While living with other people, I have often found myself staying up untill 1-4:00am, and sometimes even later than that, even becoming nocturnal, just to have a few hours to myself before heading off to bed. To me, it just isn’t bedtime untill I’ve had time to myself to do whatever I want to do. Watch South Park, enjoy the peace and quiet, read, scratch myself, whatever. My dad used to do roughly the same thing, only he would wake up at 5:00am, and go to bed at 7:00pm to get his peace and quiet. His wife would stay up late. This worked for both of them and gave them time to themselves. Now some people I have lived with (and am now living with) have this annoying habit of staying up with me, which contradicts my staying up late, and just makes me stay up later, school and work the next day be damned. I know as a fact that if wasn’t for me said person would go to bed at an earlier time, and they’re late night presence always leaves me puzzled. I am always considerate of other people and am not very noisy, so just why the hell are they awake bothering trying to make small talk at 5:00am?
Anyone have the same problem? How does your sleep schedule compare to your roomates? Do you go to bed and wake up at times that ensure a few hours to yourself, or do you not feel the need for a sleep schedule like that?
Well, after a few years in college, I had a number of roommates who did exactly that. I was usually in bed around midnight, they would regularly stay up until 2 or 3 or 4 AM. With the considerate roommates, this worked out fine. However, sometimes I would give up and stay up late when I had a roommate who would keep me awake with noise or lights or whatever.
Mostly, I never needed time to myself. Just needed enough sleep in a schedule that let me get to class on time.
Hmmm. Interesting. I’ve been a night person since I got too old for a bedtime. However, I don’t particularly like my family and the house was always noisy and obnoxious during the day, whereas it was quiet and nice if you lurked the night hours. My schedule when I’m not working/doing something inevitably drifts towards sleeping from 4/5am-noon/1pm. I wonder if I am a night person or I became one because of my wanting some time to myself.
I have always been a night person, but having family has made more more so. As it is, I tend to stay up to 4am and sleep in until 10 if I am able. I do this mainly to have time to myself when the phones aren’t ringing and there is peace and quiet in the house. If, however, I lived alone, I think my habits would come closer to bed around 1 and up at 8am.
Huh. I am by nature a night person, and would willingly stay up until dawn and sleep until early afternoon. However, I work. I have a 4-month-old son. I have to coordinate with my job, his daycare, and my wife’s 45-miles-over-two-bridges-and-through-downtown-San-Francisco commute. Not to mention my own commute, which is merely 34 miles, and only involves one bridge and a major artery through Oakland.
So I get up at 5:30 am. Sleeping in is not an option; neither is going to bed early. You see, I put Li’l Label to bed (around 11:00 pm) and get a little time to myself, and get to sleep around 11:30 or midnight. My wife gets up in the middle of the night if he wakes up. Often enough, I wake up too, and I only get 5 hours of sleep. I’m used to that, actually; I’m also used to an evening nap to catch up. Ain’t happenin’. Instead, I leave work around 3:00 pm, get home and take a half-assed nap until a bit before 5. This keeps me alive, and it;s keeping the young’un alive too, because I think I’d strangle him if had to put up with crying and fussing when I’m running 15 hours behind on a week’s sleep.
My wife, meanwhile, goes to bed around 9:30 and gets up around 7:00 am, with the afore-mentioned interruptions. Somethin’ ain’t right here.
I usually feel the need to go to bed after my roommate, I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I like to go to bed with everyone else already asleep. He’s also the sort of bastard that will stay up untill 3 when he has to work at 8. :rolleyes:
Our work schedules pretty much take care of all that for us. He works days, mostly, and I work nights, so he’s often either in bed or heading that direction when I come in. I ratz around with the critters till 4 or 5, until I’m decompressed enough to sleep and he’s deeply enough asleep not to start snoring the second I hit the sheets. I’m generally in bed when he gets up, and he’s gone when I get up, then I’m gone four nights a week. If there’s one thing we both have plenty of, it’s alone time in the house. If anything, we try to shift our schedules together so we actually get to see each other.
I’m always the last person to go to bed wherever I live mostly due to my inherant nocturnal preference and also because, like the OP, I need time alone. When I was still living at home, I would literally get angry with my parents if they stayed up too late and infringed on my alone time. Now that I’ve moved out and am living with others, I try to rein the anger in but am still annoyed when I don’t have some quiet time to myself.
You remind me of a friends mom that I lived with. She stayed awake for a long time. Thinking back, I don’t know if she stayed up because she was used to going to bed after all everybody else was asleep, or because we were competeing for the late night…I think it was the latter. There was a porch outside in between the living room and my friends mom’s room. She could look out of her window, and see me in the living room watching tv. Well I liked to have lights on while I stayed awake, and she didn’t like to shut her blinds on her windows, so she always wanted the lights off. Also, she kept telling me to roll down the tv untill the only way I could have heard it was to put my ear inches away from the speaker. This encouraged me to stay awake later, and in turn, encouraged her to stay awake later. Also, the AC in the house was broke, and sleeping in the heat is something I’m not good at. I simply don’t get tired when I feel hot. I didn’t get a lot of sleep in that house .
Lol. Ironic isn’t it? Used to be your parents telling you to go to bed, now it’s the other way around. My mom points that out every now and then.
I’m one of those people who needs to sleep the same amount of time every night so I go to bed at 1130 every night. Irishfella is happy with 5 hours sleep on weeknights, as long as he can sleep in til 11 at the weekends.
Usually he’ll sit up for an hour or two after me to watch TV or play a computer game, but he wakes me up for a cuddle and a chat when he comes to bed.
I, on the other hand wake him up in the mornings at weekends when I get up, and potter around or SD before he gets up, 2 or 3 hours after me.
Our schedules are not because we need “alone” time, more because we function best on different amounts of sleep. I need a regular amount, he’s happier being on a deficit during the week and lying in at weekends to make up for it.
I feel for you. The first few months of a your kid’s life can definitely be sleep-deprivation time. And it can be tough to balance matters so that both parents are getting some sleep. Does your son still get up in the night a lot? If so, your wife may not be feeling much better than you are. If he only gets up once or less, you might want to re-negotiate. Of course that’s easier said than done.
Furthur never got up at night with our first kid, and I got severely sleep-deprived as a result. It’s awful, I know. Hang in there, dude. Usually around month 4, they start sleeping through the night.
I almost always get up earlier than my husband. I need at least a half hour of alone time per day, and I don’t get it during the day even though I work at home because, well, I’m working. If he happens to get up at the same time or earlier than me, later than night, I’ll just tell him I need some alone time and go to the bedroom to do whatever. If I don’t explicitly state I need alone time, he’ll either follow me to hang out with me, or ask me what’s wrong.
During the school semester, I really don’t have a sleep schedule. It’s whenever I can carve out 4 or more hours of ‘nap time’. I’m actually getting back onto a regular sleep schedule now that the semester is over and it’s really nice.
I do understand about the alone time, however. I grew up in a large family and any time I could get alone was cherished and fiercely gaurded. I also need quite a bit of unscheduled ‘whatever’ time. Which drove a couple of ex’s nuts.
Both my wife and I go to bed between 10 and 10:30 each night, and get up between 6 and 6:30 each morning (weekends excluded - we usually stay in bed 'til 8 or so on weekends).
If we need alone time, we have plenty of house and plenty of land to be alone.
The hubby prefers that I go to bed with him, but luckily we are both ready to hit the hay around 10:30 or 11. (Depends on whether we watch one episode of Whose Line or two. ) Every once in a while I have some work to finish or I just feel like staying up so I’ll go to bed a little later.
He wakes up really early, and cannot go back to sleep once he wakes up, so he gets up at whatever ungodly hour he comes to consciousness and goes downstairs to work on the computer or watch TV, while I always sleep in until at least 7:30. I require a lot of sleep, and always have. We usually carpool, so he comes upstairs to shower at the appropriate time and wakes me up when he’s done.
Usually I hear him come upstairs and spend the time he’s in the shower getting used to the idea of getting up, but sometimes I just sleep through it like a rock.
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) Every once in a while I have some work to finish or I just feel like staying up so I’ll go to bed a little later.