How do you maintain your side of the bed? What secrets have you found? We keep an endless supply of pillows. They are all for me, but it makes Eric happier in the long run. We also have divided up blankets and electronics. Eric gets the alarm clock, since he has to get up earlier. I have to be farther from the door so that intruders will have to go through him first.

What do you do to maintain slumber harmony?

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2000

Answers

My side of the bed? All 10% of the total area of it? Between Elbows McWife and 4 cats, I'm lucky to snag some mattress when I can.

Our one cat Abby used to sleep on my wife's pillow all night. Since I've changed my pillows to newer, more comfy ones, she now sleeps on my pillows all night, leaving me a smidgin of smoosh to rest my head upon.

Cat Sam takes over my entire side of the bed if I stay up after the wife has gone to bed. Every night, I end up having to pick him up (all 22 lbs worth) and snug him on my chest if I want to steal my side back. Eventually he goes and curls up between my legs.

Then there's Finnegan, the 20 lb near-Russian Blue who likes to jump up beside me and lie along my left side.

Finally there's Megan, who at some point in the night curls up by my feet - all the body heat in the bedroom draws here there from the cooler living room.

I've lost count of how many times the wife has rolled over and slugged me in the face (or elsewhere) with a free flying limb.

Slumber harmony? Oxymoron, baby!

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2000

I am entirely unable to complain about my wife's sleeping habits. I am the most horrible person in the world to have to sleep with. I can't even complain about her elbows in my face, because she needs them for protection (as you will see)

Why It Sucks To Sleep With Me:

- I come to bed after she's already asleep, having sat in front of the computer for hours wearing shorts. I am a popsicle. I want to snuggle. - Once I get there, the covers are too hot for me so I sleep with one leg under the covers and one leg hanging out wherever. Eventually, that makes me cold and I get all the way under the covers, where I proceed to sprawl and take up 70 percent of the bed (another 15 percent is staked out by one or both of the cats). We keep getting bigger beds, but this just results in me having more bed, and her having the same little strip. - After getting all the way under the covers, I proceed to get comfortable. This involves rolling over a lot. No matter what configuration we sleep in, I always roll in such a way that I make all the covers into a Sleep Burrito around myself and leave my wife to freeze. - Once I finally get to sleep, I have bizarre dreams. There I was, somewhere in dreamland, being attacked by a giant spindly monster made of orange styrofoam. My reaction, quite naturally, was to head-butt it. Fortunately for my wife, she had her arm thrown up over her head so that I head-butted the point of her elbow, which of course woke me up immediately. Otherwise I probably would have given her a concussion.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2000

Get the right boy. No, seriously.

Current boyfriend: sleeps quietly, doesn't thrash, likes the right amount of covers, can sleep with girl close to him. In waking life: charming, helps around the house, good conversationalist.

Recent ex-husband: bed hog. took up 2/3 of the bed no matter what. elbowed me in the head. kneed me in the back. all while sleeping, so he "couldn't help it". In waking life: jealous, depressive, got in my hair constantly.

Previous boyfriend: slept quietly, didn't thrash, etc. Only problem: still sleeping 4 hours after I woke up. In waking life: workaholic, but very nice in other ways.

Boyfriend before that: bed hog. snored, kicked, elbowed. In waking life: jealous, depressive, got in my hair constantly.

So my theory, based on experience, is that sleep harmony is a reflection (or possibly a predictor) of waking harmony.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2000

The best way for me to have a good night's sleep would be to go to bed before my husband, but I just can't sleep before 2 in the morning. He gets up early so has to go to bed early too. That means I get stuck with The Butt. By the time I go to bed, he's sound asleep with his head and shoulders on his side and his legs on his side, but his butt somehow extends 3/4 the way across the bed. Try to push him over and he complains he's on the edge. Yeah, his and mine. Add the cat to the mix, and I have an area the size of my pillow. Sleep harmony can only be found after my husband gets up for work.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2000

Pamie, it's just a suggestion, but you might want to put Eric near a wall. So if he throws an elbow, he'll likely bang it on the wall and break his habit. :o)

I've been kneed and elbowed and plain ol' thumped, but I usually have my back turned. I've literally hugged a wall in my sleep before, so it's all good.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2000

Maintaining sleep harmony:

Separate Blankets. (it's the Sleep Burrito thing)

Separate Pillows.

Separate Beds.

Cat consigned to living room.

This is the ideal.

In reality it's separate blankets, pillows and constant space wrangling, (we take turns hogging) and the Cat Who Never Leaves the Center of the Bed.

No, really. This cat is very tenacious. Soon as someone's on the bed, if the door hasn't been closed, he's there, staking out his territory in the middle. Even if we're doing that conjugal thing, this cat will be there, no matter what happens. Bumped into, blankets thrown over, tail squished, nothing seems to bother him. Sometimes I have to stop and check that the stupid thing hasn't suffocated.

I figure he's defending his territory, since the bed was all his before the Big Guy moved in.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2000

I found it a wonderful thing to have a spare bedroom (which I then gradually make into My Room). I didn't need this with my first husband. We had a big waterbed and he stayed way over on his side so I could sprawl (or maybe because I'm a bed hog), and the cat liked to lay in the lower corners next to the pad. Sweet slumber.

Next boyfriend: Impossible to sleep with. Snores. LOUDLY. Truly impossible. Enter the spare bedroom theory. Problem solved. Until vacation. I once slept in the car.

Next husband: More Impossible To Sleep With. Snores. Talks in his sleep. Kicks. Didn't like sharing the bed with me or the cats. Rolled up in the blanket burrito and wouldn't let me near him. Divorced him after 3 months. Problem solved.

Current boyfriend: Perfect sleeper. Lays on his back on his little piece of mattress, doesn't snore, hardly turns over. The cats and I have the rest of the place and all the pillows. One cat stretched down the side of boyfriend's leg and he didn't even know it. HEE HEE.

-- Anonymous, January 11, 2000

I have to sleep with two pillows under my knees and one under my head. I need to have my arms laying flat at my sides. If none of these things are possible, I cannot sleep. I know I'm not easy to sleep with.

Then there's Squeaky, our cat. He manages to find a warm spot at the bottom of the bed to sleep in. He's fine until the alarm goes off and he wants to eat RIGHT NOW. Ugh.

Sleeping with my hubby isn't easy, either. He too, possesses the butt that can stretch all the way to my side of the bed while the rest of him remains on his side. I am a big fan of hitting him in the head or giving him shoves. I have used hands and feet, if necessary, to reclaim my side of the bed. He also snores. No, not a loud, roaring snore, but this little wheezey snore that drives me nuts. I have more than once pinched his nose shut to get him to stop. Once Bill accidently elbowed me in the head while sleeping. I, while sleeping, sat up and punched Bill in the face. I do not remember this at all, but Bill swears that it happened. All I know is that I haven't been elbowed in the head since.

So my suggestion is to push, shove, pinch, and punch in the face, if necessary, to get slumber harmony.

-- Anonymous, January 11, 2000

Ooops! I am the one with the problem here. First of all, there is no sharing blankets AT ALL. I am always hot and he is always freezing and needs to be completely wrapped up in his blanket. So two separate blankets have saved our marriage. Second, either hold me completely while we sleep or stay THE HELL AWAY FROM ME. None of this "your elbow is touching my shoulder" crap -- that just causes me to use what my husband refers to as my "jackhammer elbow." Get too close and it moves at the speed of light to to jab you back to your side of the bed. For some reason, I just can't stand the feeling of someone "sort of" touching any part of me while I sleep unless its a full on hug. We have a king size bed so usually this is not a problem. The last thing is, I am a VERY light sleeper and my husband is a VERY loud snorer (is that even a word?). We just were joking about this early this morning. I am usually asleep very early he comes in at 2:00 a.m. and either coughs his head off for a while (thanks cigarettes) or falls asleep and snores so loudly that I wake up startled. Then I usually suck my teeth (bad habit, I know) and try to say nicely "please turn over honey" or "Do you want me to get some medicine for you" Cause I know its not his fault he snores or has a coughing fit but I am annoyed to be woken up nonetheless. Then it takes anywhere from 1/2 hour to 2 hours to fall back to sleep. Its very frustrating. So of course, he was teasing me this morning by sucking his teeth 400 times in a row and saying "Who am I?" After I laughed my head off at 6:20 a.m. I apologized and thought "Hey, at least we can joke about it." Thanks for letting me vent. Maybe I should try sleeping pills? Going to bed later to fall into a deeper sleep? Any ideas?

-- Anonymous, January 11, 2000

What is the Lettuce, Pamie? I don't understand at all.

-em

-- Anonymous, January 11, 2000

I explained The Lettuce to my friend Mical like this:

Lettuce is Eric's big green blanket of death. the big yellow blanket of stains is known as Scrambled Eggs.

this is because the big green blanket looks like a wilted lettuce leaf and the yellow blanket looks like a pile of scrambled eggs.

i live at Romper Room.

-- Anonymous, January 11, 2000

my dear wife wears p.j. s to bed.......i sleep nude... always have, always will. guess who ends up burrito style ? mama, of course. the friction between her p.j.s and bed covers is like a feather on molasses fingers. but i love her.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2000

A few years back a friend of mine and I travelled to visit another friend of ours in Baltimore. So Christine and I ended up sharing this sofabed. Apparently the first night I rolled all over the place and kept elbowing her. The second night they gave me a stuffed elephant to hold and I slept peacefully the whole night.

So the answer, once again, is stuffed elephants. Is there anything they *can't* do?

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2000

I kick. I snore. My cats hog the bed and sleep on your face. Jeremy steals covers, snores, and molests me in his sleep. (That parts not so bad; it's when he starts snoring in the middle that it just feels wrong.) I sleep from 10 p.m. - 5 a.m.; he sleeps from 2 a.m. - 10 a.m.

Separate beds for the last four years. It was the only way to keep from killing each other.

I can't say it resulted in relationship harmony -- truthfully, I'd rather have found someone who was sleeping compatible with me -- but it was better than the alternative.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2000

We barter. I get the blankets, she gets the bed space. Everyone goes away sleepless, but at least I'M warm. Bwahahaha.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2000