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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Using flat sheets on the bed, who's right DH or me?

239 replies

gotitwrongagain · 09/01/2017 23:29

Please help settle a discussion between DH and me!

There's obviously little more satisfying than getting into a freshly laundered bed, especially if the sheets have been ironed.
To do this regularly I don't want to have to wash and iron the duvet cover every time I wash the rest of the linen ( I've 3dc and plenty other housework to do!) If I use a flat sheet then the duvet cover keeps fresher for longer.

As an aside, I actually prefer to have the flat sheet anyway as I feel it covers me better and no cold air can get down the bed!

So AIBU to use a flat sheet when making the bed?

(Snuggles down into cosy bed!)

OP posts:
WanderingStar1 · 10/01/2017 00:21

I always used to have a flat sheet - both to save the faff of changing the duvet cover every week, and to give me a cooler option in the summer. However, when I met DH and had to start sharing a bed with another person,

it was a bit of a culture shock! He is tall and leggy and used to get it all so tangled up I had to give up the top sheet! I still moan about it though regularly when changing the duvet cover (20 odd years later), it's a job I REALLY HATE!!!!

OneWithTheForce · 10/01/2017 00:22

and left a digestive biscuit and an orange juice for me in the morning

Awww! #grannygoals!

dowhatnow · 10/01/2017 00:30

If we stay somewhere where there is a top flat sheet, I have to go round and pull it out all the way round, otherwise the duvet can't fit round all your curves, creating draughts around you. Horrible things.

user1471545174 · 10/01/2017 00:34

No to top sheets! They remind me of the olden days, pre "continental quilt", when you did nightly battles with hospital corners and the like. I never iron bedlinen either.

previously1474907171 · 10/01/2017 00:34

OneWithTheForce thank you for replying, my bed is 4ft, my bed before that was 5ft and before that even bigger so I had kingsized flat sheets which eventually wore out.

I have tried to buy fitted ones but they don't seem to fit, and I hate the wrinkly bunched up bit in the middle. I have bought kingsize and superking to get enough to tuck under but they are never long enough to tuck in at the top and bottom for some reason so I turn them round and still end up with loads at the side and not enough lengthways.

I just want basic 100% cotton, non shiny flat sheets that I can also use as bottom sheets. There was a time when fitted sheets didn't seem to exist, and flat ones were longer (many years ago). Sizing has changed.

OverTheGardenGate · 10/01/2017 00:35

I like being all tucked in otherwise my feet end up out the duvet
I want my feet out of the duvet. I like my feet out of the duvet.
They get hot, and I need to stick them out and if I can't I get stressy.
When we stay in a hotel DH knows his first job is to untuck the duvet from the bottom of the bed. (Why do they DO that!?)

KoalaDownUnder · 10/01/2017 00:41

YANBU!! Of course a flat sheet goes between body and duvet.

I had no idea that flat sheets were not standard. I've never done anything but fitted sheet + flat sheet + duvet/blanket.

Sheet sets are sold with one fitted and one flat, for that very reason! Confused (Or they are here).

This is a very strange British custom.

MrsSchadenfreude · 10/01/2017 00:47

My mother used to buy sheets from Brentford Nylons that were only fitted at one end, so you could tuck the top End over your acrylic blanket and have the nylon fitted bedspread on top. When I got bored at night, I used to rub my nylon nightie very quickly against the nylon sheet to make sparks.

PerspicaciaTick · 10/01/2017 00:47

Someone is going to have to explain how a flat sheet is less draughty.
How does it fill the gappy bit between DH and I which can, admittedly, be a bit of a draught tunnel.

OverTheGardenGate · 10/01/2017 00:49

MIL puts a flat sheet under the duvet and I find it pretty pointless.
The sheet's too short when it's tucked in, and slides down to the bottom and scrunches up and offers no protection to the duvet. I wake up in the morning and the flat sheet is trailing on the floor at the bottom of the bed. Maybe I'm a fidget.

steff13 · 10/01/2017 00:54

The fitted sheet goes on the mattress, then the flat sheet, then the duvet/comforter. You sleep under the duvet and the flat sheet.

PaulAnkaTheDog · 10/01/2017 00:58

...I'm so confused by beds right now. I have a sheet on my mattress, a cover on my duvet, pillow cases and a couple of throws. They get changed every few days (apart from the throws). Am I doing life wrong?

OverTheGardenGate · 10/01/2017 00:59

steff13
Was that answering me? I couldn't tell.

KoalaDownUnder · 10/01/2017 01:07

But if you have a top sheet, you can wash your duvet cover less often!

Duvet covers are usually coloured/patterned (and therefore fade more quickly from constant washing).

My flat sheets are pure white 1000 thread-count Egyptian cotton so they can be washed every week and stay white and soft.

SenecaFalls · 10/01/2017 01:08

Flat sheets are pretty much universal in the US. Where I live it's usually too hot for a duvet (or comforter as they are more commonly called in the US). Bottom sheet, flat sheet, light quilt or blanket. In the summer, often all I use for cover is the flat sheet.

reuset · 10/01/2017 01:09

Flat sheets so you don't have to change the duvet cover so often, I say don't be a slob Grin

A definite hassle anyway, and easy to get tangled in (contaminating aforementioned duvet cover), and did I read you bother to iron bedding Shock

SenecaFalls · 10/01/2017 01:12

The hassle is trying to change one of those duvet covers. I should post the video of my DH and my brother trying to do that in the self-catering accommodation we rented the last time we were in the UK.

KoalaDownUnder · 10/01/2017 01:17

Where I live it's usually too hot for a duvet (or comforter as they are more commonly called in the US). Bottom sheet, flat sheet, light quilt or blanket. In the summer, often all I use for cover is the flat sheet.

This, too.

Maybe it's different if you live in a warm climate.

QueenCarpetJewels · 10/01/2017 01:26

Ironed bedding in a hotel/other person's house = fine. But at home, no way. What a pointless waste of my time and energy. No one's going to see it except me and DH! So many more interesting/fun things I could be doing!

If you can't fit your sheets and duvet cover in the same washload, you've got smaller than standard washing machine and I'm not sure if that's a thing.

If you're using a flat sheet so you don't have to wash the duvet cover so often...then you're washing the flat sheet more often so wtf difference does it make.

I find flat sheets a massive unnecessary faff. I want to stick my feet out, I don't want a draft between me and DH. Fitted sheet and duvet all the way!! (Oh and if you think it's impossible to fold a fitted sheet, you're doing it wrong)

HOWEVER we all like different things, can you imagine if everyone just replied to the OP with "yes, yes, flat sheets, absolutely" Grin

melj1213 · 10/01/2017 01:29

I use a fitted sheet, duvet (I have both a light summer and heavier winter duvet that gets rotated during the appropriate seasons), a blanket in winter and bedspread covering the whole lot (which tbh is mostly there because my cats like to nap on the bed during the day and leave hair everywhere and I can just whip it off before bed leaving me a cat-hair free bed)

My mum was a huge fan of top sheets but I am tall, so my feet go right ot he bottom of the bed so I always have to untuck the sheet so my feet have room to move (plus if I get too hot, I can stick my feet out of the bottom of the duvet) which then means it's not held in place and I wake up tangled in it, since I'm also a fidgety sleeper. So whenever I visit my mum, the first thing I do is take the top sheet off the bed and clear the bed of the twenty million throw cushions she insists on

Pandakin · 10/01/2017 02:12

I always had flat sheets (cotton swapped for flannel in winter) and was so confused when I met DP who never did. The bed didn't feel properly made whenever I stayed over. It seems to be getting harder to buy a nice range of colours in sheets too, and flat sheets more so. I swear I remember the Argos catalogue having loads of shades of each colour to pick from. Last time I looked it was only white, black and poo brown. I refuse to iron bedding but I love having all nice matching colours.

Fitted sheets are the bane of my life though, the new mattress is much thicker than the old one so we need to replace them all, even with those elastic clippy things it doesn't work.

We have a cover each anyway since I always get cold and he runs hot, plus it stops the arguments over who stole the duvet and we can both cocoon in peace. No middle bed draft of doom either!

MrsTerryPratchett · 10/01/2017 02:25

I spent a billion pounds on my duvet cover and I HATE a flat sheet. I have finally, after ten years of living together, weaned DH off this repulsive habit.

And don't get me started on tucked in It's very important that one foot is out of the bed. They've even done studies and stuff.

nooka · 10/01/2017 02:50

When I was little and staying with grandparents they always had a top sheet (isn't a 'flat' sheet just an ordinary, non fitted sheet?) and a blanket, or perhaps a quilt. It was so nice to get home to my duvet. You can't nest properly with a sheet and blanket, and sheets plus duvets just seems totally fiddly and unnecessary to me. At hotels I put up with the sheet as it seems wrong to remove it but always totally untuck it and I'd hope the duvet cover gets washed too as I don't suppose it really remains pristine.

But then I don't like freshly laundered sheets anyway, I like them broken in a bit. Currently we have a winter weight duvet with a brushed cotton cover and bottom sheet. No cold allowed! In spring/autumn we have a lighter duvet and ordinary cover/sheet and when it gets really hot we have separate sheets.

KoalaDownUnder · 10/01/2017 03:14

I spent a billion pounds on my duvet cover

But, but...that's why you have a flat sheet! To protect the billion-pound duvet cover! Grin

It seems to be getting harder to buy a nice range of colours in sheets too

I only buy white. For winter and summer sheets. Then you can wash them in Napisan and they are always pristine, rather than washed-out looking.

(Please tell me people do have winter and summer sheets?)

InTheDessert · 10/01/2017 03:23

Personally, I like being able to stick my feet out. I too untuck all hotel duvets each night, and get tangled in a sheet and duvet/blanket combo.
I do use just a flat sheet in the summer tho. Can't bare to not have something covering me, as the aircon is brutal when it kicks in (summers are 50C here, aircon kicks in at night too).

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