AIBU to expect people to understand that because I go to bed at 2am, I am not going to be up at 7am like 'I should be'??

[notjustme]

Why is it that people think they have the right to comment on the times I choose to keep like I am some kind of lazy arse who chooses to sleep later than most people? The fact that we are a home based company, and our line of work, means that we are rarely asleep before 2am, any night of the week. And so therefore, we get up later than 'normal' people. In this house it works very well because DD1, DD2 and DD1's BF all hog the bathroom until 8.30am anyway, so we get up after they have all finished.

But why do people who don't even know me, including a courier, think it ok to comment on the fact that I have clearly just got out of bed at 9am? Is it really that awful to want the same amount of sleep as people who go to bed at 11pm?

I work in various random shift patterns, earlies, lates and nights and it really fucks up my body clock. I was fine when young and single but 12 years on with a young family I find still having to get up and take/fetch the kids from school is a killer!
I grab bits of sleep where I can and I always a bit embarressed when people call and my hairs a mess/ a bit sweaty and I have the indentation of a cushion on my face in the middle of the afternoon.
People have never dared comment though and if thet did I'd give them what for!

I have the same. I don't work late, but sleep as late as I can in the mornings as I have small children and if I can I will. Once, when I had first had DD (She was a few weeks old but prem, so still not due) I was feeding her in bed with the window open. Heard the door knock but as I was feeding her, and on the top floor (4 floor house) I didn't run. I heard the postman and neighbour gossiping about how I should be up by now and how I'm always in my pyjamas! Cheeky sods.

see, if you HAVE to get up early to finish something, then you've left it too late - should have done it the night before, imo

Glad to know it's not just me that has the same sleeping pattern and getting the comments from people! I do tend to ignore the door if I am in bed and someone knocks once, but we have 3 dogs who get increasingly wound up when you get that annoying sodding post person who knocks, then knocks again, and again...even though we have a clear sign on the door which states that any post should be left in a certain place, and we have had that sign in place for several years!! The problem is these days we have a new postie nearly every day, rather than a regular one who has a clue.

The other half of the issue is that we happen to belong to a family of early risers - MIL, SIL and BIL all get up at 5am and don't think anything of it - but SIL is in bed at 8pm. Even if I wasn't working, I couldn't go to bed at 8pm!!

I am a bit too much of a nice brit though, not helped by being half asleep - the courier made a snidey comment about not normally seeing me dressed, all I could do was umm and ahh and say...'well I'm not normally up at this time!'. In hindsight I should have made all the comments you've all said!

I once asked the drs receptionist if a later appointment was available since I was having trouble sleeping. Honestly you would have thought I was asking for the moon on a stick!

And it's ALWAYS fucking morning people who judge.

DH couldn't believe how much work I got done in the evenings when I was preparing for my exams last summer.

Tell them you work a late shift, you do after all.

There is definitely a place for "fuck off" when dealing with spontaneous and unjustified judgementalism. Delightfully succinct, expressive and unapologetic.

Wouldn't dream of judging you. Am night owl through insomnia. Would give anything to sleep from 11 - 6 because I have a 8.30 - 4.30 working day, but that would just be the best for me. Thankful to have Mumsnet during the long, dark nights!

I used to do on call at the hospital where I worked at least once a week. Sometimes (not often) I would need to go to bed the day after (it's not the same as shift work, it's a one off, so sleeping the next day isn't always beneficial) and you could pretty much guarantee that it would be the day the postman would knock, or teh roadworks would start.

Good job no one ever commented to me...

Bloody rude to make a comment and I like SGB's "mundane" comment. Yep, only the unimaginative comment - the ones who think everyone should be just like them.

I work from 6.30pm until finish, which is between 1.30 am to 3am. By the time I've run staff home, got in, walked my dog, and wound down from work, I'm in bed by 4.30, maybe 5am.

I sleep with ear plugs in, switch off my house phone, my mobile is on silent, and woe betide any fucker who wakes me up; the last person foolish enough to ignore my 'night-shift worker - do not disturb' sign was lucky not to go up in a puff of smoke

Oh and YANBU!

Bearskin, i need to adopt your attitude

Couriers can fuck off, they have no reason to believe that you don't work shifts (which in essence you do) and you could have only got back from work at 8am.

Other people can fuck off too, who are they to decide when you should get up? As long as you are fulfilling your commitments what does it matter to them? I have an office job but I'm not up at 7am either because Id on't have to and I don't want to.

You don't need to explain yourself to anyone. Saddos, nothing better to talk about.

Gah - there's a horrible puritanical, moral righteousness about bed & rising times. Samuel Johnson never got up before mid-day & said 'The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning'.

& I agree, I am, by nature a night owl, I do my best thinking & work after 11am, why should someone who turns up on my doorstep with a parcel at 9am to be confronted by me in my dressing gown feel as though he has the moral high ground?

WHY?

Bastards.

Love that quote!

I worked nights, and got sick of people saying "But you won't sleep ALL day will you, maybe get up about 3pm?"
"Do you sleep all night? Hey, I'll give you a ring at 3am shall I?!"

I don't function in the morning, at all. My body clock is set to grumpy until after 10am

Agree early risers can be very judgey.

One of DH's friends consistently rings before 9am and always says "oh sorry, did I wake you?"

My plan is to ring her at 3am and say "oh sorry, did I wake you?"

Drives me demented too, OP. I often have to work vair late at night because all my work is deadline driven and almost all of it is required at no notice at all - like right now this minute when I'm getting a whole lot of stuff ready for an exhibition.

I have friends who know perfectly well that I can be working till silly o'clock yet still seem to think it is clever to say they hope they haven't got me out of bed again if they phone at 10am. Sometimes they have but I refuse to give them the satisfaction of saying so. One of the worst offenders is a friend whose idea of a wild night is to have her bath after supper and be in bed by 9.30 with a dull book. I've never commented on this boring routine nor have I reminded her that I do stuff that is at least interesting and worth doing.

You shoud TheFarSide.

In fact, we should all rise up against the early risers.

We should shamble up to them at 9.30 in our dressing gowns, tie them up with the cords & force them to stay up until 3am chewing the cud.

& yes Trills he is the 18th C genius, such bon mots as;

'Exercise is labor without weariness.'

'Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.'

'I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.'

'If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?'

'No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.'

We should make the early risers discuss all the aforementioned, at length, over coffee, at 4am.

If they are true early risers then they won't need coffee, will they? :o

No Trills they will have been up for a two mile jog before then - you are quite correct.

Mmmmm - ok, tie them down at 9.30 PM, force feed them coffee for two hours, be utterly derisory when they're talking gibberish at 3am, kick them out then turn up on their doorstep at 10am & ask them why they're looking a bit disheveled.

I live with an early riser
He has got used to the idea that I am hell on legs until at least 9am, more likely 10 and doesn't try to make me do stuff then. But he in turn Will Not Do Anything (other than cook) after 5pm because it's "too late now, it's relaxing time". We cope but it can be awkward at times.

Haha! NO input...but i am feeling it!!!

I work late nights...need time to Wind down, so not to bed before, well about now..! But im up at 7 and work til about 12' but then its siesta time!!

Goodnight all!

I'm a night owl, don't work late but like to stay up reading, surfing web, MNing etc until after midnight. I work from home and DCs are grown up, so no problem lying in until 9 o'clock a bit later. So far this morning I've been woken at 6.30 by DH (lark, but pretends he's up for some spurious reason ), disturbed again by a courier at 7.30 (DH gone out) and now next door's kids are crashing about, shrieking and being shrieked at by their fishwife mother.
Nothing for it but to get up, grumpy.