50 and old going to bed as early as possible - anyone else resonate ?

[Fomfue]

I get up at 5.30-6am week days. I even like being in bed for 9.30pm on a weekend night too.

I see no issue. I go to be at 10.30. I normally wake up about 3 and spend an hour trying to go back to sleep. Then up at 7. So whilst its broken sleep, its a decent amount.

I’m 37 and in bed by 9pm most nights as I get up between 5/5:30 am

I do nap on Saturdays! Not every Saturday but sometimes I just lay down on the couch and fall asleep to some random tv show. Bliss!! The kids think I am hilarious ("how are you so tired!") - uh huh, let's see them at 50 eh. Also take your point about forcing myself to stay up to chat to DH - it's more that HE really wants to chat (about current affairs, his day, anything really) or watch a series and I feel evil dreaming of my bed 😂the unfortunate consequence is that i find myself snacking after dinner to stay awake and that plus peri is not helping my waistline .. choosing my version of balance by occasionally just snuggling down in the couch and letting sleep come (I mean, DH can still SEE me so in my head, it counts!)

Ha ha. I actually get into bed for my nap. No one even questions it any more! After lunch, I make a cup of tea get a square of dark chocolate. Close the blinds in the bedroom, get under the duvet and have a solid hour.

My DH has given up I think. Besides he plays games on his phone while he watches TV and I browse on my phone so it isn't really quality time.

I hear you on the snacking. I've been listening to Vonda Wright book this weekend so I'm filled with a new found determination to eat all the protein. But it's so bloody exhausting!

I find myself looking at my watch by 8pm, thinking 'is it too early?!' and decide yes it is and go and find something to do but inevitably I'm in bed by 9. Read or scroll till 10 then lights out. Wake somewhere between 4-6am but rarely feel well rested. Mid 50s.

I find this fascinating.... I've always gone to sleep around 11:30pm to midnight and up at 6:45 to 7am. I don't even sit down to eat dinner until 8:30 as am putting kids to bed at 8pm so my evening is spent tidying up after dinner and watching a bit of TV doing a few jobs etc.

How do you all manage to finish work and eat and get to bed so early?

Ps. I'm 47 so perhaps peri will.kick.in and next year I'll be going to bed early but can't imagine it right now as I'd feel was wasting my life in bed.

I'd feel was wasting my life in bed.

Ah- well I feel watching mindless tv of an evening is "wasting my life". You'd be surprised how much you can do when you cut out tv and media scrolling, its been eye opening for me

@IceStationZebra weirdly I never went to bed early when DC were small children. Could stay up watching TV with DH and even wait for him to get back from London to make his dinner at 10pm.

Now they are old teens and can sort themselves out, I feel much more exhausted.

I think as things break in your body as you age it really tires you out, I've got various aches and pains, add to that fitting in exercise and physio and going to work and dog walks. And you are physically and mentally done in permanently.

Interesting thread.

DH and I are 40s. He’s up at 5:30AM, I get up at 6.45 or so.

We go to bed at 9.30pm or so most nights, but I read or go on my phone for up to an hour.

@vickylou78 i live in the countryside so I'm not sure what I'd do in the evening anyway even if I had the energy.

What do you do that counts as not wasting your life, once work and DC and done for the day? Do you go out in the evening?

Going to bed early is the ultimate indulgence for me. It's a place where worries and chores don't exist as pp said. I never worry in bed, never wake up in the night to worry or be anxious.

DH is up at 530 for work and in bed for 930pm for the same reasons. He will stay up later on Fri/Sat, but often falls asleep around 930 on the sofa as he is now so programmed after 30 years of these hours that he can’t lie in on weekends unless jetlagged or recovering from an illness. I am an 8am riser and a midnight/1am sleeper (as are my teens) so separate rooms are our normal as a result (he also pops to the loo several times a night so separate rooms saved our marriage as I came close to bludgeoning him to death every time he woke me to pee 🤣).

I work in the day (8:30-6:00ish) so if kids don't have any clubs it's usually a rush around between 6pm and 8pm to get kids tea, prep our adult dinner and get the kids bathed and ready for bed etc. then at 8 I'm serving up our dinner so by time we've eaten and cleaned kitchen up for next day it's about 9pm. I've then got time to maybe do some house tidying, house admin, maybe do the online Tesco food order etc. I'll watch an episode of something with my husband, or maybe I'll do some online research for holidays or trips or research kids birthday gifts or something like that. Sometimes I'd do an hour of cross stitch or something while I watch something on Netflix.

Sometimes (not very often) I'll go out for a local drink with old friends. This is rare on a week night though!

@vickylou78 so I stopped waiting for DH to eat with him years ago. He would never know what time he'd be back from London.

Also I defibutely had to stay up later when DC were younger which it sounds like yours are.

I have one boarding and one who is at home and thankfully they now wash themselves and tidy up their dinner things so I can literally just leave them to it! I'm so tired I feel like crying by 7pm. I count down the hours to bed.

I suppose all of those things you do in the evening, I can do during the day too, in breaks at work or when I get home from my school job, I usually have an hour or so to myself before collecting DC from the school bus. So I get my time in other ways.

My son is ND and we had to go to bed with him until he was 12 as he wouldn't stay in bed otherwise. It's possible that that started off my early bedtime habit!!

My husband finishes work at 7 so only an hour after me so really eating with him isn't like I'm waiting long for him. I think over next year or two we may be able to start eating dinner with the kids as they'd not have to be at after-school club until 6pm 3 nights a week like they are currently. It would make a massive difference if we could all eat together at 7pm then I could maybe wind down a bit earlier.

I’m 45 and I am absolutely in bed for 9:30pm every night. I’m up usually 6:30-7am. I do have cancer, so usually by 9pm I am just bloody done with being upright. But yes, I love an early bedtime.

Thank you so much for your contribution and words of wisdom. No shit Sherlock springs to mind.

I’m with you. 5.15 alarm so in bed for 9.30. Bliss

Some of the comments on here are verging on superior - I mean the ones about "wasting your life away" or missing out on life by sleeping. As if watching TV is somehow noble or a superior use of time 🤣 Tv is literally watching other people live their lives - nothing wrong with it at all, but its hardly the barometer for a life well lived.

Oh wow, thanks for that, I'll have a look next time I go out which will be Wednesday now. 😃

@Myblueclematis its on prescription. But most GPs are delighted to prescribe it.

Honestly it changed my life!!!

Actually there might be one you can buy called Gina.

There is nothing wrong with that!!!!

You are all waking up early though, it’s about how much sleep you need. I got to bed at 10.30/11 but alarm is set for 8am quite different

I am in bed at 9pm or just after every evening including weekends unless I'm out of the house.

I got laughed at by someone who doesn't work so has no early mornings, didn't take me too long to put her straight.

I'm up at 5.30am out the house just after 7am and home by 6.30pm if I'm lucky, so yes I will go to bed at 9pm or shortly after regardless of what anyone says or thinks about it.

I’m 52 and still don’t go to bed that early. I would be knackered by the time I started work if I was doing loads of stuff early in the day and I’d feel I had even less of a life than I currently do (😂) if I just finished work, had my dinner then went to bed. Especially in summer going to bed when it’s still bright sunshine outside would seem weird to me.