Teen disturbs my sleep every night

[DoritoBear]

As the title suggests, I am exhausted and at my wits end.

DS is 19. He took a gap year this year, but hasn’t travelled or anything, so has just been at home. He does work, but only about 10 hours a week, early evenings.

My main problem (I have many others!) is that he almost completely nocturnal and disturbs my sleep every night.

He goes out at night - often to smoke weed. We have tried locking the doors and hiding keys but he’s been known to climb out of windows!

Even if he is quiet, he disturbs the dog who then wakes me up wandering about or barking to go outside.

DS was out tonight at a friends. He came home just after 1am and woke me up making food and listening to his phone loudly. He went to bed, but then woke me up again at 3.30 when he went to sit in his car. I could hear him talking in his car, so I messaged him to ask him to be quiet and now he’s driven off.

I am completely broken from lack of sleep. He is 19, so consequences are difficult. If he was staying out that late, I’d just lock the doors, but it’s the going out that is disturbing me and I don’t know how to stop him.

He is generally disrespectful and argumentative. I’ve tried so many times to have a conversation with him and it always results in him shouting. He is so utterly convinced that I am unreasonable that I start to doubt myself sometimes.

We have withdrawn all money, but if he runs out he borrows off friends. I have told him he’ll have to find somewhere else to live, but he’s got no one to live with, or enough money to fund it.

Has anyone else been in this situation or got any ideas to help. I do use earplugs and white noise, but I need to be able to listen out for the dog and younger dc.

How is he funding a car off 10hrs a week?
If he’s smoking weed & driving I’d report him to the police tbh

He’s not really your teen, he’s your adult son that needs to move out.

I opened this expecting to read about a 14-15 yo

@Cupboarddoorknob He doesn’t smoke and drive. Usually when he goes out he either just sits in his car or walks to the park. I have told him I will report him if I ever catch him doing it, but he is convinced I am being ridiculous and the police won’t care.

His 10 hours a week are well paid. He has been selling things on vinted and uses birthday or Christmas money to run his car.

@Riverflow6 He has applied to go to uni in September. Not sure if you have dc of a similar age, but it’s very easy to say he needs to move out, but where would he go? How would he fund it? He’d end up getting himself into all sorts of trouble.

Cannabis stays in the system and if he gets a positive test then police will definitely care.
Also the smell of weed clings to clothes so a copper getting a whiff of that if he got a traffic stop would be enough for road side test.

Who bought the car? Who pays for his food, heating bills, etc etc? If that's you, you are in a position to set rules in your home and insist that he abides by them, otherwise he starts to contribute to household bills and the car goes, or at least you keep the keys until his inconsiderate behaviour improves. He sounds very immature and selfish, while you sound like a pushover.

He sounds extremely rude and disrespectful being loud and waking you up.

However not sure what locking the doors is doing. At the moment at least, you agree that he can live there, and you can't lock an adult in or out of their own house. And if you do, you can expect there to be quite a bit of noise while they attempt to get in or out.

It seems like the dog is also an issue. I hate to defend him as he sounds so rude, but it's not his fault if you have a dog that barks at night. His sleep schedule can't be decided by a dog - it would also bark if he was doing something very reasonable like using the bathroom.

Charge him rent. Even just twenty quid a week. Or hes free to go sleep on one of his weed buddies' sofas.. You can secretly save it up and give him it back for uni if you so desire.

Have a look on UK Reddit forums about how hard the police actually come down on drug drivers (don't fool yourself, that's exactly what he's doing). If he wants to risk losing his licence, retaking his test and having it follow him around for YEARS making his insurance literally thousands and thousands a year, then let him get caught. It's very real and he's being an idiot. Consequences speak louder than your voice.

Have a family meeting with no phones or distractions and write a list of house rules on a whiteboard together. Go prepared with your needs. Make his life shitter (password on the WiFi, he can take the worst bedroom, he must prepare a meal for the entire family once a week, he can help with dog walking or childcare, cleaning rota etc). And stick to it. Anything he needs or wants is conditional on being a functioning family member. He's showing your younger kids how to behave. It's unacceptable.

He's not a tern, he's a young adult, and again, you love him but he's free to go to someone else's sofa if he cannot join in with family life and being a decent human. You do not have to accept it. Don't be scared to fall out with him to get what you want. With age and experience he may well come to realise what a dick he's being.

How much money are you giving him at Christmas that is enough for him to run a car and a drug habit? How long have you let him be an inconsiderate person. Not saying that to blame you but you really need to look on how you are enabling that behaviour.

I confess I have read the riot son to DS and told him to find another place because he was disturbing my sleep regularly. I believe it worked because he knows not to mess with me, I do what I say.

Where he will go is his problem. Personally, I don’t think you need to kick him out, just stop funding his life, a roof and a meal is what you provid, any other requests you say no and stand your ground. No free access to the fridge, the house and to your purse.

But keep your eyes open, 10 hours a week at 19 pays only £100 a week, he cannot be out every day and financing his drugs on £14 a day, has additional “income” from you, relatives, stealing or dealing.

When is he sleeping? I’d be ensuring his sleep was as disturbed as possible so he got back to sleeping at night. It would be war.

Is he nocturnal because he’s staying in bed half the day? Are you around to ensure he can’t sleep, by leaving his door open, letting the dog jump all over him, vacuuming the landing, banging and clattering? Would he get out of bed if you insisted he had to do chores/walk the dog?

I understand what you’re saying about it being difficult/impossible to chuck out a 19 year old, but you can make it difficult for him to maintain his lifestyle by coming down hard on him.

I would be waking him up every morning and pestering him to get a job during the day. You basically need to make his life far more uncomfortable and unpleasant if he is waking you up during the night and not working more. He needs a better routine.

I would start waking him up at 6am and telling him to look for a job every day. No more lying in bed working ten hours a week, that is ridiculous. driving under the influence of cannabis is taken very seriously, it has killed many people!
Reaction times on it are extremely slow. 10 hours a week doesn’t fund cannabis and a car neither, he could potentially be heavily in debt with a drug dealer and trust me on this one, they will stab people over a £20 debt they don’t care. So you need to parent up and stop this madness, find out exactly how much he owes out. Are you sure hes not dealing to fund his habit?

I would strongly suggest he a) gets a
job and b) moves out

and ideally both. Emphasise that it’s your house and your rules

gap years are meant to be for saving for uni, doing something productive and personal growth

he is just a bum

I think if someone wakes you it is partly anger at their selfishness as much as anything else that keeps you awake. If you can let it go and just get earplugs etc you only have 7 months til he’s left home and try not to get wound up -though his lifestyle does not sound ideal for getting stuck in to uni work but fingers crossed.

The question is what will you do if he doesn’t go to uni. To go from a year of freedom and working 10 hours, to back to lessons and studying, might not suit him.
He should now be working full time to fund his years and weed at uni.

Play loud music every day for starters….

If this was me OP i would totally lose my sh!&.
Firstly how disrespectful your son is for thinking it’s ok to have weed in the house on his person, even if he does smoke outside.
His sleep is all over the place as he is a “stoner”.he will be unreasonable due to his weed intake.
If he wants to stay in the family home, I would most definitely tell to get off the weed or he’s out, by not addressing this, its like he is being enabled to carry on with his unhealthy behaviour.
Tough love is called for and if he doesn’t sort him self out, then he leaves. It’s not your problem he has
nowhere to live, he’s 19 therefore an adult !
as for the other poster saying it’s not his fault the dogs barks, well it is he’s fault as your dog is guarding YOUR home.
Perhaps if he had no resources to enable him to be use weed and disturb your sleep and home he might buck up his ideas.
Im sorry this sounds harsh, as you seem like a very reasonable woman,
id ask myself would my mum of allowed or put up with this behaviour and the answer is NO so why would you ?

To all those who will flame me for this, yes it’s horrible but what’s the alternative?? It’s ok to be used as a door mat and disrespected.
No no it is not .

If this were me I’d be disturbing his sleep OP.

lost of early morning hoovering, loud music, banging and crashing around, in and out of his room collecting crockery and washing, a week of it and he’ll be raging.

Next time he goes out, pack his bags, leave them on the door step and lock the doors.

Problem solved.

If you're at work in the early evening you're likely to need some unwinding time before you can sleep especially if you need to eat dinner after work before you start to think about winding down for sleep.

There is a part of this where he's sounding teenager-y nocturnal but the job won't be helping.

One bit of the solution therefore might be encouraging him to find a job that doesn't require evening work.

You could and should think through how you can improve the soundproofing in the house. Extra rugs (if not a trip hazard), fabric / carpet on walls can all reduce the sound that gets transmitted. You can also think about maintenance eg oil for squeaky doors / fixing squeaky floorboards / replacing loo seats with 'soft close' varieties etc. This is important to make sure the environment isn't thwarting his efforts to be quiet.

If he's really nocturnal is he getting enough sleep during the day when you're awake and moving around? There's a definite argument for black out blinds / curtains for his room if he wants them.

There's also an argument for you all to try out earplugs / headphones designed to be worn while sleeping - it's likely everybody will be less grumpy if getting 7+ hours sleep.

I don't know what the solution is to the dog barking when he's moving around in the middle of the night - I'm not a dog owner. I imagine that's a standard dog behaviour. I'd tend towards agreeing with the view that the dog's presence can't be allowed to dictate that nobody can move around the house at 3.30am. I understand you might not have or want carpet in areas the dog spends lots of times but there are still ways to deaden the noise.

Ear plugs some nights, just to ensure you get your rest.
Then work on the rest of it.

Take care of yourself.

your house your rules.
get him told.
no more weed. if i smell it off you im phoning the police dont think i won’t. it causes serious issues for those whose brains are still developing under the age of 25.

no more wandering round at night. youre in or out by 11pm. no wandering loud phone calls or other inconsiderate behaviour.

you need to start paying rent. nothing in life is free. get a job that pays reasonably well. ie a good few hours.

and lastly youve brought this on yourself son by your thoughtlessness. i love you but i need sleep. so if you domt like those rules i will understand but i hope youll respect them and stay.

If you can’t reason with him, then I’d just turn it into a battle of wills. Wake him up every morning. Curtains open, lights on, music on. If you’re at home when he’s asleep, make as much noise as you can. I wouldn’t usually advocate all-out war with a teen, but it sounds as if he’s not prepared to consider the impact of his behaviour, so it’s time for desperate measures!