A 6am text

[inthegoodlife]

I've NC for this one.
I ran into a friend on Friday and told her than my young children were going away for Saturday night. This is a relatively new arrangement with their father and I get quite anxious when they're there but it only happens once a fortnight and really enjoy that night off despite the anxiety and missing them. Normally I just want to relax and have a lay in so I am recharged for the week.
She's known me for a few years and knows how much I've struggled with fatigue and the general stress of having two little ones on my own.
The other thing is, there have been a couple of issues previously that I've let slide that made me question the relationship and whether she was a genuine friend or not, but they're not clear cut and she can be good fun so I wanted to see past it.
Anyway, when my children stay with their father, I always keep my phone on in case there's an issue. This morning, after having the conversation on Friday with her about having my night off and looking forward to a lay in, my phone pings at 6am. I instantly check it thinking it's the children and it's her! forwarding an article about something health related. Then it pings again, with a follow up message.
Would anyone here text at 6am on a Sunday something unimportant?

If it's that important leave your phone downstairs/not in your bedroom!

I'd message at 3am assuming everyone is like me and has their phone on silent.

Same

I wouldn’t message before 830 or later depending on who it was and the reason why. Again the same would apply in the evening.

I would trust your instincts. If you think this was her being manipulative and prodding you - it probably was, although she must have been really committed to the trolling to get up at 6am to send you a text. In which case, don’t let her know it bothered you but go low contact. (But also do the DND thing).

I used to do this all the time because I assumed that every body who didn't want to be disturbed would put their phone on silent. I still have an expectation that is what sensible people would do and even you need to keep it on for a particular person to call, you can block it / put it on do not disturb for everyone else.

That said, I stopped doing this and am a bit more cautious because once after sending a text at about midnight, I got a barrel load of abuse back from someone about late night texting. I'm not friends with her any more but it upset me a lot.

I'm afraid she's no friend!
Not only is it rude to send a 6am text message, especially on a Sunday, but she KNEW you wanted a lie-in! Double rude.

Yabu but you know that now. You're in your 40s, you can't claim to be too old to know how a smartphone works! Amd you certainly can't blame other people for that. You should know better by now but lesson learned. She did nothing wrong.

I leave my phone by my bed because I worry when my older DC are out and want to be there just in case (and once I did get a 4am phone call so was very glad I did!).
When they were younger and staying with their Dad, I'd leave my phone by my bed in case there was an urgent issue. You are definitely NBU.

I doubt she did it on purpose to alarm you, but you didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt which means you believe she did it on purpose. So therefore you shouldn’t pretend to be friends with her anymore.

This is the way.

If you have an iPhone, as people have mentioned, you are able to set your Do Not Disturb settings so that they allow certain people to get through and others can’t.

The easiest way is to set these people as ‘Favourite’s’. Then on your Do Not Disturb settings, you can set to DND, but allow only calls and texts from those in your Favourites.

Oh god you’d hate me 😂 I message anyone at any time! I work full time, have young children, am an early riser…you’ve got me wondering how many of my friends have secretly blocked me 😅

I have mine on do not disturb until 7.30 in the week and later at weekends so think I'd assume my friends do too but maybe I'll be more considered in future. I wouldn't think twice to send a whatsapp in the middle of the night when I was having an insomnia moment. I always think of texting as a way of communicating that gives the other person the chance to reply at their leisure. I'd ring them if it was urgent. I would just tell her you have your phone on during the night because of the kids being away so best not to contact you until later. If she's a normal person she will apologise and do as asked in future. Doesn't seem grounds to question a friendship.

I think these days the etiquette is that things can be sent whenever. The onus is on the receiver to put their phone on silent. When my dad was in hospital, I figured out how to put my phone on silent unless it was his wife ringing. Google how to do that. At night, you can make your phone silent for anyone other than people you really need to hear from.

Another who emails and texts at all hours, a habit I got into working night shifts as these were my ‘days’. I just assume in this day and age no one is silly enough not to use the silent/do not disturb function if they don’t want to be disturbed by phone noises during the night. It’s set up so you can still be contacted by those you choose - your teenage kids, your sister, exDH if he shares the kids, mums nursing home etc. Both an iPhone and android function. If someone complained to me I’d think they were bonkers as it’s their choice to be disturbed.

You can set it so if it calls two times it does get through

It’s the year 2023… I wouldn’t think twice about messaging at any time, I can’t believe anyone thinks differently. OP YABU and way over the top.

Put your phone on Do not disturb but add their Dad as a favourite contact and do the settings that favourite contacts messages still come through

I think on Android it's 3 times

That's what I do on my phone, it's set up to allow messages and calls for favourites or people who call 3 times or more
My daughter messaged me from Turkey the other morning, her time 3am, mine 12am. I'm not bothered about it, times have changed and lots of people don't read messages as soon as they are received

My family do this. I'll say to my mum or sister we'll be with you around 11am. But they'll still text 7am to say what time are you coming, or do you eat chicken or something. It's really inconsiderate. I have to leave it on as DM has falls and heart problems.

I'm almost 57 and I've been using mobiles since the mid 90s and did know about it

An iPhone is a mini computer, you should make the most of it or you may as well just use an old Nokia. It's a camera, calendar, pc etc rolled into one.

I wouldn't text at that time but I'd also assume that you'd have your phone set to sleep. Mine only gives notifications of people I've selected when it's in sleep mode.