To struggle to sleep when my 19 year old DS is out at night?

Understandable to worry. DS was out yesterday for a day out with a friend. His friend wasn't allowed out longer than 7pm! He is 18😬 also he was only allowed out with DS on the condition he does not drink any alcohol. You what?! DS was baffled especially as they're both 18....

DS was allowed out til 9pm as he had to get a train home and there are idiots out on the last train at 11pm ish so that's why he couldn't stay out late. He was fine with why we set that particular rule since I do worry like you OP.

So stressful having adult DC!

Yes I felt the same,I used to worry on Friday and Saturday nights when he was away at Uni too. I saw it as a me problem, probably due to peri. I did get over it eventually.

This is really common. My mum couldn’t sleep unless we were in the house. My gran was the same, even when her kids in their 40s were visiting

My late mum was like this when I was 17/18 (I'm 53 now!) and out with my boyfriend. She asked me if I could be home by 11pm as she needed her sleep (she worked full time and was up at 6am everyday to get dad off to work). I (mostly) managed it until I left home. Her house, her rules.
So, @BerryTwister, it's quite normal and your son needs to be a little more respectful of the person paying the bills.

It’s a mum thing I am afraid. I am the same with my 21 year old son and my mum was the same with me. Strangely I am better when he’s also out with his girlfriend than just with his mates. When At Uni I am fine.

I do understand. I have ds2 who’s the same age and rolled in at 3.45am.
I also understand people saying don’t make him feel guilty, which would be fine if it weren’t for the obnoxious behaviour. The reason you can’t sleep is because you don’t know what state he’ll be in.
Tell him if he can’t guarantee he’ll be quiet and respectful to stay at a mate’s house that night!

I’m much the same, not helped that DS’s mates/girlfriend/favoured night out is 15 miles from home and he thinks nothing of driving in the early hours.
He is a sensible lad, wouldn’t drink and drive, but honestly I just can’t sleep when he’s out.

It’s so much easier when he’s at Uni, when I have no idea what he’s up to…

I feel for you so much. My DS travelled for a year around Asia and I did worry about him but nowhere near the worrying I feel now that he is back home. Meanwhile my DH sleeps like a log whilst I’m pacing the floor. He is almost 28

My dad, bless him.
He never told me but my mum told me he couldnt sleep until he heard my key in the door.
I tried to make sure I kept to Friday and satirday nights only and slept at friends other nights. But we didnt have mobiles in those days

Yes I was the same when mine were at home, couldn’t rest properly until they were safely home. Was fine when they were away at uni even though I knew they were out drinking in a more dangerous place than we actually live. Don’t know what the answer is though!

I was never a messy drunk in my teens and my twenties, my mum never properly slept until she heard my key in the door when I got home and then she would just knock out. I stayed with her for about three weeks recently and she did the same thing. I am about to be 37. I realise this isn’t reassuring for your sleep schedule but just seems like being a good mum to me!

But when he was at university, it was like out of sight, out of mind and I could rest easy, even though he was obviously still out at night.

I think it's something mothers do, I did, every holiday, DH snoring beside me, it was particularly hard on the nights he came in at 4 am.

Me too!
When they're out I rarely go to sleep properly until I know they're back. I do two things to help. One is leave their bedroom door open, so if it's closed I know they're back, and ask them to text me to say they're back in. They're pretty good at remembering and it means I can hear the phone buzz when mostly asleep and give a quick check rather than getting up.

My eldest DD is now 38. She doesn't live in the UK, has her own house and a responsible job. I never worry about her, but, when she's home I'm terrible. I need to know what time she's going to be home, how she's getting home and lie awake until I hear her come in the house. She's never even out late but there I am fretting like she's 18 again. She's really good and keeps me updated and generally puts up with my nonsense.

I had the same with my three. Once, when one of them didn’t come home, I got up and drove into town to look for them. It was all fine.

You just have to get through it @BerryTwister . There’s no easy solution.

YANBU that must be so difficult. Amazing how men just don’t seem to carry the same worry in the majority but I guess they don’t have the same attachment when they have not carried them. The worry is different.

Yep I hear you! I also didn’t worry when mine was at uni but when he was back home I was unable to sleep properly until he got home and I was always worrying what he was up to/would he be safe. He did get into a few scrapes and there was a period when every time the phone rang I was thinking OMG what is it now? He had a similar experience to your son in that he got paralytic drunk one time in a local town bumped into a guy accidentally who then shoved him and fell flat on his face busting his lip and chipping his teeth. If it wasn’t for the one friend who had stayed behind with him who wasn’t drinking and to drove back to his place, goodness knows what would have happened He’s 25 now and it’s only in the last maybe two years that he’s grown up properly and he’s actually started ringing me sometimes for a chat when there isn’t a problem! So yes I’m also very glad I’m past that period.

Yep perfectly normal. I was like that too when my son started going out like that around 17/18. When he went off to university I was really sad for a couple of weeks and then I realised how liberating it was because I didn’t have to worry about just this very thing. For some reason I was able to accept that out of sight, out of reach I couldn’t do anything about it. Then whenever he came back from university and started going out locally with his friends again it was back to the worrying. I was always glad when he went back to uni. I do have another son who isn’t much of a party lad/drinker and I didn’t worry about him in the same way because if he went out, he liked to drive so never drank. But yes, I feel your pain and it will pass.

My DS was stupid beyond all words.

He took cocaine, got rat arsed, and at 25 fell over on a dark common mid winter and if someone hadn’t seen him fall (stranger no friends with him) and hadn’t gone and checked on him he could have had hypothermia and worse. This kind man called the paramedics and called me from DS phone. DS no recollection of the ambulance lift home!

At 19 he got dumped by first GF and decided to walk from our home on a shitty estate in London to another rough area every night for 3 weeks.

i am On medication now as I cannot sleep but he is now 28 and got married last year. They do grow up eventually but those years from 19 to 25 were awful. I would just wake up and check my phone, scroll X and local news for murders of young men because I was so scared something would happen to him.

He would come home from work or being out and I would spend hours laying in bed listening to see if he was pissed as I’d worrying he would choke on his own vomit

Mines out now - 23 DS - home for a couple of weeks to see us and friends from school. I feel exactly the same. Crazy as I don't think about it when he's away.

Yeah I get you, mine's 20 not a drinker but I still worry, listen out for him coming in.

Yep - mine are 23 and 21. Fine when they're at uni. Eldest is back home in his first proper job now, and it's like he is 16 again. He has been very drunk once since he's been back - so bad his mates reckoned his drink had been spiked. He passed out in a garden about 199 yards down the road at 4 in the morning in November....

And if they've been out in town or up in London the only way home is via one of the well known stabbing areas....

You can choose to stay up while he's out, but please don't do like my mum did and put psychologically blackmail us to come back early "otherwise your mum cannot sleep". Me and my sister had to deal with this for years and it ruined many nights out (until I decided it was my mum's choice to stay awake and stopped caring whether she was up or not, which of course was followed by years of "you're so selfish" and crying to other relatives and friends about how terrible her daughter was to her).