sleeping in separate beds - opinions please

[kitkat9]

Background to this:

I am 20 weeks pg and suffering from insomnia many nights. When I wake I usually ned to read until I'm sleepy again.

Dh snores! And it's impossible for me to sleep thriugh it, I just can't. He's been to the doctor and has been referred to ENT so hopefully this'll get sorted. He didn't used to snore, at least not that badly.

Dh also gets up for work at 5.30am, and he's not exactly a quiet sort.

We also have 2 other children so I'm occasionally up in the night with the youngest.

Anyway, we've been going to sleep in separate bedrooms most nights - I see this as a hopefully temporary thing, but last night dh kind of freaked out about it, saying it wasn't natural or healthy for us. He seemed to think this was compounded by the fact that he goes to bed at about 9pm on weeknights, whereas I prefer to stay up a bit later, just to have a bit of time by myself. We had a fight about it, ending with me in tears (I'm v.emotional just now) and him all frustrated with me for not seeing his point.

In the end he did come to bed with me, but as usual I was still awake at 1am, and when I got up to go to the loo he woke and went to the spare room.

The fact is, we both sleep better when we're in separate beds! What do we do now?

this happened to us too, when I was pg I just wanted some space and to know I wasn't disturbing dh, we often sleep separately now and I always sleep better for it, which I feel does us more good than harm!

Is DH confusing sleeping with sex?

My DP snores badly. I have the loft conversion (lovely shower room) and he has a room downstairs.

No problem.

I would do whatever feels right for now. It is not neccessarily a permenant thing but it sounds like you can both do with some good quality sleep.

DH & I have had separate bedrooms for ages now, for very similar reasons to yours, (except without the pregnancy) DH snores & I can't get to sleep without reading - it actually improved our sex life no end....

don't want to raise a separate issue, but we don't have sex while I'm pg - he doesn't feel right about it. Fair enough, I can respect his position (and I'm so knackered anyway!)

I think he's feeling that there's a general lack of affection - we get on well and were having a laugh last night until it came to his bedtime, and he tried to get me to go to bed at the same time as him. I sad I didin't want to, and that's when we started bickering.

I could try to be more affectionate....but I really feel the need for my space atm. I'm home all day with ds(4) and dd 18m. They're always clambering over me.

If it's working for now and you're all getting some sleep then go with it.
I'm feeling sad about our situation- we both ended up really run down with dh getting pretty unwell and stressed/anxiety probs after dd was born and was a terrible sleeper so as soon as ds was born we agreed it was sensible for dh to sleep in the spare room. However, ds is now nearly 24 weeks and nowhere near as bad a sleeper as dd was (wakes at 3ish then 6ish for feed then gets up about 7- he doesn't cry when he wakes, just grumbles to say he's hungry and i feed him for a few mins then he goes back to sleep) but dh still refuses to share a room with me/us. I've suggested he just does it once or twice a week to begin with but he's adamant ds will disturb him. Even when we stayed with my mum he slept on the floor in the living room rather than with me!
Sorry for the rambling, just wanted to make the point that if it works go for it but agree a time scale and make sure it's a temporary arrangement!

kitkat, it sounds like you're exactly the same as my dh and I'm like yours! Maybe we should swap .
Dh always goes to bed much later than me so even if I try persuading him to sleep with me when I go to bed the best I get is a 'maybe' then next thing I know it's 3am and I'm alone again

I totally sympathise

When I was pg we usually slept together but sometimes I needed to sleep on my own. What worked for us was to go to bed together and then when DH was asleep I'd go to the spare room and read/sleep etc. If I woke early morning then I'd go back to our bed. This way we got all the cuddles and closeness but we both slept much better.

One of his friends should have a word with him about the joys of making love whilst pg .

Actually, i can relate to varying bed times causing friction as i have seen this in the past but it related to resentment about sex.

I used to have fanatasy that DP and I would be grand and have three rooms between us; his, hers and a common room for her receiving me . But in practice intimacy of being together is important i think. Perhaps you should explain that you agree with him but that in the short term you needed a fix of sleep. What is he doing for his snoring? Is he looking at things like cutting out dairy and/or taking medical advice?

he's taking medical advice, finally. It's really bad!

I think he realises he was over-reacting last night - sleep is so precious to both of us and the way I see it, we got to do whatever we can to get a decent amount - hard enough given 2 dc's, pregnancy and his ridiculous getting-up time!

Wonder how many couples would choose to have separate beds permenantly if there wasno intimacy issue about it, or the fact that it might be seen as odd from others' points of view?

I would LOVE my own bedroom that was ALL MINE!!!

yes, I still think that the 3 bed concept that I mentioned has some merit.

I am 19 weeks pg and am also having real trouble sleeping! DP also snores and piles all the bedclothes onto me/ kicks the bedclothes off in the night, comes to bed later than me and wakes me up, breathes on me, hogs the entire bed, forgets to unset his phone alarm at weekends etc etc.

I would love to have our spare room back... unfortunately we are both sleeping in the spare room while our original room is in the process of being decorated/ carpeted. I could lay the airbed down in our original room but it's horrible with no wallpaper or carpet or curtains and we only have two two-seater sofas downstairs so can't get a decent night's sleep on those. Baby's room is still the office until we vacate the spare room which will then double as a guest room/ computer room. And tonight I got a call from our decorator to say he can't do our original room until next weekend... which makes me feel like crying because I'm desperate for space and peace to get some some sleep. I'm exhausted...