Separate Beds?
 

Remember the 1950's sitcoms - I Love Lucy, etc. - where married couples had separate twin beds? I doubt that happened in reality, but after I had to share a bed (that is, once the novelty wore off) I was kind of envious.

Granted there is something sweet about cuddling up with the one you love, reaching over in the middle of the night to feel a warm body comfortingly close to yours.

But it's not so sweet when that warm body snores or flails around, kicks, etc. or does other things in the middle of the night to wake you up when you'd be willing to pay money for a good night's sleep.

News article on this topic:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/perso...ef=mpstoryview

Part of the problem is that we only have a full size bed, not a nice, luxurious queen or king. We get king size beds in hotel rooms and there's so much room, we're reaching across and saying "Hellooooo over there!" But our bedrooms have always been small, and it's just what we're used to. Oh well.

But I don't think bed size is the real issue. I'm like a kid that has to share a bedroom with a sibling -- I want my own room! I want to be able to watch TV, surf the Internet, read, etc. in bed without someone grumbling about it and making me put it all away because it's HIS bedtime. I don't want to apologize every night, multiple times, because I snore. I snore LOUD. Sorry. Sometimes I even wake myself up snoring.

I love my hubby and I ain't about to give up certain other recreational activities, but my own bedroom would be sweeeeet!

Anybody else ever feel this way? Done anything about it?

I don't have my own room but I do have my own office, which is just like my own bedroom except it doesn't have a bed. If that makes any sense whatsoever. ;)

Hermia and Lysander didn't have alarm clocks that went off at 6:30 a.m. :D

I sleep on the couch, the ex gets the bed. He owns it.

With my ex hubbie, one of us used to sleep in the spare room consistently. Our body clocks were totally different and neither of us used to be very heavy/good sleepers. The best way around it was separate beds...awesome. We both had queen size beds to ourselves.

My parents are in separate rooms/beds now....Mum couldnt put up with Dad's snoring and tossing/turning.

Best thing they ever did she reckons.

My Mum often sleeps in the spare room now, because of Dad's snoring.
When I come to stay she has to go and sleep on the sofabed, which makes me feel guilty.

I don't think they'd ever go the whole hog and have separate bedrooms though, when Dad was in hospital Mum admitted she found it hard to sleep in the bed alone!

I have to say when I went from living with a partner to living alone, one of the most wonderful things about it was not having to share bed/bedroom, and not having to just lie there awake and quiet when unable to sleep. No air of disapproval if I am typing away at 4 am, no problem if I want to run a bath at 3. Can't sleep? Put on light, turn on radio and have smoke and a read...

One of the things I hated, when i had my brief fling with D, was the bed-sharing aspect. I didn't mid being over at his place (at first) and waking up there in the morning...didn't much like him being at mine though. That's my territory (MINE!) and frankly I don't want to share it, except with a dog.

Most of all I hated the actual physical sharing of the bed. I am profoundly restless in bed lol, I am never still. It comes with having eczema, or just the fact I am quite a restless person physically. I am up and down all night like a yoyo, what with 1am snacks, 2 am baths, radio news at 5am and sudden 4 am need to check diary to make sure I am not supposed to be anywhere in the morning...

I'm a nightmare for someone else to live with. Trying to contain all that makes it a nightmare for me:P


[eta] personally I think twin beds seem an eminently sensible solution to the problem of trying to cram two adult bodies into a fairly small space for sleeping. Especially if one of the adults concerned is a big bloke with a tendency to drift slowly across the mattress gradually pushing you over to the very edge...

Dana: my wife has that same problem. That and the Amazing Expandable Dogs!

one reason why I'm happily single with no further aspirations for partnerhood.

I like to sleep with my knees sticking out at an angle. Makes cuddling difficult.

And Juniper: I can assure you, the 50s separate bed thing DID happen in reality. I remember that my parents had separate twin beds for a while there in the late 50s and early 60s. It was obviously a "sign of the times" thing, because in the next house we moved to--a king sized bed.

We don't have separate beds, but Selene does alternate sleeping places between Kaleigh and I, so when I'm not at Tree Fae's place, I have the king sized waterbed to myself about half the time. Took me awhile to get used to sleeping alone, but I've got it down now.

well be that as it may every body that haz seperate beds , I will put up with all the snoren , Bed stealen and cover stealen , I have problems sleeping alone any more

Huh. I can understand separate rooms easier than I can understand separate beds in the same room. That's just an odd image to me.

I think Flint and I would take up as much room in a twin as we do in our Queen... we are both snugglers... sometimes we have little visitors... and there is still room... lots of snuggles all around

I remember one set of grandparents having separate twin beds in one room since forever, but turns out it was due to lack of space. While they were moving into their new house, my grandmother took me on a tour, and proudly showed off where her room would be, with her closet, and lovely view of the orchard. I don't think she was repulsed by my grandfather or anything like that; she just wanted to be independent and have her own space.

Separate beds? No way! My husband and I are snugglers...we gotta be close to each other when we sleep. Neither of us will consider jobs where we have to travel, for that very reason.

My parents always shared a bed...a king size bed...but they never slept in separate ones. But my dad has always traveled for work. My grandparents always had separate rooms...since I have known them, anyway.

My first wife and I slept in separate twin beds (it was a furnished apt) but we pushed them together for snuggling and.... well, you know. Anyhoo, don't do this, if you do and one of you gets too close to the centerline, the beds split open and you fall on the floor. Take my word for it.

There is a joke about a couple who have separate bedrooms (English, I think, FWIW) and the wife is giving a tour of her house to a guest. She points out her own bedroom and down the hall she points out her husband's room. Perplexed, the guest asks "So you sleep in separate rooms? How does that affect your love life?"
"Well,if my husband wants to have sex he just knocks at my door."
"But suppose you want to have sex?"
"Then I go to his room and ask 'Did you just knock?'"

I prefer to have my own bed and we nearly always sleep in 2 beds while traveling, for both our sakes. I have a twin sister and so my own space at last is a Big Deal. Sleep is also a Big Deal. If you get better sleep apart, then it's fine. And hey, he knows where to find me even in the dark. Snoring does have its good points. :)

Personally, I haven't slept in a bed alone for -thinks- probably close to a decade. And now I'm sleeping alone again. I really prefer the security of reaching over and finding my significant other right there within touching distance. After all, what if a mouse got into the bedroom? I can't catch it and put it outside all by MYSELF now, can I??

For awhile my wife was having a difficult time sleeping through the night. So she talked to me and asked if I would be hurt about it. After 26 years, I really wasn't too concerned. I actually liked the idea. In retrospect - maybe too much. Anyway, she moved into the spare bedroom and slept great for about a week. Me... I never slept better! She asked me how I was doing and I told her exactly that. I guess she didn't like that response because the next day, when I got home, she had a new bedspread, pillows, and a real sexy nightie. Oh, almost forgot... the remote was on my nightstand!

lol - It worked - good job!

Sometimes I wish I could sleep in a separate bed. Im a light sleeper and my husband is heavy toss-and-turner...bad combination. The best sleep I get is in the morning after he leaves for work.

While researching sleep positions, I came upon this WikiP. article on "the family bed" where kids sleep with at least one parent, which is the opposite of the separate beds discussed here.

It's kind of interesting, because it says it's practiced everywhere in the world except for mostly the English speaking countries. Also, the arguments for and against are pretty conflicting, for example, separate and together people say their way prevents SIDS.

I certainly co-slept with my children at times when they were little.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-sleeping

I slept with our kids too. Sometimes in our bed, sometimes in theirs. Nights were like musical beds. :) It's like this - as long as everyone sleeps, who cares where?

Same here... neither of my kids ever slept in a crib or a toddler bed. There's just nothing in the world like cuddling up with a baby...

And Jim snores like an animal. He's had his own bed since forever.

oh, but it's "frowned upon." It's bad because the kids becomes dependent, supposedly. They're supposed to be much happier all by themselves in a cold crib, with prison bars, and without pillows. On their backs.

Okay, that was snarky, and I do realize that kids sometimes need to learn to sleep comfortably by themselves, but the attitude still seems to me a remnant of the same sensibility that decreed separate twin beds for the adults. No cuddling allowed!

But if the kids are in your bed, every night... how do you ever manage to make more kids?

Teach them to operate the camera. :blush:

I know a few families who did the family bed thing and I recognize it as a legitimate way of doing things. For us, we had the newborns in the room directly adjacent to us in a bassinet for the first couple months. Night feedings are a lot more convenient that way. But we moved them into their own room after a couple months. Worked just fine.

They sleep like corpses. You do need a decent sized bed, though, otherwise the darlings can get catapulted on a deep thrust. I imagine.

That's what kitchen tables are for. D'uh.

That's just wrong. Kitchen tables are for putting things on. Lots of things. So it's like an avalanche when anyone tries to clear a space to eat breakfat.

I would recommend against kids in the bed thing for anything other than the rare thunderstorm or nightmare. Otherwise, out. I think it contributes to dependence.

A family that sleeps together, (bleeps) together. :haha:

WTF? What thread were you looking for?

"bleeps together" reminded me of bleating deer.

:rolleyes: Little early in the morning to be hitting the sauce, dude.

Yeah, I hate it that my kids can depend on me, their mother, even at night. Little fuckers are weaned, I don't know why they don't have jobs and their own places by now...

Srsly though, is your opinion based on research, 5 million years of human evolution, or just that you didn't do it that way?

Spare bedrooms, living room, bathrooms, kitchen table, etc etc etc...

My Mum still has residual guilt for the fact she followed late 60s ideal of Not Letting Baby Dictate Your Life. She says she used to leave my sister screaming in the pram in the garden* because it was believed that babies needed fresh air and were trying to manipulate you by crying. She thinks that's why my sister wouldn't do anything alone until she was in her teens - she wouldn't go to Play School (kindergarten), Brownies, dance lessons, Guides - nothing until I was old enough to join with her.

I was a quiet baby. Which makes her worry I just lost hope easily.

Anyway, I read a very interesting book called Three in a Bed earlier this year, about sleeping with a baby. It's unlikely to have any use to me, but I was fascinated by the idea that soemthing my Mum considered weak and indulgent was in fact the norm for the English poor until about a century ago. Damn Victoria and her fussy ways.

I know there's a fine line between accepting a baby is crying because it has genuine needs, and indulging a child (until it becomes a tyrant at the extreme end). But it does seem to me to be a natural thing to do - sleep with your baby.

Certainly Diz (smaller and frailer than any baby, although infinitely more cunning) has never been rolled on by me, and he joins me every morning.

*ETA when she knew she had no reason to scream and there was a net on the pram

"encourages dependence?" I don't believe it. Maybe when they're twelve, but as a tiny baby? They're pretty much dependent anyway. To me, the more you can hold and snuggle with your baby, the more secure and loving a person they become.

No, no, you see it is bow season here and I have deer meat on the mind. Spent my first hours in the climber stand yesterday waiting for an 8-pt that is hanging around our lease. I am going after him every night for the rest of the week sans tonight.

There is a grandmother and her 11 year old grandkid who share an apartment a couple of doors down. All these apartments are one bedroom, and the kid and gram share a twin bed. The little girl has gotten pretty bratty since she came to live with gram, and she also seems very fearful and dependent. I think the grandmother would be doing both of them a favor by gettting a two bedroom apartment, or at very least, a sofa bed. But who am I? Its not my kid.

Encourages dependence??

A lot more goes into a child's sense of self-esteem, competence, bravery and maturity than where he or she sleeps at night. There are a million other interactions with parents during the day that also feed into the development of his sense of self.

Just because a child knows he CAN depend on mom and dad doesn't mean he always MUST depend on them. A strong bond between parent and child gives the child a solid foundation on which to build - a safe haven he knows is always there, no matter how scary and difficult the world may be. It is the child who lacks that sense of security that is going to be fearful and resist challenges.

Though I was always very much available to my little ones for co-sleeping, either in my bed or theirs, both reached a natural point at which they no longer wanted to do it. I can't remember exactly when that was - probably 4 or 5.

Y'all have to get over the idea that a bed is anything but a bed. It is just a bed. It is just a comfortable place to sleep. Sure, you can do other things there, but you can do those a lot of other places too. In western culture "bed" is such a strong symbol of sexual intimacy that many people can't get over the idea that sharing it with a child is somehow a dirty thing to do.

I'm waiting for Michael Jackson to respond to that last one.

He's busy in the fairground he built in his backgarden...


How was he found not guilty?

OK, come on, you know what I mean! For parents. Sheesh.

Isn't the main job of parents to teach the spawn to survive on their own?
Unlike pets you know you're going to take care of for the rest of their life.

That depends of your political affiliation, xob

I like to think that human life is about more than just survival.

Any idiot can teach a kid how to survive on his own. Neglect does that, too.

I'd prefer that my kids learn to thrive on their own. And learn to find happiness, build healthy relationships, and contribute to society in a positive way.

Of course, I also don't refer to them as "spawn." Perhaps therein lies the difference.

Human infants are not mentally or physically equipped to survive on their own... they need to develop for several years first.

I used spawn because I wasn't limiting my remark to humans.
You can feel all superior, and touchy~feely~lovey~dovey about your kids, but the fact remains you are an animal, and my remark applies to ALL animals. :p

You didn't really make a remark, you just asked a question... but are you trying to suggest that no animal learned to survive on their own before the invention of spare rooms and cribs? Or than other animals generally sleep separate from their young(the ones that nurture them at all obviously)? And that that teaches them to survive?

Spawn. great comic. shitty movie. probably not an accurate appellation for mammalian offspring, either.

We all raise our children in our own way. Personally, I felt/feel fine about sleeping with my own babies and small children, but I like older children to have their own beds.

I'm saying human parents, like all animals, are obligated to teach their offspring to survive. Anything beyond that is for piece of mind, that they've done the best they could, for the kid's future.

Well yea, anything beyond survival for anyone is for piece of mind... aka our day to day lives, who we are.

Sure, humans get into all that emotional stuff, along with the basic duty.
Of course for humans, basic survival is more complicated, too.
I can't see a Mother Moose telling her twins;
You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim, da do da do... ;)

And this goes along with the original point of the thread, how? :D

It doesn't - this is called thread drift.