We can't get up in the morning

morah

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 12:10 pm

So the first the my mom asked me when I was dating my husband was "Can you find out if he's a morning person? Because if he's anything like you, and you get married, you guys will be sleeping till noon every day!"

Here we are married 2 years, and sure enough, we are equally bad in the morning. Mind you, we are not sleeping till noon, but we are not getting up when we're supposed to.

Yes, we get enough sleep.

Yes, we keep our alarm clock far enough away from the bed that we have to get up to turn it off.

Yes, we have a loud and annoying clock.

No, neither of us can rely on the other here- we are EQUALLY bad in this department.

No matter what we do, we end up going back to sleep and waking up way too late.

We have done EVERYTHING the "experts" say to do when you can't wake up, but to no avail. Are we missing something? What can we do to get up in the morning? Are we forever doomed to be incapable of functioning before 10 AM?

Grandmama

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 12:22 pm

Have you got children yet?
Usually children will keep you up enough so that you get to bed earlier, in order to be able to wake up at dawn to take care of them.
Having children usually leads us to improve many habits due to circumstances that we must change.
So if its just the two of you, it may be hard to see real improvement.
But once there are kids in the house, things will change.

red sea

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 12:26 pm

I think you should thank g-d you both have this same issue because if one of you was a morning person, they would surely get annoyed at the other one of you. Iy"h a baby or old age will fix it one day.

Grandmama

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 12:29 pm

If one is a morning person, at least they can get the other one up.
Sometimes its better to have people different in this way.
I am actually a night and a morning person!

yummymummy

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 1:36 pm

What kind of responses are you looking for? YOU SHOULD JUST GET UP OUT OF BED! Are you sleeping through the alarm clock? Am I missing something here? Not being a morning person is not an illness like insomnia, it's a choice. I'm sure most people want to stay in their warm, comortable beds for another "5 minutes" but if you have stuff to do or places to be then you get up, otherwise what's the problem with sleeping late?

morah

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 6:18 pm

No children yet- so we are hoping to change this habit before then.

We are in bed before 11 95% of the time, so there is no reason why it should be so difficult to get up at 7:30. We also seem to have the problem of getting used to alarms. We find we have to get a new alarm clock every few months because we get used to the sound and sleep right through it.

Raisin

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 6:33 pm

do you have jobs or something to get to in the morning? me and dh are not morning people either, but if we have to get up (for shul, kids, work or to catch a flight) we do. But, we are never ever in bed before 11pm. maybe friday night in the winter, but thats it. I would say we get about 7 hours sleep.

how old are you? I read once teens can sleep a huge amount, so if you are not long out of your teens, this may be why, and it may improve with age.

morah

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 6:45 pm

Raisin- I'm 22 and he's 23, so we are not that far out of teens, but I thought we would have grown out of it by now. We're both students, but we also juggle internships/jobs. We do have places that we need to be (not to mention minyan for my husband). It's seriously frustrating. Even when we do get up at 7, we tend to remain zombies until around 10.

MommytoB

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 8:01 pm

That was us before we had kids...The good old days! Now I have no choice but to get out of bed...Little people depend on me and need to be dressed and fed. Don't worry -- you don't have to change before having kids. This is one habit that will change because you have kids!

Marigold

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 8:53 pm

Have you tried the clocky alarm clock?

Morah, I totally understand you. Dh and I are both not morning pple and seriously walk around groggy-eyed for most of the morning hours. I'd rather be up all night and sleep all morning than the other way around. However once the children came along I had no choice but to get out on time and still I don't like it. Believe me, little pple can not be put on snooze.

morah

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 9:56 pm

Paddington Bear- What's the clocky? Lots of people seem to be saying that kids will solve the problem. Still, it would be nice to have a handle on it before then...

Jaysmom- Except that I absolutely DESPISE coffee. It actually makes me feel physically ill. DH doesn't mind it, but he is very anti-caffeine.

Capitalchick

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 10:11 pm

You really might just need more sleep. Accepting that is part of maturing and growing, in my humble opinion. I have a friend who just knows that, unless she gets 10 hours of sleep a night, she's s zombie and has tendency toward depression. So...she goes to bed at 9pm or earlier every night. That's just her 'thing'!! Some people have to give themselves insulin shots every day. Some people have to have dialysis. Some people have to watch their weight.....And some people need to go to bed ridiculously early to function well. I guess that's your burden. It could be worse!!

I also think that there's a mental aspect to it. If you just say "No! I'm getting out of bed NOW" and then just march yourself RIGHT to the shower, you can probably become more of a morning person. People who aren't morning people MUST MUST MUST shower in the morning. There's no other way to jump start your day!

Marigold

Sun, Jul 04 2010, 11:33 pm

morah wrote:

google clocky alarm clock and you will see the exact details and descriptions.
In a nut shell it's basically a wonderful wheeled alarm clock started as an engineering student's project. Having trouble waking up herself, Gauri Nanda developed Clocky to shriek annoyingly and effectively, waking you up. The fun doesn't end there. It leaps off of your night stand, and drives around your room, making random turns and racing away from your grasp. You have to get out of bed and hunt the little bugger down to turn it off.