To struggle to sleep when my 19 year old DS is out at night?

[BerryTwister]

I expect I’ll be told to get a grip!

DS is 19, nearly 20, home for the summer after 2nd year of university. He’s very sociable and has lots of friends, and like many young people goes out to pubs and clubs.

9 times out of 10 he’s sensible, and has several pints but stays coherent. But there have been a handful of occasions in the last couple of years when he’s got stupidly drunk - falling over, slurred speech, maudlin, argumentative, stroppy and sometimes very miserable. He never gets into fights, but if I’m around he argues with me, and is belligerent and frankly pretty vile. We end up barely speaking for 24 hours afterwards,

The rest of the time he’s a great lad - pleasant, working hard at a holiday job, helpful, doing well at uni.

The thing is, because of the times when he’s got stupidly drunk, I’m now completely paranoid when he goes out. I can’t sleep, and if I nod off I wake an hour later. I’m menopausal and I don’t sleep well anyway, and I work during the week, so weekends are my time to catch up on sleep. I find myself dreading him going out and feeling really resentful that I’m going to have a crap nights sleep.

Does anyone else worry like this? Am I weird because I can’t sleep when he’s out? That’s what he says, and he says other parents just chill out about it. I’m OK when he’s away at uni because I suppose I just adjust and disconnect to an extent. In view of the times he’s been in an awful state, am I entitled to be a bit grouchy about it? Or should I just smile and wish him a pleasant evening?

I don't think you are unreasonable struggle to sleep, my mum always said she couldn't sleep when I was out late with friends, and I didn't even drink.

But you would be unreasonable to try to make him feel guilty for going out. However, if he is staying with you he needs to be respectful - being quiet as poss when comes in, polite etc.

When he’s just “normal” drunk he’s very quiet and respectful, and if he’d only ever been like that I think I’d be OK. But when he’s been stupidly drunk he’s loud, and last time he fell down the stairs, waking me and his younger brother, and was then completely obnoxious to me when I got up to see what was happening. And because I don’t know what state he’s going to be in when he gets home, I can’t relax.

I feel the same about my 18yo going out, she's never got stupidly drunk and I really don't have any reason to worry a lot but I can't help it. I think it's quite natural really, I'm not sure there's much you can do about it

Hello I'll join the gang! Yep I'm exactly the same with my almost-19 yr old DD. I just cannot relax knowing she's in a pub/club/uber. I mean, my sleeping pattern is shit anyway (peri-meno) but it gets even worse when she's out.

I have five adult sons and yes, I struggled to sleep and was anxious when they were out at night. DH meanwhile would be snoring his head off! I think it's just a mother's lot in life to worry 🫤

I’ll join you, my nearly 19 year old is out at the moment.

i won’t settle until he comes back from wherever he is safely. He’s a good lad and works hard during the week but he can play too hard at the weekend.

My 19 year old is travelling in remote parts of Eastern Europe at the moment. He's currently in Kosovo. I don't normally worry too much but I'm looking forward to the daily agreed text message.

I think it's normal to worry a bit. But mostly they'll be fine.

We were.

i feel exactly the same. My 18 yo DS is an excellent human but I am useless at sleeping/ switching off/ not worrying when he goes out.

You can choose to stay up while he's out, but please don't do like my mum did and put psychologically blackmail us to come back early "otherwise your mum cannot sleep". Me and my sister had to deal with this for years and it ruined many nights out (until I decided it was my mum's choice to stay awake and stopped caring whether she was up or not, which of course was followed by years of "you're so selfish" and crying to other relatives and friends about how terrible her daughter was to her).

Yep - mine are 23 and 21. Fine when they're at uni. Eldest is back home in his first proper job now, and it's like he is 16 again. He has been very drunk once since he's been back - so bad his mates reckoned his drink had been spiked. He passed out in a garden about 199 yards down the road at 4 in the morning in November....

And if they've been out in town or up in London the only way home is via one of the well known stabbing areas....

Yeah I get you, mine's 20 not a drinker but I still worry, listen out for him coming in.

Mines out now - 23 DS - home for a couple of weeks to see us and friends from school. I feel exactly the same. Crazy as I don't think about it when he's away.

My DS was stupid beyond all words.

He took cocaine, got rat arsed, and at 25 fell over on a dark common mid winter and if someone hadn’t seen him fall (stranger no friends with him) and hadn’t gone and checked on him he could have had hypothermia and worse. This kind man called the paramedics and called me from DS phone. DS no recollection of the ambulance lift home!

At 19 he got dumped by first GF and decided to walk from our home on a shitty estate in London to another rough area every night for 3 weeks.

i am On medication now as I cannot sleep but he is now 28 and got married last year. They do grow up eventually but those years from 19 to 25 were awful. I would just wake up and check my phone, scroll X and local news for murders of young men because I was so scared something would happen to him.

He would come home from work or being out and I would spend hours laying in bed listening to see if he was pissed as I’d worrying he would choke on his own vomit

Yep perfectly normal. I was like that too when my son started going out like that around 17/18. When he went off to university I was really sad for a couple of weeks and then I realised how liberating it was because I didn’t have to worry about just this very thing. For some reason I was able to accept that out of sight, out of reach I couldn’t do anything about it. Then whenever he came back from university and started going out locally with his friends again it was back to the worrying. I was always glad when he went back to uni. I do have another son who isn’t much of a party lad/drinker and I didn’t worry about him in the same way because if he went out, he liked to drive so never drank. But yes, I feel your pain and it will pass.

Yep I hear you! I also didn’t worry when mine was at uni but when he was back home I was unable to sleep properly until he got home and I was always worrying what he was up to/would he be safe. He did get into a few scrapes and there was a period when every time the phone rang I was thinking OMG what is it now? He had a similar experience to your son in that he got paralytic drunk one time in a local town bumped into a guy accidentally who then shoved him and fell flat on his face busting his lip and chipping his teeth. If it wasn’t for the one friend who had stayed behind with him who wasn’t drinking and to drove back to his place, goodness knows what would have happened He’s 25 now and it’s only in the last maybe two years that he’s grown up properly and he’s actually started ringing me sometimes for a chat when there isn’t a problem! So yes I’m also very glad I’m past that period.

@aurynne I can assure you, I don’t choose to stay awake. I would like nothing better than to go to sleep without a thought.

YANBU that must be so difficult. Amazing how men just don’t seem to carry the same worry in the majority but I guess they don’t have the same attachment when they have not carried them. The worry is different.

I had the same with my three. Once, when one of them didn’t come home, I got up and drove into town to look for them. It was all fine.

You just have to get through it @BerryTwister . There’s no easy solution.

My eldest DD is now 38. She doesn't live in the UK, has her own house and a responsible job. I never worry about her, but, when she's home I'm terrible. I need to know what time she's going to be home, how she's getting home and lie awake until I hear her come in the house. She's never even out late but there I am fretting like she's 18 again. She's really good and keeps me updated and generally puts up with my nonsense.

Me too!
When they're out I rarely go to sleep properly until I know they're back. I do two things to help. One is leave their bedroom door open, so if it's closed I know they're back, and ask them to text me to say they're back in. They're pretty good at remembering and it means I can hear the phone buzz when mostly asleep and give a quick check rather than getting up.

I think it's something mothers do, I did, every holiday, DH snoring beside me, it was particularly hard on the nights he came in at 4 am.

But when he was at university, it was like out of sight, out of mind and I could rest easy, even though he was obviously still out at night.

I was never a messy drunk in my teens and my twenties, my mum never properly slept until she heard my key in the door when I got home and then she would just knock out. I stayed with her for about three weeks recently and she did the same thing. I am about to be 37. I realise this isn’t reassuring for your sleep schedule but just seems like being a good mum to me!

Yes I was the same when mine were at home, couldn’t rest properly until they were safely home. Was fine when they were away at uni even though I knew they were out drinking in a more dangerous place than we actually live. Don’t know what the answer is though!

My dad, bless him.
He never told me but my mum told me he couldnt sleep until he heard my key in the door.
I tried to make sure I kept to Friday and satirday nights only and slept at friends other nights. But we didnt have mobiles in those days