<p>Usually colleges students don’t go to bed before midnight; usually teenagers can’t go to sleep before that time, it’s a hormone thing.
Is any of your Ss and Ds going to bed earlier than that because of their roommates?
My friends have a double sharing a bathroom in suite with another double room; one of the girls is very nice, sociable, and outgoing; the other is the opposite. The “lack of social skills” girl goes to bed sometimes before 10 and one she goes to bed the lights must go off. I feel sorry for her roommate because she can’t study or finish her homework in her room and she can’t have friends over/</p>
<p>D had the same thing with her socially backward roommate first year. She studied in the hallway, library, etc. BTW, the roommate couldn’t stand even the light from one of those book clip on little lights, but her radio went off at 5am so she could hear her fav program on NPR, and it didn’t matter that D couldn’t stand noise. D was also told off for having friends in the room (playing Trivial Pursuit) without asking permission first. Sheesh! D decided it wasn’t worth the hassle, that she wasn’t going to be able to make her understand that this was her room, too. All in all, a very unpleasant year. But D made many friends outside the room with people that are still her friends. However, no one wanted to room with the roommate the next year (she wound up alone in a room in a wing about to be renovated, it is so bad.), and D had many offers. Go figure.</p>
<p>This thread made me laugh with a college memory of my own. I’ve always been an early to rise, early to bed person. My roommate was a night owl. I would always go to sleep then she would have a bunch of people over, lights on and music blaring. I slept through it all. The used to take pictures of me sleeping while they were partying.<br>
Anyway, point is as an early sleeper, I just trained myself to sleep through anything. Never inconvenienced my roommate.
I am not sure I recommend it though because as an adult I slept through a bad earthquake. Hubby had to wake me up and drag me out of second floor apartment.</p>
<p>I think those who end up being good friends with their freshman year roommates are very lucky. It is the fantasy many have but so often it just does not work out that way. The little compatability surveys schools have you fill out do not really help much in figuring out who will be a good match or not. Neither of my girls became good friends with their freshman year roommates but they were able to learn to respect each other and live together. They remain cordial to this day and by the time roommate selections came up for sophomore year, people had pretty much sorted out who they will live with.</p>
<p>It is especially tough when one roommate is so inflexible. Short of switching rooms, sometimes you just have to acknowledge that the situation is not ideal and make your own adjustments Keep us posted Trapper</p>
<p>We invest major amounts of time and money in a college education only to have problems with roommates. And why does this happen? So the colleges can make a profit by overcharging for substandard room and board services. </p>
<p>My D solved the problem by getting a single room for her first two years and now sharing an apartment with kids who have similar schedules. She is up by 7am on weekdays and usually starts her Saturdays by 8am. She has lots of friends and activities and is certainly not socially backward. Her schedules and interests do not include staying up half the night playing games or partying.</p>
<p>According to my sophomore D, her roommate is being a very good influence in regards to bedtime and neatness. I can vouch for the room being neat (at least, neater than it was at last year’s Parent Weekend).</p>
<p>ZG started the year with a roommate (nice girl) with who she had nothing in common and very different schedules. Turned out that the next door pair had the same problem, so they were allowed to swtich. Turned out great and all four are very friendly. One room is neat and orderly, whereas ZG and her roommate live in a sty. It easily could have turned out otherwise, but we’re all glad for the switch.</p>
<p>While it may be true that most teenagers can’t go to sleep before midnight because of hormones (I read that somewhere as well), there are exceptions to that generalization–as this instance shows–and the difficulty runs both ways. Also, the “socially backward” roommate may just be an introvert that is worn out by all the mandated social interaction and noise in a college environment and needs to recharge her batteries with isolation. </p>
<p>With that said, each needs to be sensitive to the other’s needs. When I had roommates I didn’t ask for lights out or quiet, but I always felt guilty for going to bed anyway. Who wants to party with a sleeping roommate nearby? Needless to say, it was stressful for both of us. </p>
<p>I worked hard to find isolated places away from my room where I could get the big doses of silence I needed to offset the noise and less than ideal sleep conditions. I remember being told by a guard on a military base that the isolated spot I found near the base perimeter was not a safe place to hang out. Another time I walked down to City Hall Park from Greenwich Village at 3:00 in the morning one week-end just to escape a loud party in our apartment. The business district was the only place I could think of in Manhatten that would be guaranteed to be quiet on the week-end. Thinking back, probably not smart, but that is how desparate an introvert can get for quiet.</p>
<p>I read about a theory based on evolutionary biology that postulated teenagers were used in the pre-Historic era to stand watch all night, guarding against predators or roaming enemy tribes. The successful teenagers’ genes were passed on (along with their ability/desire to stay awake into the wee hours) and the unsuccessful ones, well they were eaten or killed in their sleep and their early-to-bed genes were not passed on. Thus, we have the majority of teens and young adults who think the night begins at 11 p.m. :)</p>
<p>My daughter is going to bed before midnight on weeknights and probably by 1 pm on weekends, which would make her a “problem” for a roommate, I suppose. </p>
<p>I guess it’s a good thing that she has a single, or people would be complaining about her on CC.</p>
<p>Ha ha, Momof2inca…you had me ROTFLOL with your theory.</p>
<p>I can vouch for my DS then. In HS he used to be an early to bed/early to rise person. Having gone to College, has now suddenly transformed him. I guess he had suppressed his ‘night owl’ genes whileat home and now these are highly overexpressed.</p>
<p>What with classes starting at 10am and all, it really encourages this late to bed/late to rise habits.</p>
<p>One thing you can be sure of though is that if they are sleeping late on weeknights, they are either studying hard or socializing interspersed with studying…experiencing the true essence of College life! :)</p>
<p>My college jr. S never goes to bed before midnight. According to him, it’s usually between 1 and 2 am. when he goes to bed, sometimes later. He gets up early every day too. He’s just one of those people who can survive on less sleep. He lives off campus with 3 guys but they each have their own room. His freshman dorm roommate shared his same wacky sleep habits luckily.</p>
<p>It’s really not an issue of sleep schedules so much as preferences/requirements for sleep conditions. I often go to sleep between 12 and 1 during the week, whereas my roommates sometimes stay up until 3 or 4. We all get along fabulously because I can tolerate the light from their desk lamps and the noise from their keyboards (and, as an added bonus, they tell me what I say when I talk in my sleep). If I needed total quiet to sleep, or if they were insistent about having loud conversations in the room late at night, it could easily have been a disaster.</p>
<p>if the roommate can’t handle the computer light or a book light, she is being a brat, simple</p>
<p>when my kids were little, I made it a point to have them sleep in different conditions, lights on, lights off, door open, door closed, tv on tv off</p>
<p>the roommate is spoiled and intolerant and simply mean, she cares not on iota for her roommates needs, jsut her own</p>
<p>and if her sleep schedule is so sensative, she needs to learn to sleep with ear plugs and an eye mask</p>
<p>It is all a matter of whose eyes you are looking through. Many times there have been threads bemoaning having the opposite type of roommate. If the OP’s friend had been the “early to bed roommate”, it might have said - </p>
<p>“My friend has a roommate problem. She stays up until all hours of the night, has friends in to party, etc. My friend is having trouble getting the sleep she needs, etc.” </p>
<p>Let’s face it - college housing is outdated, antiquated, or whatever you want to call it. It hasn’t followed the trends of what has happened out in the “real world” - most kids don’t share a space with even a sibling in their own home, let alone a perfect stranger in what is already a foreign environment. Colleges are just trying to house bodies in the most economical fashion they can. I think many are wising up and building new dorms where several small single rooms share a common room and bathroom. It gives students “roommates”, yet lets them retreat to their own small space when they want to study or sleep without disturbing the routine of the others. </p>
<p>As edad and Marian noted, my D is also to bed as close to midnight as she can get and is up early. </p>
<p>And as edad, Marian, and TheAnalyst eluded to, wanting to go to bed at an hour that is good for you, doesn’t make one “lacking in social skills”. Maybe just watching out for what is best for themselves.</p>
<p>Zoosermom had an excellent suggestion - can your friend politely inquire around if anyone has a similar rooming situation and switch? And, as someone said on another thread, maybe your friend is not the type of roommate the “early to bed girl” wanted. Just depends on whose eyes you are looking through.</p>
<p>My son and his roommate are very well matched. They sleep until noon or later when they can. Up until 4 or 5am on weekends.</p>
<p>this is college and going to bed before 10 is NOT the norm, sorry, it is not</p>
<p>and if the roommate stayed up all night and was noisy, she would be a brat as well</p>
<p>there is a compromise A roommatte shouldn’t have to shut down at 10, that is absurd, and a roommate shouldn’t keep their roommate up all night either</p>
<p>however, who wants to bet the early to bed roommate lied on her application</p>
<p>my D was very clear on her Application about her hours</p>
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<p>I disagree. If the roommate who is still awake has a laptop, she can simply take herself and her stuff (books, computer, cell phone, friends) elsewhere. This is one of the reasons why dorms have lounges. She can then come back to the room quietly when she’s ready to go to bed.</p>
<p>The person who wants/needs to sleep cannot go elsewhere to do that. Not safely, anyway.</p>
<p>I admit that if the roommate with the later schedule has a desktop computer, there is more of a problem.</p>
<p>oh yes, le tthe girl move ALL her stuff so the roommate who goes to bed early every single night can have her way</p>
<p>let the girl lug her books, phone, laptop, etc down the hall and leave her room that she pays good money for every night, yep that would be a really good plan</p>
<p>and where is elsewhere? hmmm, lets see…</p>
<p>a light on computer or a book is minimal and if you can’t handle that you should be in a room alone</p>
<p>ten oclock is not an unreasonable time in college to be up</p>
<p>my D plays intermural sports, her games are at 11pm</p>
<p>some kids have trainings, and meeting until 10 at night, and then to have to go to your room and pack up and go is absurd</p>
<p>my D got herself some of those big headsets, so she wouldn’t annoy her roommate</p>
<p>her roommate likes it really dark, so before college she got used to sleeping with night shades</p>
<p>if you are going to college, you need to learn how to make yourself adaptable, either way- if you are night crawler, and I am talking after 1130 not ten pm, or an early to bed, learn how to adapt</p>
<p>but you SHOULDN"T expect your roommate to leave all the time you go to bed</p>
<p>that is just ridiculous</p>
<p>and if you think 10 is LATE, go to some college campus, ten is often when many students are just getting back frm seminars, programs, practices, the gym, study groups, etc, and yet some what the roommate who is actually doing things to not use their room, so the roommate who goes to bed at 10 can have the room alll to her wee self because, gee, she is an early bedtime person who can’t deal with noise or light in a dorm</p>
<p>don’t dorm it then</p>
<p>when my D has late games, she plans for it- she has her stuff ready so she can shower and then slip into the room so she isn’t banging and clanging around</p>
<p>but her roommate who may have an early class the next day, doesn’t expect D to leave the room to dress or whatever</p>
<p>and my D does her best to be quiet, but she can have a small lamp on for heavens sake</p>