him to knock before coming in though… and then to pause after knocking… that way he wouldn’t walk in on me lazing about naked…). Before that it was to have privacy from Grandma.
ATM I don’t have my own room but we are moving soon… and I will be keeping the door open so I can hear Caterpie when he cries.
We sleep with it open, but should know better. In the event of a fire or a CO leak in the house, you are much safer and stand a better chance of surviving with the door closed.
