If you were a light sleeper, would you ask your two DC's (home for the summer) to please not get home at 2 am?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are part of the family just like any other. My dh is a doctor and works crazy hours. I don't limit when. he's allowed to do anything, including preparing food. He's just as valuable as the rest of us! So, we got thick carpet upstairs and on steps instead of all hardwood, as it was so loud that we were all getting woken, even when someone peed at 2am (op - are people allowed to pee and flush the toilet? If not - you have a much larger issue going on) . He uses a different bedroom on these nights and i wear ear plugs and/or use a white noise machine. I also close the door. Fair for all.

OP - if you want to have any kind of long-term relationship with your adult kids, you need to loosen the reigns a little. And please don't pull the "i pay for everything" card. It's so entitled and awful to throw paying for college and housing in your kid's faces. You're the parent - that's what you're supposed to do!

People are being very contradictory in their posts - claiming they are "grown" so they should be able to adhere to whatever rules. Well- if they are "grown" then they should have more freedom to live as they choose and they should be valued as human beings apart from their mother's needs.

I don't understand this post at all. The post is about college kids - not you allowing your husband to cook whenever he wants. I don't see how it translates.
You can ask your college aged kids/young adults to do something without ruining a relationship our pulling the "I pay for everything card". Trust me, you can. There is a lot in between these two extremes.

[Anonymous]

"observing quiet hours" is reasonable, controlling when them come and go is not. They should come in quietly, not slam doors, not shower at 2am etc. But they should set their own schedules. It's kinda true that college age kid socializing is largely between 10pm and 2am

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you wake up because they're being loud or because they are moving around the house? If they're being loud then I think you should tell them they need to be quiet. If your woken up by just the sounds of someone coming into the house and moving around then I would explore sound machines/ear plugs. I get it - we have an alarm and even when its disarmed the sound it makes when someone opens the door always wakes me up.

You can turn off the paranoia beep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Both of our DC's are college students. They are now home for the summer.

Both of them have summer jobs, and are mostly pretty considerate people. Our DD is not particularly nice to me (the mom), but is generally a considerate person. They are responsible and hard-working.

I wish that they saw their friends during normal hours, but it seems like our DC's insist that their friends mostly want to get together between 9 pm and 2 am. To keep the peace, I do not comment on that.

However, I have asked that they observe quiet hours from 12 am to 5 am because I am a light sleepover. I need to be able to concentrate at work. When they arrive home at 2 am, I hear them and so I wake up. I try to just roll over and go back to sleep, but I have a lot of trouble falling back to sleep. (When I was younger, I could just roll over and fall back to sleep. But now that I am in my early 50's, I find that I am basically awake once I am awaken after 12 midnight. I use a white house machine, and the Calm app to get back to sleep.

My DC's have said that it's "controlling" of me to ask them to observe quiet (non-moving) hours from 12 am to 5 am. My own mom (in her 80's) seems to side with my two DC's stating that they need to be able to have their fun in the summer with their friends, and that I should just use a rain machine (and ear plugs) to avoid waking up.

Any advice?

Does she have a tendency to downplay your needs? Do you actually care what other people think if you're the one who is suffering most and you have the power (money and authority as a parent) to control the situation?

This would not fly in my house, OP. I have trouble sleeping, my house is small and every noise is heard everywhere. My family knows to keep the noise down and if it means not coming in after midnight, that's what they do. There is no rule that says every college kid has to stay out at night. Plenty don't do that. I am SO not receptive to "but everyone's doing it!". Yeah. I shut that down in middle school!

OK, do you want your children to come home today with you, or not? Because if your can't compromise to live together, they can go live somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Were you never 20 years old, OP? I remember not even leaving to go out until 10:30 or 11. In DC, the clubs would be open until 2, and then we would eventually meander home, sometimes after going to an all-night diner or breakfast place for a bite. I would often get home at 4 or so. I say this as a goody-two-shoes who never did drugs, rarely drank, and made Testudo fly (IFKYK).

I don't make a big deal out of my college-aged kid staying out late. It's the only time in his life that he will really have the freedom and energy to do so. I want a good relationship with him and I want him to feel like he always has a place in the family home. I ask for common curtesy when he is home - minimize noise after midnight, clean up after yourself, help with household chores. But I'm playing the long game -- I want a good relationship with my kids for life and understand the different seasons of life. He's in the live forever, nonstop energy, world is my oyster phase. I love seeing it and it brings back happy memories of that time in my own life.

[Anonymous]

My dad just to have a large box fan he would shoot out my parents' bedroom door...it was like a wind tunnel to drown out me and my two siblings noise when we were back on breaks and for the summer.

To this day, my mom still talks about what a challenge it was when we first came home on our 'college schedule' while she and my dad were still working. I do remember one of us falling asleep at 3am with a frozen pizza in the oven that smoked up the entire downstairs--fire alarm going.

And I still can see my mom saying to me and my sister "you are just going out NOW???" when we'd leave around 10:30pm. I even worked two jobs in the summers--camp counselor during the day and then as a waitress for tip/cash $ dinner/evening shift...get off and go out with my sister.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Same situation here and we did what a couple of posters said - midnight on weeknights and later on weekends. We have to be able to get up to work. We are similarly courteous and try to be quiet in the morning while they sleep in. Different sleep schedules when they come home from college is challenging!

oh but kids that age can sleep through ANYTHING. I have an 18-year old and 16-year old sons and a not so big house...and they don't hear the neighbor's tear down construction beginning at 7am that is vibrating the entire house...sleep right through the bulldozers and mixers. I used to be the same until after I gave birth--now any light noise wakes me up.

[Anonymous]

LAST CALL!!!!!!!!!!!! We wouldn't leave DC bars until last call and they kicked us out.

[Anonymous]

I’m assuming this isn’t happening nightly? Just a couple nights per week? Just ask them to be quieter. If they are, and any little noise wakes you…get a noise machine. That isn’t their problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same situation here and we did what a couple of posters said - midnight on weeknights and later on weekends. We have to be able to get up to work. We are similarly courteous and try to be quiet in the morning while they sleep in. Different sleep schedules when they come home from college is challenging!

oh but kids that age can sleep through ANYTHING. I have an 18-year old and 16-year old sons and a not so big house...and they don't hear the neighbor's tear down construction beginning at 7am that is vibrating the entire house...sleep right through the bulldozers and mixers. I used to be the same until after I gave birth--now any light noise wakes me up.

Not mine. They are in our basement and hear everything.

[Anonymous]

OP here. It's interesting how many people side with the college-age students. I guess I see it more as an issue of respect for and courtesy to the people with whom you live (whether those people are family members or not). IMHO, it's a bit of an immature/entitled attitude to think that one can come and go 2-3x per week at 2 am for purely social reasons, if one knows that those actions have a negative impact on another person. (Even if my DC's tip-toe and walk slowly and quietly to their rooms, I hear it because of the layout and age of our small house. Sure, it would be lovely if our house were larger and newer, in which case the noise be much less noticeable.)

I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut for the rest of the summer, and wait it out. I try to be a friendly and low-maintenance person, and won't make a big deal of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP here. It's interesting how many people side with the college-age students. I guess I see it more as an issue of respect for and courtesy to the people with whom you live (whether those people are family members or not). IMHO, it's a bit of an immature/entitled attitude to think that one can come and go 2-3x per week at 2 am for purely social reasons, if one knows that those actions have a negative impact on another person. (Even if my DC's tip-toe and walk slowly and quietly to their rooms, I hear it because of the layout and age of our small house. Sure, it would be lovely if our house were larger and newer, in which case the noise be much less noticeable.)

I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut for the rest of the summer, and wait it out. I try to be a friendly and low-maintenance person, and won't make a big deal of it.

This is such an odd response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP here. It's interesting how many people side with the college-age students. I guess I see it more as an issue of respect for and courtesy to the people with whom you live (whether those people are family members or not). IMHO, it's a bit of an immature/entitled attitude to think that one can come and go 2-3x per week at 2 am for purely social reasons, if one knows that those actions have a negative impact on another person. (Even if my DC's tip-toe and walk slowly and quietly to their rooms, I hear it because of the layout and age of our small house. Sure, it would be lovely if our house were larger and newer, in which case the noise be much less noticeable.)

I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut for the rest of the summer, and wait it out. I try to be a friendly and low-maintenance person, and won't make a big deal of it.

Don’t be a martyr!

[Anonymous]

I have some sympathy for OP as a menopausal light sleeping mom with insomnia. But I’d let your college kid keep their hours as they wish as long as they’re doing their best to keep the noise down. My college kid also is a night owl who occasionally wakes me up with her nighttime wandering around the house. But earplugs and the fan noise help a lot. I recommend the knock-off Loop earplugs from Amazon for sleeping. They were a game changer for me betweeen DH’s snoring and night owl teens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP here. It's interesting how many people side with the college-age students. I guess I see it more as an issue of respect for and courtesy to the people with whom you live (whether those people are family members or not). IMHO, it's a bit of an immature/entitled attitude to think that one can come and go 2-3x per week at 2 am for purely social reasons, if one knows that those actions have a negative impact on another person. (Even if my DC's tip-toe and walk slowly and quietly to their rooms, I hear it because of the layout and age of our small house. Sure, it would be lovely if our house were larger and newer, in which case the noise be much less noticeable.)

I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut for the rest of the summer, and wait it out. I try to be a friendly and low-maintenance person, and won't make a big deal of it.

Even if they stay home, what if they tip-toe slowly to the bathroom at 2am because they have to take a leak? It seems like you'd hear that just the same. The whoosh of a toilet flush in an old house is louder than someone sneaking in after a night out. Is that not allowed, either? What if they get diarrhea? Are they supposed to stay in bed and take a deuce in their pajamas? What if it's explosive diarrhea? As light as you sleep, you'd hear the butt vibrations even if they don't leave their room. In other words, this is definitely a YOU problem.