We tried the Scandinavian sleep method. Here's what happened
Using Instead Duvets Pictures People Involves Individual Method Sharing One The Of Two File Sleep Scandinavian Between Two
The marital bed. A place of repose, passion, intimacy, secrets, laughter and comfort. There are tender passages of all those things. Still, after 25 years, there has been some tension — I won’t lie. If the deLongchamps do want to play Adult Monopoly on a snowy night, we search for each other with strangled cries and the flashlight on our phones.
The bed is ridiculously big, but reader — there’s more, and I have to confide in you. Huddle up. He’s driven me to the cold outer reaches of the Scandinavian sleep method.
Let me explain. We go to bed. “'Night, Love,” he sings out. A moment passes. Shoulder up. Sighs. Deep sonorous snores from the King. I, on the other hand, tense — a nocturnal squirrel, brain ablaze.
There are two-three hours to go before this mind-palace is quietened by reading, plotting, and a little prone Pilates. However, I am not the problem on our marital couch. Over on his snowy acres, the madness of King Charlie has only just begun.
He’s a lovely guy. He’s not a pillow pirate or duvet deviant. He’s not screaming some other woman’s name, fluting wind like the RTE Concert Orchestra, or doing anything I can tearfully complain to a counsellor about.
Actually, he warms a nice divot for me and rolls into his Antarctica when I show up. The difficulty is, he’s consumed by a curious, tortuous, highly physical overnight journey.
Charlie is ex-US Army, and trained himself to sleeping on top of tanks, under jeeps, swinging from trees, and giving the appearance of being awake while on fireguard. By night, his body is still on active duty. It’s war.
I can’t stress how dramatic these after-hours antics are. The man’s a 6’5" mountain and to borrow from Will Shakespeare, he “struts and frets” a good 8 hours on my bed. Conjure up Ramin Djawadi’s rhythmical score to HBO’s , because — trust me, he’s off. The opening act comprises his broad but flexible body, dangling off the side of the bed, the mattress seam gripped between a pinch of knees. He coils and flips, reefing the covers.
While I carry on scrolling Instagram for Broccoli fritter recipes, WWF’s Gollum is at the head of the bed shivering wildly, his head smashed up on the bare plaster. Sometimes I’ll find him wandering the soft, cavernous expanses between the duvet and the duvet cover elasticated into various Bob Fosse poses — muttering music, often upside down, regularly taking the bottom sheet and two pillows with him.
He’s convinced I’m the villain of the moonlight serenade and remains extremely territorial. The faintest pull on the duvet as I rolled across the bed to drop off my laptop, results in a sharp, maritime heave-ho from a startled, offended man robbed of 5cm of coverings on his side. Sometimes he schools me, pulling then releasing the covers, to sling-shot me off the bed.
His manner at 2am is kind, condescending patience. Groggy words are exchanged. The lunatic who sleeps with three-quarters of his body uncovered, the bedspread bound around his ankles, is suddenly not to be disturbed. I do sit up late, I have five pillows, and I drape a three-gang extension cord over him from time to time. Still, he has been caught, head and shoulder on the bedside table — over and out.
So, what does the Scandinavian style of sleeping offer in terms of de-escalation? Well, with two single duvets on a bed intended for a couple, there’s obviously more physical autonomy.
If you like to use one leg to sit out in the cool, acting as a temperature regulator, you’re not dragging any real estate away from your partner or pinning the bedclothes.
That taut tent separating you is no longer an issue, and not to be crude — if someone does let one rip, it’s not enclosed in your bubble of linen. Having lived in Sweden as a single girl, I had not noticed or experienced the method, but I did come home with the life-long habit of retiring with the windows flung wide year-round. He was oddly refreshed, I was exhausted, and it seemed well worth a try.
So, one trip to Jysk later, we were each assigned a single duvet in freshly laundered butter-soft, white covers. It felt a little off for me — something of a sleep divorce, but after a brief, giggling exchange, noses hooked naughtily over our cotton tops, the light was snapped off. I put my foot out to find the nicely muscled back of his legs as usual. An unwelcome cool cavern had to be crossed.
His duvet rather than nestling in the valley, is sitting up on the summits of his frame — a handkerchief draped on a buffalo. He then moved off to the edge as usual to work on destroying the €2,000 double spring mattress with some Jason Momoa-style thrashing and writhing. Now, at this point, I had not really detected any real differences in my situation. I’m tall, slender, a bony crone, so fit well under a single. What I did deeply appreciate is reaching for my computer on the floor beside the bed to check that Andrew Tate was still going to trial shortly, I wasn’t rudely told off like an errant toddler.
Scandi-style, I was able to turn over, scoop up the LG, and return to the yielding hills of my five pillows unmolested. He reported back the next day that the test had been an utter success. His duvet was washed up against the far wall of the bedroom. I didn’t even ask, but this week, I’m setting up an infrared wildlife camera to check out what somnambulism gyrations he’s moved onto.
Not to draw every veil from our personal life, but in closing — the gap between the duvets can be swept open for affectionate exchanges, without the intrusion of bed covers. I would advocate tucking the end of the duvet cover into the end of the mattress if you can find one long enough. Otherwise, the duvets get swept easily right and left and do tend to drop to the floor.
On the downy downside? Well, it’s the JRT. We used to sleep with an elephant-scale lurcher and an expressive terrier (who loathes me). We are now down to Ratface, and he is now trembling in the badlands between the duvet edges as his duck-down cathedral has been unroofed. I suggested a basket. Charlie shot me a wincing stare. It looked more likely I would be the one sleeping in the basket. The dog now has his own little coverlet, kicked all over the bed by GI Joe. I’ll let you know how we get on.
Winter is coming.