to think you don't text people when you'd expect them to be asleep?

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

I have terrible insomnia and have been awake since 3am . I was actually just drifting back to sleep at 5am when I received a text from a friend!! So that's me woken up for the day. I can't think why you would do that?

I have an alarm clock and a land phone in the bedroom. You don't need a telephone socket, it just plugs into a nomad electrical socket.
Emergency callers can use the landline

Sometimes texts take bloody ages to come through though. I texted DH the other day and it arrived at about 3am when I'd sent it about 10pm.

We use DND mode here. It's brilliant and have had no issues with alarms (apart from this morning when I discovered that my iOS had updated and turned them all off!)

Since the advent of smartphones, texts seem to arrive pretty much immediately.

Everyone's standard of unsociable hours may vary. A school mum sent me a text at 11.12pm last week. Just to tell me she would give my dd pizza (play date arranged). I go to bed between 8 and 9pm. To me, that would be like texting her at 5am, which I wouldn't do. I don't have text notifications so I wasn't awoken.

I text people late at night and early morning because those are the times I think to text people. I don't expect a reply, and if their phone is not on silent that's their problem not mine.

Unless it is really urgent, you do not phone or text at stupid o clock. What is wrong with people?

I am grateful for a house where a mobile doesnt work, a callblocker on the landline to stop the scammers and not knowing anyone who would break the above rule.

And for an alarm clock.

I don't send tects after 9pm or before 8am in case i disturb people

Move to my house , no signal here , no annoying texts to wake you , until you are up , dressed and driving up the hill

Unless it is really urgent, you do not phone or text at stupid o clock

What about emailing? Sending messages through social media? Tagging people in photos on Facebook? Posting messages to a Mumsnet thread which I've previously posted on?

All these things would wake me up during the night if I didn't put my phone on silent, so can I demand people don't do any of them during the hours I specify?

I agree Ifitquacks that there is no need for a phone by the bed...

SMS and WhatsApp messages certainly do still come through hours later than sent these days - maybe not if both parties live and send all messages in areas with excellent mobile reception/ WiFi coverage, but in rural areas or if one party is on the move outside built up areas it is really very commonplace for messages to take hours to be received.

Why not just turn off text alerts

Bloody good point. I always think of silent or not silent for some reason.

And yes totally agree with the comment upthread re BBC breaking news alerts. It's the stuff of nightmares

I think YABU. WHy don't you put your phone on do not disturb? I get up at 4am for work so am always in bed by 9. My friends do not share the same hours and often send me texts late at night.

I just read them in the morning when I wake up.

To those who only accept calls from known numbers for emergencies...

In the only emergencies that happened to me, I got the call:

1. From the police (restricted number)

1. The hospital (unknown number)

1. A person who helped my friend, calling from their own number (unknown number).

If I had had my mobile phone on DND, I would not have received any of these calls.

Just DON'T text stupid things at 3 am, it really is not that hard. I have my notifications on silent at night, but you know? Sometimes I forget to turn them off. I don't want to get woken up to hear about your dinner at KFC or the last episode of the Great British Bakeoff.

aur did all those calls go to your mobile? Don't you have a landline?

All emergency calls go to my landline. Mobile is for when I'm mobile... Or for asynchronous communication

In two of them I was in a shared flat, so no landline.

Still, about half of my friends currently have no landline, only mobile.

What really bugs me is the double standard from some of my friends. So if I complain about late night texts then they blather on about it being asynchronous and I should enable DND, they were only texting when they thought of something, but god help if I don't answer their texts in a millisecond during the day.

It's got more difficult as people's sleep times have become more diverse. Today a text at 9am would have been antisocial for me as I'm on nights. At the weekend 9pm would be as I'm on days. Most of my friends work in the same area as does my dd and I can't keep all their schedules in my head. My phone is on silent most of the time and I still use it as an alarm.

Is "you don't need a phone by your bed" going to be the equivalent of "cancel the cheque" on this thread I wonder?

I don't have sound notifications for anything but texts. I do need to be able to respond quickly during the day, for my job and my children. I can't just leave it til the next time I look at my phone, I am forever wandering around and putting it down in another room ... I need an audible alert.

I would never have thought that a friend (who knows my habits very well) would text at 5am but you live and learn. I am an owl and my cut off point for texting (not replying) in the evening would be 9 ish.

I've never lived anywhere without a landline, but then I am very old and my shared flat/ shared house days were pre mobile phones!

I agree texting about trivia like TV at 3am is just weird, but what about delayed messages (it is routine if one party, sender or recipient, doesn't have good reception) and people on totally different schedules.

There is always a resounding chorus of "it takes 5 seconds to send a text" if anyone has not received RSVPs to an event, but that assumption that you spend 5 seconds texting in order to be polite assumes asynchronous communication not a vigilant checking of recipients shift pattern/ napping due to non sleeping baby or whatever other reason they may have for not confirming to whatever "normal" sleep times are meant to be...

There was a thread on this recently.

I reckoned it was not on to text in the middle of the night, but was in the minority.

I put my phone on DND at night, in fact I also have it on flight mode so I don't have radiation right next to my head.

DND on the iphone will let any call through if they call twice in 2 minutes That's useful information thanks.

I've had a look at my settings, and in addition to automatic DND between 11pm and 7am, which will still let through anyone in my contacts (none of whom would call/message anyway) there is an option to allow a repeated call from a stranger off.

So in addition to calling a landline as an alternative, someone who knows you could simply call twice within a 15 minute period to get past DND. (This is for Android, don't know if IOS has a similar feature.)

YANBU. I have my phone on silent all the time anyway, but it still manages to wake me up just with the screen lighting up as the text arrives. it's horribly antisocial.

Honestly just change your settlings.

Texts are not like calls - they are for people to respond when they can. so you switch the alerts off. Why do you need to have an audible alert on when you're sleeping?

I have a night setting for my iPhone which is great.

I think YABU.
I go to bed very late and I send my mate texts then knowing she has been in bed for at least 5 hours. I'm not expecting an immediate response. She replies when she gets up at 5.00 am and I read it at 9.00 am. That's the beauty and convience of text messages. If it was urgent I would phone.

Oh, honestly, is it not much more likely the text got delayed? I've lived in areas with patchy signal and texts can go through hours after you sent them.

I'm firmly in the 'you are being precious' camp. And I hate being woken up by texts when I've forgotten to put my phone on silent, but I do at least have the basic common sense to realise the other person is unlikely to be trying to wake me with them.