Bedtime
I am so fascinated in these breakdowns of socks or no socks and house temperature. I have two more questions that have come out of the comment sections of those posts, and I’ll break them down into two separate posts. So the first question is whether or not you make your bed.
We do not make our bed. Pretty much ever. Maybe if I’m doing the laundry early in the day and new sheets are going on the bed before 10 am. But if I put on clean sheets in the afternoon or evening? Never. Our bed is always unmade.
The twins’ beds are always unmade. Their rooms are neat. Their rooms are clean. Their rooms are vacuumed and dusted and organized. But their beds are always unmade.
I was never a big bed-maker, and I don’t remember my parents enforcing a bed rule. I feel a little guilty when I think about this because my mum probably came up to my room after I left for school and made my bed. (I’m sorry!) But once I left for college, I made the conscious choice not to make my bed. I wanted to always feel like it was waiting for me, beckoning me to climb under the blankets for a few minutes if I got a chance in the middle of the day.
And I do. If I’m working out a difficult plotline in my head, trying to come up with a character’s motivations, I climb into bed and set a timer for 5 minutes. I do my best thinking in that bed. Don’t you always have 3000 thoughts as you’re trying to fall asleep? Well, I find that if I get back in bed in the middle of the day, I get those same 3000 flooding my mind. So I leave the bed unmade. Because there is only so much time in the day, and I’m not going to spend my minutes making the bed a half dozen times.
Plus while I know some people love that moment of peeling back the blanket and climbing into bed, I have no strong feelings about that moment. I don’t look at a made bed and think about how delicious it will feel atop smooth sheets. I just like my sheets clean. Once clean sheets are on the bed, the blanket can be a crumpled up mess.
We are also an anti bedroll or decorative pillow house. Everything that goes on the bed gets used: pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals. And that’s it.
So now you know how messy I am when it comes to my bed.
So do you make your bed every morning? Or do you leave it unmade?
62 comments
I get up before hubby so I guess I don’t make the bed. He does make the bed at some point during the day with our 2 year old because when I come home, it’s made.
We have decorative pillows in the closet, not on the bed for the rare occasion we have guests over. We don’t have a headboard so I feel the pillows make the bed look a little more polished.
well, not really. we only use a duvet (with cover) so, in my mind, shaking it out flat counts as making the bed. but i don’t even do that most of the time.
I am an infrequent bed maker. I used to make the beds every day, but that was because we were trying to sell our house and we frequently got calls at noon to show the house at 1 or something ridiculous. I have since fallen out of the habit. I do have a thing for nice bed linens and duvet covers, so occasionally make my bed just to make it look nice, but it is not a habit.
I don’t make the bed and I rarely put away clean clothes. I take the approach of: I’m just going to get in it/wear them again within a day and I’d rather spend my time on activities that aren’t repetitive. I make the bed when I change the sheets and I put away any laundry that accumulated whenever I do a room clean. And since I didn’t respond to other posts, I would keep the house warmer but I’m outnumbered so we stay between 68-70. I do wear socks because my feet get so cold I can’t stand it. I can’t sleep in them though. I’ll get in bed with them on but once the bed warms up they have to come off for me to fall asleep. As a kid, I went barefoot as much as possible to my mother’s frustration.
“Making the bed” consists of throwing the covers back where they go. Our bed doesn’t tend to get terribly rumpled anyways – neither of us moves much after we fall asleep, and I like to keep my blankets pulled up around my shoulders. Tossing the covers back where they go keeps the cats off my sheets, which makes me happy. But actually MAKE the bed? Like, smooth everything out and tuck in the edges? Oh hell no. Things are only smooth when I first put clean sheets on the bed, and I never tuck in anything other than the foot-end and that corner.
I hate excess crap on the bed (decorative pillows, stuffed animals, etc). I only make the bed when I clean the bedroom or put on clean sheets. I also don’t sleep well on clean sheets, because my and my husband’s natural scents are gone, and that’s what helps me relax and get sleepy. Obviously, I don’t like stinky dirty sheets, either, which is why I wash them every 2 weeks, but only on days when it doesn’t matter if I don’t sleep well. How’s that for a load of crazy?
We did a lot of chores as kids but making our bed was expected. My mom had us doing other things to make the house clean, like wiping the baseboards, cleaning the chandelier, vacuuming, dusting, polishing the silver. It was instilled, therefore, at a young age, that there was something honorable in keeping a clean house and that enjoyment or relaxation followed doing so.
I make our bed daily, my son (6) makes his before even coming out of his room in the morning. I can’t relax until “things” are in their place. An unkempt bed doesn’t set the day off right in my house 🙂
I am a bed maker. I can’t stand to get into a bed at night that hasn’t been made and the covers are all over the place. I want it straight. Plus, if someone comes over, our bedroom is directly off the kitchen and I don’t want someone else seeing my unmade bed. Even when I’m not home, my husband makes the bed (or at least it is made when I get back from my trip).
I make the bed; always have. However, on days like yesterday, when I’m running terribly late for my work commute, I leave it undone…and the , like a freak, make it first thing when I get home. You know, because it’s so important it look nice for the three or four hours before we pull back the sheets and go to bed. 🙂
My husband thinks I’m weird, but I make the bed right before we go to bed. Yes, I know I could save a step by making it in the morning, but I get up first. The reason I make the bed right before we get in it is to try to prevent cover stealing. My husband moves around at night (a LOT) and frequently pulls his covers up and over if he’s cold. The problem is that the corner he’s looking for is between us and the corner he pulls over (and up) is the one that was over my feet. So, I spread out the covers before bed so that we can put this whole drama off as long as possible.
I am a reformed (sorta) unmade bed person. I rarely made my bed growing up, although do think the room looked neater when I did! I’m a pretty disorganized person–clothes everywhere and whatnot–so I’ve made a pact with my husband that we’ll be consistent with at least making the bed. Maybe with that part looking neat I can keep the rest of the place looking nice too? Fingers crossed!
I make the bed and then my whippet unmakes the bed without fail. In fact, I had guests over last winter, and this very nice older lady–friends of my mother-in-law–was mortified because she’d made the bed twice before she left but the dog kept rucking everything up every time she carried a suitcase downstairs. She was absolutely horrified that I’d think she’d left her bed unmade!
Whatever. Wouldn’t have bothered me, but I DO know who the bed-unmaking culprit in our house is and I would never have blamed her!
I make the bed when I change the sheets and when we have people over to the house (even if they aren’t planning on coming upstairs). Otherwise, it is unmade because I am lazy.
I’m a non bed-maker (like yours, my parents never had a “thing” about bed-making)’ married to a bedmaker. To appease him, we used to make the bed. Now that we are not getting enough sleep as it is, and mornings are so so hectic, he’s let go. Which makes me happy. I like a rumpled inviting bed, I dislike having to loosen everything to get cozy at night. We have a few decorative pillows that I used to like when we DID make the bed, but now they live on the floor between our dressers.
My kids both sleep in cribs still. I have a feeling their beds will be un-made. My older LOVES having multiple little blankets all balled up in there (baby receiving blankets)—he actually does sleep on them like a pillow; my little one wants NOTHING in his crib. Neither wants stuffed animals to sleep with & they don’t use real pillows yet.
I am finding these topics of how people approach every activities to be immensely fascinating. Its so…personal…like you’re looking into their windows at night! I also loved the food/eating topics. What’s next? Showering vs. bathing?
I like Tigger’s description of bed making. First off, hubby and I each have our own blankets. We do NOT share, as both of us are blanket hogs, but I think I am worse. And I like my blankets up around my neck and often times even over my head so that only my nose is poking out.
As for the bed itself, no frilly stuff is on it. Also, we only have the bottom sheet and then a duvet (filled with a blanket, or two if it is for me) and a pillow for each. I like to toss the duvet over the bed in the morning to keep the cats off the bed/sheet, but hubby just leaves it as it falls when he wakes up. Also, little boy and I sometimes spend time on the bed or he might nap there, so it is nicer if the bed is somewhat in order to not have lumps. But in no way do we tuck, straighten and flatten the bed, except for when the sheets are being changed.
Never. We are at a strange point of playing musical beds. The baby starts in the crib and winds up next to me in the morning. Cassidy starts in the bed and winds up on the couch. Scarlet starts in her bed and winds up in the couch and then our bed. I have to go around finding people all morning. Who has time to make beds?
My excuse used to be that I was the first one up, so how could I make the bed with my husband still in it?? Alas, at this point he travels so much that he is rarely here … and the bed lies unmade.
No on the bed making for us or the kids. Emma (16) is a bed maker because her parents made her make her bed, but her sister (13) has conformed with the rest of us messies and doesn’t make her bed any more. I just don’t have enough time in the day and it doesn’t bother me at all. The only time the beds are made is once every 2 weeks when the cleaning lady comes.
My mom made our beds growing up and once I got to college and subsequently moved back home during grad school before marriage, my bed remained unmade.
interesting discussion!
This is going to sound weird, but I typically make my bed right before I get in it. “Make” is probably too strong a word. We only use a fitted sheet – I hate flat sheets – and a big quilt (king size for our queen size bed). We have an assortment of pillows (none decorative) in various states of undress (for some reason, my pillowcases are always slipping off at night) and a big ass pillow from an old couch we used to have that my husband uses because he likes to sleep kind of elevated. But, before bed everynight, I redress the pillows, shake out the sheet (fighting a losing battle against dog hair), and then arrange the pillows and quilt on the bed. And then I get into bed. Basically, I like sleeping in a somewhat “made” bed (it will never be magazine-like “made”) but I am not a morning person, and I can barely get dressed in the morning, let alone make the bed.
I do come from a family of bed makers, and when I stayed at my grandparent’s house as a child, I wasn’t allowed to eat breakfast until my bed was made. My mom has all kinds of fancy bed stuff and makes her bed, but she pulls half the fancy stuff off the bed when she goes to sleep. I am too lazy for that, and I have a really small bedroom, so I don’t know where I’d put all my fancy, non-sleeping linens anyway.
I used to feel really guilty about not making my bed in the morning, but I let it go. Maybe if I had fancy stuff, I’d feel inclined to do it, but I don’t. (Seriously, one of the quilts we use we got a thrift store for $5. It makes me sad to find handmade goods at thrift stores, so if they are well made, I buy them.)
Also – I am loving these questions!
My husband is more of a bed maker than I am. He is more particular about the sheets and blankets being smooth before getting into bed. It really only involves pulling the comforter over the pillows, there is no tucking in of anything and there are no decorative pillows. He gets up before me and actually makes his side of the bed so I feel like an ass if don’t do the same. It also keeps my cats off the sheets and pillows. That’s probably the biggest reason I do it because I never saw the need to make a bed I was just going to get back into and mess up, especially if no one was going to see it.
I can’t believe how many of you don’t make your beds!!!
By that you can guess that we do. ; ) Dh & I do it together in the morning, after I finsh brushing my teeth & before I get dressed. I think it would bother me all day (& it would certainly bother dh) if we didn’t., and there is certainly nothing like getting into a nicely made bed with smooth sheets (even better if they’re freshly laundered). My mother went to nursing school, pre marriage & me (didn’t finish, as both intervened), so she has very strong ideas about how a bed should be properly made. I still can’t make hospital corners to suit her, but I am better than dh… he thinks I’m way too particular. I keep telling him I am sending him to the MIL School of Bedmaking & then we’ll see who’s picky. ; )
I’m a bedmaker. I love to get into a tidy bed. Plus I hate when cats get on my sheets so I take preventative action. 🙂
I make my bed every day even when I’m sick. It was drilled into me by my mother.
I make my bed, and I feel guilty telling you why because, well, it involves creepy crawly things. But I spent my childhood summers in an old farmhouse where part of the reason you made your bed (and did that thing where you cover the pillows with the bedspread) was so that spiders and dusty millers didn’t get into your sheets.
On one of the few days (in grad school) when I didn’t make my bed, my little cat left me the very special present of a dead mouse way down deep under the covers. Which seriously reinforced my bed-making tendencies and also led to the reckless use of bleach and some sleepless nights on the futon.
I never developed the daily habit of making my bed because my grandmother (who lived with us) always made mine when I was growing up. (If I made it myself, she’d remake it while I was at school, and as a kid, you notice these things.)
Then I read somewhere a while back that it’s actually healthier to let your sheets air out after sleeping in them all night. . . so now I only make the bed if company is coming or on the days I change/wash the sheets. Works for me! 🙂
P.S. FWIW, I’m an excellent bed-maker, thanks to seven years of working in hospitals as a nurse.
I’m with you. While I’m generally a neat/clean person (in fact, my mental health is directly correlated to the state of my house), I almost never make my bed unless I know I’ll have company coming that might see my room. Stray clothes on the floor? Awful! Messed up pillows and duvet? It’s all good.
I hated being made to make my bed before breakfast every morning. And then, as a grown-up lady who can do as she damn’ well pleases with her bed, I read somewhere that leaving it UNMADE with the covers/duvets/blankets thrown back was GOOD, because it meant the mattress aired properly, so that damp, smell, and dust-mites were less of an issue. So now I never make my bed, and feel smug about it too. I may well feel differently if we had pets and/or spiders.
We’re in a (lifelong) sometimes-contained clutter phase in our house, but we almost always pull the sheets and blankets up (no tucking in) and smooth them. No matter how chaotic the rest of the house looks, I feel at peace when I see the bed “made”.
We leave it thrown about haphazard. My husband sort of makes the bed up right before we got to sleep, just so the sheet and comforter line up for me. Otherwise… eh.
Making the bed for me consists of throwing the covers back up where they “should” be so that when my 80lb black lab decides to take a mid afternoon nap he doesn’t get hair all over our pillows or sheets. But we don’t tuck in corners or anything like that. My bed is in a constant state of rumple because of said dog.
I grew up having to make the bed, but I never saw the point of it. I make my bed when my blankets get all twisty and tangled, usually every 2-3 nights. It’s not to make it look pretty, just so that I can cover up properly. My husband and I have separate blankets, and he straightens his out less frequently than I do. He is a much calmer sleeper than I.
I’m always first up, so I don’t make the bed. When my husband’s not home, I don’t make the bed. I never did it growing up. When my husband is home, one of us will make the bed, because he prefers it that way – it’s fine with me because I get to adjust the sheets then. If I crawl back into bed (as opposed to laying on top with a throw) in the middle of the day, I don’t have a problem, because I refuse to have additional stuff in my bed. There are 2 pillows per person (I don’t use my extra one, but I let it stay just to make things even), a fitted sheet, a flat sheet, and a blanket or comforter depending on the weather. No shams, no fancy pillows, nothing like that.
My daughter doesn’t make her bed – sometimes we’ll pull the covers up. She also gets 4 pillows: 1 to sleep on, 2 to make sure she doesn’t roll out of her full size bed, and an extra. She also has about 20 stuffed animals precisely arranged. Once in a while, if she’s going to Grandma’s for the weekend or something, I will make her bed. But it’s rare.
Shaking out the duvet and straightening the pillows is a must for me.
Well, now you have hit on something with me. The bed needs to be made everyday. As in: sheets smoothed out, tucked back in at the foot of the bed (we don’t tuck the sides), pillows where they should be, comforter or blanket up to the head of the bed.
My husband makes it most days because he’s the last one up. He likes it becuase it makes our room look neater. My OCD about it is because I need it like that to sleep well. I can’t stand folded sheets or sheets that are askew. I just can’t fall asleep.
If for some reason neither of us made it during the day, I need to make it before I go to bed. Which means I take 15 minutes to make the bed that I’m going to mess up right after.
It’s my one ‘thing’ 🙂
No bedroll and an unmade bed. All hail the mighty slackers!
Nope never make the bed. Frankly, I don’t see the point.
Unmade.
I was brought up to make my bed, my parents make their bed and my gran used to make her bed – morning chores. But as a capable and rational adult (sometimes) I have made the executive decision not to, based on the fact that I think its healthier for the sheets to air, the sunlight to get in there and on the sheets, rather than a quick 10 min airing. If (when) I change the sheets and duvet, it is never made up straight away, its always left till the evening, so the mattress can air as well. With the duvet/blanket/pillows out in the garden and in the sun if possible/home for the day.
If I want to nap in the day though, I have to pull the covers back (semi-made bed) as I don’t like getting in between the sheets in my dayclothes, I’d rather just sleep on top of the duvet with a blanky over me.
No extra cushions, no bolsters or anything, DEFINITELY nothing decorative here either
We leave the beds unmade, too. Hubby’s not fussy (he’s even more laid-back than I am in terms of house cleaning and stuff like this LOL).
And I get arsey if the bed is left closed during the day (ie if Mr Stinky is last out of it and doesn’t open it up)
I make the bed, mostly because our dog sleeps with us. She sheds like crazy and I’d rather limit her fur to the top layer, not the sheets. I don’t make the girls’ beds. They have bunk beds and a billion stuffed animals, and I like to air out their bedding (the overnight pullup odor). I don’t even bother with flat sheets for their beds.
This is great! I am a total bed maker. I get up, use the bathroom and brush my teeth, and then make the bed. I love how it makes the room look neat and clean!
I do keep decorative pillows on all the beds in our house: sham(s) and at least one additional decorative pillow. I love the ritual of pulling the shams and dec. pillows off the bed at the end of the day with R before we climb into bed – ending the day together and entering our private, married space.
I like to have the sheet and blanket at least thrown back into place. It does not have to be perfect. However, I work very early and my husband doesn’t get up before I leave. I HAVE to straighten the bed sheet/comforter practically EVERY night because he throws it back when he gets up and has them all twisted up. We can’t just crawl into bed and pull up the covers because they are all twisted. It’s a pet peeve of mine, but I’ve learned to live with it since we’ve been married 15 years!
All we have is a sheet and a duvet comforter. So all we need to do it pull it all up.
I do it only because I hate the idea of the place where I sleep collecting dust all day. (This probably comes from my childhood as an asthmatic, always trying to stay ahead of dust and allergens.)
I never make the bed, and am in fact rather against bed-making. It’s a complete waste of time, plus the way that many people make the bed turns it into a straightjacket. One of my least favorite things about staying in hotels is the fact that it takes several minutes of yanking to get all of the sheets and blankets free enough that I can sleep in a bed, and then they come in the next day and do it all again! Usually I leave the do not disturb sign up to save us all the torment.
I have never really “bought” the “it looks better” argument either. I think it probably looks better if you’re used to it, but if you’re used to an unmade bed, then it looks fine and dandy too. I’m neat in some other realms of life (e.g., laundry gets folded and put away straight out of the dryer), so it’s not that I’m a slob. I just don’t like having beds made.
I’m thrilled to see that I’m in such good company here. Most of my friends and acquaintances in real life claim to make the bed.
I din’t make the bed. which i feel bad about as my mum is a nurse i always had to make my bed at home as a kid including hospital corners. and now that i am a nurse as well and in a working day i probably still make 20 beds to perfection. but not the ones in our house.
Bed isn’t made unless the house is for sale or friends are coming over. I HATED making the bed all the time with a house on the market, but actually loved the feeling of getting into bed at night and pulling back the covers. We have TONS of throw pillows and it really makes the room feel great when they’re all in place, and are fun to throw around when we’re teasing each other. 🙂
We keep all of our beds unmade as well. I think the only time they are made is when my parents are coming to town. We run a business out of our home and so we have a cleaning service that comes in occasionally… they often try to do the beds and we tell them NO as well.
These posts are so interesting!
I make our bed every day. By “make” I mean I pull up the top sheet and the duvet/blanket to a rough approximation of looking neat and tidy and I put our two big decorative pillows (that are useful for propping you up when reading or dealing with a miserable gassy baby) back on (we chuck them on the floor at night). I do this every day. But I don’t retuck anything or straighten anything. I hate having the duvet tucked in at the bottom or the sheets tucked in on the sides. I find it claustrophobic. Q. likes being all tucked in so now when I put on fresh sheets I tuck in his side and leave mine free.
Honestly? I only ever make my bed if I’m on a big cleaning kick or I’m having company over for a party or something. Don’t know why I make it if I’m expecting company because they never go in my room but I do it none the less. Most times we never make the bed. Clean sheets and blankets, yes, but we will change them as we are going to bed. Plus our 3 kitties like to find little nooks and hiding places amongst our unmade bed to nap during the day and I can’t stand to ruin that for them.
The only extra pillows we have is hubby and I have matching chair pillows (shaped like the upper part of a lazy boy chair so that we have back support when we want to read in bed. When we don’t use them, they go in the closet.
We have been married nine years and it has only been in the last six or so months that we have been bed makers. I just seem to have a more productive day if I make the bed right away in the morning!