The Lark-Owl Scale: When Couples’ Sleep Patterns Diverge
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
She's a 9p-5a kind of gal. Left to my own devices, I'd sleep 1a-8:30a.
It has been an object of contention to us over the years, but we work it out. Having our son and adjusting to the sleep deprivation afterward helped.
But I do the dishes before coming to bed.
So far it's been working pretty well. I get my alone time when I'm up late, she gets her alone time before she falls asleep. We both need our alone time, might as well get it when the schedules don't match up.
I try to make sure to "put her to bed" where she then spends the next hour or two on her phone. The hard part is getting back out of bed if I'm tired, but I'm usually not tired that early.
> Do you guys wake up at the same time?
Nope. She has to get up at 8 so she can be at work by 9. I have to get up by 9:45 so I can be at work by 10.
The core of our day-to-day interaction happens in the evening between the time I come back from the gym and her bedtime. And we also have Saturdays where the whole day is reserved for being spent together.
She even emailed me some article about how Priscilla Chan made Zuckerberg sign some agreement to cuddle x amount of hours when they were dating before she would agree to move out here to be with him.
I mean, I like cuddling generally and I like sex but I have a bunch of side projects and I get a lot of work done at night! So I've started "putting her to bed" and then coming out to do work. But the problem is sometimes we have sex and then I fall asleep cuddling her, so it's kind of a trap.
That is EXACTLY how I handle this
> But the problem is sometimes we have sex and then I fall asleep cuddling her, so it's kind of a trap.
Me having to sleep with a CPAP (or else horrible snoring and horrible sleep for us both) ensures that this will never occur with me (the falling-asleep-cuddling... not the sex... lol)
With my current schedule, I need to be at work at 8. So my midnight oil burning ways doesn't really work for me either. I've noticed in my advanced age that computer time before bed doesn't typically result in a good sleep experience as well.
When I'm too hopped up to sleep, I read in bed.
Going to bed after your partner is asleep makes it a lot tougher to initiate since it involves waking that person up.
The alternative is to initiate during other parts of the day but that may not be possible for many reasons (children being the most obvious).
"She advises couples who sleep at different times to make sure they find other times to connect, whether it’s the morning, the half-hour before the first partner goes to sleep, or even the weekend."
I'm skeptical that fitting your sex life into odd hours/days works for everyone.
http://www.today.com/health/happily-united-separate-rooms-wh...
http://www.builddirect.com/blog/why-more-couples-are-sleepin...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/09/12/lw.sleep.alone...
From that link: The preference for separate spaces has even begun to affect home design. According to the National Association of Home Builders, there's been a steady increase in the number of requests for "two-master bedroom" homes since 1990, prompting the organization to predict that by 2015, 60 percent of all custom upscale homes will be built with two "owner suites."
It's now 2016, and I don't suspect 60% are being built that way, but a realtor I spoke with last year says it's a topic that comes up with some of her home buyers, although it's never been a dealbreaker. Granted, that article was from 2008, and we had a major recession in there, which may have reaffected architectural planning.
It seems like my grandparents' generation slept in separate beds a lot, my parents' generation swung to the single bed model, and in my generation single bed is still more common but awareness of sleep issues is leading to some people starting to try out separate beds again.