I am so, so tired. And my poor husband has a cold and is snoring the walls down in our bedroom. The spare room is completely filled with boxes and furniture because we’re redoing the basement floor, so I don’t have anywhere else to sleep but the couch. Unless I poke him in the ribs and see if he flips over…
How do you deal with a snoring spouse? Be kind and sleep elsewhere? Earplugs? Timid sheet-pulling or bed-wiggling to try and get them to roll over without them quite waking up to get grumpy at you?
OMG Antigen I can sympathize! I used to snore and my DH would stamp his foot on the bed to get me to roll over. Only to start again, he said. Then I lost 30# and quit snoring.
My sister snores like a 400# grizzly and I mean LOUD!
Nothing deters her - its her neck that is the problem: short wide neck. She wont lose weight or have a sleep study to diagnose why she snores so I just get a separate room when we travel together.
Cant you clear out some junk from the spare room and sleep there? or the sofa - at least you wouldnt have the noise pollution. Sounds like its a self-limiting problem anyway, he doesnt snore when he doesnt have a cold? Maybe a decongestant would help too. Sorry, hope you get some rest tonight! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
That’s why I feel so bad complaining - I was congested for three weeks with a sinus infection and he put up with me. But he’s a super deep sleeper and I wake up if he sneezes in the next room, so I’m at a huge disadvantage. If I’d fallen asleep first, I’d be okay, but he went and passed out immediately and now he’s just roaring in there. He sounds miserable.
Wondering how likely I would be to choke him to death if I dripped NyQuil drop by drop into his open mouth… (kidding)
I am probably the exception to the rule, but it is my wife who is the snorer in our home. I usually try to nudge her to roll over and then it stops, for a while, but eventually I may give up and just move to the guest bedroom or couch after several attempts. After a few days I am as tired as when my kids were infants - bleary and battle-worn, so I “start” about a night a week in the other bedroom and let me tells ya, that catch-up night is very welcome, indeed.
A friend of mine uses wax earplugs, but I have never tried them.
It’s not going to help you tonight, but if you’re a light sleeper, a white noise machine will help you immensely. I’m a light sleeper and apartment dweller and owner of animals, which are not conducive to sleeping when irregular noises wake me. I use a cd on repeat in the bedroom with a white noise recording, but there are also unobtrusive machines that can go on the floor between bed and nightstand. It helps mask the irregular noises by keeping a nice, steady white noise going and I sleep like a baby. Without it, not so much.
Low-tech options are stuff like putting a tennis ball inside a sock and pinning it to the back of the snorer’s sleepshirt, so they don’t stay on their back. Earplugs for you, and maybe resolving to sleeping on the couch tonight. Taking the NyQuil yourself doesn’t sound like a half-bad option for tonight, either. (sorry)
Things were quiet enough for long enough for me to get to sleep, thank goodness. There will be a dose of decongestant administered with dinner tonight.
I’m starting to think that’s a really good idea. My tinnitus already does a good job covering the world with a gentle hiss, but maybe the machine would improve things.
I shared a motel room with three friends when we went to see the Indy 500. The first night there, three of us were wide awake due to the fourth dude’s snoring.
No-nonsense Clem got up and held a pillow over snorer’s face. He thrashed around for a bit, then Clem let him up. No snoring the remainder of the trip, but there was some lingering antipathy on snorer’s part.
My husband is normally easy to startle awake, and tends to stay awake for a long time after this happens.
Unless he’s snoring. Then he is in such a deep state of sleep that I can, often, literally push on his shoulder hard enough that (were we awake and standing up) you’d think I was trying to physically move him aside and walk through the spot he’s in, and he doesn’t even pause in snoring. (He often sleeps on his side facing away, and finding his nose to pinch it in that situation is difficult.) Sometimes, shaking the bed will work to alert him something is up, and he’ll shift and that often shuts it down. When it doesn’t help, I just get up and sleep on the couch.
My ex snored LOUDLY. He finally went to the doctor and got a mouth guard thing that fixed it (I did not benefit from that but that’s what he told me, because the other soldiers in other rooms during their deployment were complaining, that’s how loud it was). With him and with other men I’ve plugged their nose until they open their mouth…it helps at least for a bit. Plus I got a tiny perverse thrill out of it.
Do like ALL men snore, or am I just spectacularly unlucky? I’m such an awesome sleeper. I don’t move, I don’t snore. But I’ve never slept with a man like that.
My wife and I slept in separate rooms for 7 years because of my snoring. Then I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and my CPAP machine keeps me quiet all night now. Well mostly. The mask sometimes leaks and “honks”. Now I get a push when I’m honking instead of snoring.
Depends on mood and other factors. The occasional grumble, nudge/shove to get him to turn over, or adjourning to the couch have all been valid options at various times.
Yeah, not in our house. I am a stomach/side sleeper and I snore like a damned chainsaw [and it is documented that it is not sleep apnea related. I just seem to snore like a chainsaw when I do manage to get to sleep. Seems to run in the family, my dad could pretty near shake the house with his non-apnea snoring.]
Advice from my army days:
earplugs…earplugs!!!..EARPLUGS!!!
the kind made from silicon or waxy stuff.
Roll 'em in your hands to soften them up, and stuff them firmly, deeply into your ear till it completely seals the ear. Yes,it hurts just a tiny bit because, I dunno, you’re changing the air pressure inside your ear canal or something. It’s irritating at first, but after 10 minutes, you get used to it, so you can ignore the funny feeling of the silicone, and also get used to the strangeness of being disconnected from the world because you are almost deaf. But it works wonders…you can sleep soundly.
Try it…it works! When I was sharing a tent with 25 other guys, I never heard the snorers.
This has been my exact experience, only it is my wife who used to snore (sounded a bit like a cross between a motorboat and a chainsaw), and now she only honks once in a while too.
