To cringe every time I see or hear "only (x) sleeps until Christmas"? What’s wrong with "nights" or "days"?

[Cannotorwillnot]

"Sleeps" sounds so deliberately infantile to me. I loathe it. It's completely unnecessary even for young children - if they are so young they can’t understand the concept of days or nights they will almost certainly be having more than one sleep/nap every 24 hours so counting "sleeps" will be meaningless anyway.

YANBU, I hate this. Unless you're speaking to a toddler it sounds ridiculous. I dislike it when adults use infantilised language towards other adults. Definite cringe.

I read the post and googled "alternative names for hubcap"!

But it has to be 'sleeps' for Christmas because Santa comes when you sleep.

When counting down to birthdays/holidays/anything else it should be days.

I only say sleeps to the cat to reiterate that I won't put up with him meowing to wake me up on my day off.

There are a lot of words and phrases I shudder when I hear them eg tummy, love you to the moon and back, making memories and other twee nonsense.

Oh she calls her husband her hubcap not her actual hubcaps. It would be fine in the proper context obviously!

Oh. That is very wrong!

Someone at work calls her husband ‘the hubster’ 🤢

It's twee and puerile. You hear it from people who talk about "tummy ache" instead of "stomach pains."

I am so glad you said this! I absolutely loathe it - but have never come across anyone else criticising it. Thought it must just be me! It's so sickly sweet and mock cute, it makes me feel quite sick. The person in charge of the Facebook posts for Cook frozen dinners is using it every day in the Christmas run-up - which has stopped me wanting to go into my local branch just in case they say it out loud 😱

Yep, don't like it. It's very twee.

See also 'cosy' which seems to be every retailers' word of the season and similarly grates.

We count get ups.

I quite like it. 😆The first time I heard it was in the film 'Muppet Christmas Carol.' (In the song 'Only One More Sleep Til Christmas.'

Watched it in the 1990s when I was in my 20s, and the 2000s and 2010s when my DC were children, and I still watch it now!

Only 7 sleeps to go! 😆

I agree I hate it. I also hate adults who talk about it being "a school night" usually in relation to alcohol. If you were still at school you wouldn't be drinking anyway, why not " work night" or just decline and say you don't want to

My mum always said it to us when we were little, it's not a new thing

YANBU. Adults who measure time in “sleeps” shouldn’t be allowed to use scissors.

Yes! "Mock cute" is exactly what it is. It's sickening.

Shudder…

What about toddlers who still have a sleep during the day?

@Cannotorwillnot not just toddlers!
My menopausal body makes me nap a lot. If you include dozing off on the bus I think I have about 37 sleeps until Christmas 😂

No, they just have high standards!

We used "x sleeps until..." when my children were little as they understood what that meant more easily
That was 30 years ago

I dislike this expression. It's so pointless - no easier to say or understand than 'night' and no more meaningful.
Perhaps the phrase was coined to be inclusive of shift workers!!!!

I find it utterly nauseating.

Luckily none of my friends would say this!

my hubcap fell off the car when I was driving and I’ve been phoning up garages to ask about getting a new one

It wasn't in Shrewsbury, was it? I've got a hubcap lying on my drive and no idea where it came from.

We used this with DD(3) to help her understand the concept of an advent calendar (her first one this year, she's been too young to understand the concept in previous years), but to be honest it's backfired on us a bit! When we gave it to her and she discovered chocolate behind the first one, she obviously wanted to open all the windows. So we explained that it's only "after you've had a sleep" (she doesn't really understand "tomorrow" I don't think) that you can open another one. So now, every time she wakes from any sleep including her day time nap, she runs to her advent calendar shouting "mummy I had a sleep, I can open a chocolate!" 🤦🏼‍♀️ 😂

We've had to backtrack a bit and explain it's only night time "sleeps" that count! So yes, long winded way of saying I see your point, OP. 😂