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Comment by codingdave | Hacker News Reader

Welcome to the little-discussed world of adult sleeping arrangements, where many couples secretly don't sleep next to each other. We don't talk about it much because those who do sleep next to each other think that our relationships must be horribly broken, and we don't feel the need to justify our choices, or get into details of the logistics of our intimate lives. But talked about or not, it is true -- many more couples than you might think choose sleep separately for exactly the reasons shown by this data. A good night's sleep is more important in the long run than physical proximity to your partner.

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many more couples than you might think choose sleep separately for exactly the reasons shown by this data.

It appears you didn't read past the first graph (which initially implies a reduction in sleep due to sharing a bed with his partner). But he then goes on to say this:

Turns out, since we started sharing a bed, most nights I have the same amount of sleep as before.

What follows is a further analysis leading to this conclusion:

Whilst spending nights with my girlfriend results in less time in a state which Fitbit recognises as “lying in bed ready to sleep”, because we go to bed later and get up earlier, when I am in that state, I sleep better.

So it's not that he's sleeping less, or more poorly while sharing a bed. That first graph is just a product of less time spent physically in bed. In fact, there's another graph he presents that shows basically the same amount of actual sleep while in bed, with or without his partner.

Try not to read your own biases into other people's writing, and be very careful when skimming. It's a hard habit to break, I know, but it can really hurt you in life (no joke... misreading an email in a professional context can make for nasty mistakes).

Anecdotes are not data and all that aside - your partner's movements are often something that can be gotten used to. As half of a happily "sleeping in the same bed" couple for around 22 years now, the only time my wife affects my sleep is when she isn't well; a time I don't mind being woken up.

It's amazing what humans can get used to. We recently got a puppy, and went from "wake up every time it moves" to "wake up only if it starts whining". Didn't even take 3 months.

We have a 15 month old daughter who sleeps in a crib in our room, and my wife is a light sleeper. Baby makes a noise, wife wakes up, wife takes an hour to fall back asleep.

I keep telling her: please, sleep on the couch. Literally every time you sleep out there, you get better sleep, and feel better in the morning. But she always says no.

I wish we were one of those couples who secretly, or otherwise, slept apart at least a few nights a week.

Move crib to living room, leave wife in bed, sleep on couch. Problem solved. Been there, done that.

I've thought about it, but that also means that we have to retreat to the bedroom when the kid goes to sleep (7:30), and can't walk through the living room to the bathroom, kitchen, etc. until she's very deeply asleep - and even then, it might wake her up.

Hm. Some kids sleep really deep and would be fine in that situation, the best way to figure it out is to try it and to give it enough time that you know that if there is a problem it is structural and not just the adaptation period.

My eldest slept so solid that you could have fired a cannon next to him and he would have slept through it (and still does, only he's a bit large to sleep in a crib now...).

The most important factor is something to create a shade around the crib so it isn't bathed in light or receives reflected intensity changes from a tv or so.

I wouldn't call ours a light sleeper, but she definitely starts to stir if someone walks on the slightly-creaky parts of the floor next to her. She'll often stir a bit even if we're just going to bed, and she's woken up on occasion.

She doesn't wake up from the TV-sounds-through-an-ajar-door, but being in the same room would definitely wake her up, to say nothing of falling asleep with that sort of stimulation.

A good part of that is likely something that you can get used to, but the important factor is if your little one will get enough rest. That's something you'll know soon enough. Anyway, much good luck to you with this, you have nothing to lose by trying and if it does not work you can always simply switch back to the present situation.

For what it's worth, from a father of three... my ex coddled the kids in this regard. She _demanded_ absolute silence when they went to sleep. The problem is, that _trains_ the kids to need absolute silence, rather than getting accustomed to hearing the occasional sound and putting themselves back to sleep. The best things you can do, for your own well-being and theirs, is let them cry it out a bit and go about your normal routine.

I must admit we have a divide like that too. My wife will stir at the slightest noise, whereas I assume that a murmer or two is just a random noise and safe to ignore.

Obviously if the baby is crying heartily either of us will investigate, but I don't feel the need (most of the time) to check on him if there are sporadic gurgles, laughs, or "noise".

That said I think my wife is coming round, she's started sleeping with earplugs now so that she doesn't wake up unless there is a real "emergency".

(I wonder if you're getting downvoted for mentioning "cry it out"; the only thing more controversial in parenting is circumcision.)

Yup. We live in New York. There's no such thing as absolute silence here, and she can still hear things from the living room. We're definitely not requiring silence :P

I was having issues with my kid getting to sleep through the night. It turns out that we needed some warmer pajamas and to make the baby drink as much milk as possible. After that, glorious sleep-filled nights were to be had from then on. I wish I had realized that months earlier.

We had the opposite problem awhile ago; we had a hot week or so in the city, and hadn't put in the AC yet - the kid kept waking up, and at one point when I went to check on her, I found her having unzipped her pajamas down to her waist and wriggled her arms out of the top part.

Making sure they're well fed is definitely a good idea; my wife was worried that she'd over-associate sleep with eating, and wouldn't sleep without eating first... but I never really saw this as a big problem. She's a baby; let her eat before bed.

But all kids are weird and different - some kids have reflux, and feeding them shortly before going to bed is going to keep them awake. Some get gassy. Some just don't like sleeping with a full stomach. That's probably the worst thing about being a new parent - you can read and listen to all the advice you want, but then you gotta figure out what actually works with yours and what doesn't.

Sleeping with a partner, I discovered I have pretty severe OSA (obstructive sleep apnea). I was wondering why I was tired all the time for 5+ years, and here was the answer.

I got CPAP therapy going (funny machine that fixes your breathing). Not super sexy but after a few weeks of using it every night I am orders of magnitude better. Better moods, more energy, I wake up rested and I don't need 10 hours of sleep to feel normal. I used to spend most of my weekends catching up on sleep, little did I know I was not really sleeping well at all.

With the CPAP therapy I don't move at all during the night according to my partner.

Now all we need to do is get the cat to stop waking us up and her kid to sleep in his own bed :)

What about a king size bed? With dual twin size coverings? I'm not judging - but sleeping in the other room or on the other bed seems to defeat the point of being together, no?

I was married for a long while - and I miss it. That said - she only weighed 95 pounds, so maybe not having to deal with king-kong in my bed helped.

> sleeping in the other room or on the other bed seems to defeat the point of being together, no?

I think that sleeping together (in the literal, dictionary sense) is the least together-thing you're doing as a couple, because you're literally not even aware of the time.

Maybe so. But, for me, subliminally - it feels when I wake up that there is a felt difference from having spent the night alone or not. But, again, maybe that's just me.

I think it's a personal thing. I feel better after having slept all night alone - because we're not kicking each other in our sleep all night.

Makes sense. I (we) had that when we first moved to the US, and were not spending the night in adjacent futons. We got a bigger bed - and it helped. But I can see how that would work or not depending on...

As someone who has only recently broken up from an intense 10+ year relationship I can assure you it's not. From the moment we got to bed to the instant one of us sort of woke-up-but-not-quite and subconsciously reached for the other, the mere presence of each one's SO was incredibly soothing. This was an incredibly privileged moment that I cherished for all of those years, that is made all too painful now by it's sorely missed absence•. Sure sometimes one of us would wake up at night and inconvenience the other (and a pillow or three was definitely thrown, as well as one of us occasionally going to read a book and maybe crash too in the sofa on a sleepless night, and more often than not we would regularly wake up to the absence of the other some time later, and get out of bed to check out if everything was fine) but the togetherness was real.

While I perfectly understand that each couple finds it's own way, subsuming being asleep to be like some sort of deep, nightlong, perceptionless coma is just incorrect.

• God I miss those night kicks.

+1 for a king sized. Also memory foam.

My wife and I went to a mattress store and tested out every mattress. One of us would close our eyes while the other got on the mattress and rolled over. When we couldn't tell when the other was moving we had our mattress.

It ended up costing like $3000, but if you can afford it I think that's a small price for something both of you will use literally ~30% of every day.

You've not shared a bed with someone that wakes you. I'm that person.

I snore. It wakes my spouse up at night, which causes him to wake me up... sort of. I'm not always conscious of him waking me, but I will temporarily roll over. I sleep pretty heavily (and always have), so waking me is difficult. I sleep more poorly when we share a bed, and he most definitely does.

The best solution we've found is one of us going into another room. Earplugs help little: He still needs to hear the alarm. I cannot be trusted to wake to them with regularity (living on my own, I'm occasionally late to work if I work early). They have vibrating alarms for the hard of hearing that might work out, but I have not tried.

We still have cuddle time if we should choose it and still do normal "bed" activities. If we both sleep well, we are both happier during the day. The payoff is definitely worth it. We occasionally sleep in the same room if he sleeps earlier than me, using our own blankets (common here in Norway). Which again, defeats the point for some folks but is really great because we both stay at a more optimal temperature, keeping us sleeping better than sharing.

If you snore that badly, consider visiting a respiratory and sleep specialist to test for sleep apnea. That level of snoring is not normal - you should not be waking people with your snoring and if you are tired in the morning and being late for work, that's an indication it is negatively affecting your life (and that of others too).

Been there. Done that.

After a sleep study, I started using a CPAP machine and it totally turned my sleep and life around.

I've considered going to the doctor for the snoring. I generally wake well-rested so long as I sleep 7-8 hours.

For me, the sleep thing is something I've had since I was a child and isn't connected to the snoring. I have a later body clock than most folks. I was the child that refused to wake to open christmas presents and i've always slept soundly like this. My poor mother had to fight with me through school. I sometimes simply don't hear alarm clocks, unfortunately - which nearly disappears if I wake at 9-10.

I'm that person in our marriage. I have noticed that my snoring is really bad when I'm exhausted by life (kids aren't letting us sleep, stressed out, etc). We have an arrangement where my wife kicks me out if she can't sleep and I spend the night on the couch. By definition, if I'm so tired that I'm snoring like that, sleeping on the couch is no big deal.

As far as vibrating alarms go: I use my Apple Watch as my alarm. It's set to silent, so it just vibrates when it's time for me to wake up. For the most part, my wife is never aware of it going off. It's been a total game changer for me.

hahaha, my investment in a king-sized bed has not increased the amount of space I have in bed since we shared a queen, but let me tell you, my wife has ALL THE ROOM IN THE WORLD! And she's only a hair over the size of your ex.

One thing I've realized, though, is it doesn't make a big difference to me. We're both fairly deep sleepers though occasionally my snoring wakes her and she nudges me and I roll over. We also have a couple of cats on the bed, and when they were kittens I'd sometimes wake up and yell at them for scratching elsewhere in the house.

What I've realized is, despite waking up more often, I'm not significantly less well-rested. I only seem to wake to a cat pawing my scalp or my wife rolling over when I'm already in very light sleep anyway, so it's no problem.

Ha! I have a friend that at 5am, his cat will walk up on his chest and tap his left eyelid with an extended index claw. Tap tap tap. Smart critters. They freak me out.

But, I hear you.

...for you.

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