I’ve decided to start waking up significantly earlier in the day or I can’t get my personal stuff done. But my alarm almost inevitably wakes my partner up before me. He often nudges me to get me to wake up and turn it off. Any ideas for what might wake me up but not him? I know some fitbits have vibrating alarm functions, but don’t know if it would be long/intense enough to wake me up and that seems like an awful lot of money for something that may not solve the problem and has more features than the ONE I need.
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I was about to say… I use my Fitbit’s vibrate alarm.
My partner wakes up significantly later than I do – when given our preferences, I’m up at least 2-3 hours earlier than he is, if not more like 4-5. I have a Fitbit One, and I find that the vibrate does pretty well at waking me up. That being said, I have indeed slept through it a few times when I’ve been really tired.
There may be under-the-pillow vibrate alarms? Or other bits of tech you can strap to your body that have vibrate. I think that’s one of the better targeted things out there; otherwise you’re dealing with noise (everyone hears it, unless you somehow have a headphones-based alarm and are content to sleep with headphones in), or with light (again, distinctly difficult to target).
ETA: I’m find some stuff on Amazon for deaf and HoH folks, but a lot of those options have both a vibrating wristband (sweet!) and a REALLY fucking loud alarm clock (not sweet).
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An alarm tied to slowly increasing the light next to your side of the bed? If light wakes you up, but not him, it could work.
We have a wake-up light for the time we both have to be up. I’ve slept through it. A lot. :-/
I actually used to have an under-pillow vibrating alarm clock in college because I woke up before my roommate. But it was a STRONG vibration – I think it would wake someone up if they were in the same bed. I wonder if I still have it in a box somewhere…
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Unconventional suggestion: Sleep in different beds?
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Boyfriend and I do this once a week when I have to be up even earlier than usual (5:30).
I also use a fitbit for this when I sleep in hostels or planes and need a quiet way to wake myself up.
It’s still cheaper, obviously, to buy an alarm clock but ny fitbit is like $49 new, $30 used(fitbit flex 2). It works well for me.
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I would consider this for once a week, but not for 5 times a week. Plus, what am I going to use as a heat rock for my cold, reptilian-like blood if not my partner?
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I was another vibration alarm person. But on my ankle because the chunkiness of my watch annoyed me.
I literally put an extra blanket on the bed for the one night a week that Boyf and I sleep separately.
Before I had a watch I always had success with a cat that is only fed by me.
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This has been a real bane in my life. I may have to get him a vibrating something.
Even if we are getting up at the same time, which we usually do, he has to have an alarm starting a minimum of 2 1/2 hours before he needs to leave the house in order to achieve minimal wakefulness. He spends nearly an hour of that in bed, ignoring the alarm.
I come fully awake at the first sound, or even five minutes before I know it’s going to go off, and there is no more sleeping. When we’re in different cities, I can get up half an hour before I leave, though I usually give it an hour now so I can take the dog outside his fence and time the cat’s insulin properly.
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Well, today I learned that a vibrator alarm clock is a thing. Not just a vibratING alarm clock. A vibratOR alarm clock. O_o
I’m going to poke around for a used fitbit. Or maybe see if I can borrow a friend’s fitbit for just one night and see if it works for me.
Another option is, among all the other Shit I’ve Lost, at one point I had bluetooth “sleep headphones” and I think you could use them as an alarm? I know I didn’t get rid of that one, but I have no clue where it is.
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I thought this was leading to you buying a used vibrator alarm clock. I was relieved to reread.
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Are you uncomfortable with me waking up aroused every day?
I feel like it would be annoying to be woken up like that every single morning.
Imagine being a teenage boy.
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I would be uncomfortable going to sleep in preparation for the alarm.
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shudders no thank you
Update:
After routing through my stuff and getting a small pile of dead spiders on me I did find my sleep headphones. So that’s an experiment I’ll try next week.
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Circa 1990s: alarm on my clock-radio with ear buds plugged in, and ear buds tucked into my pillow so they were near my head but I didn’t actually have to wear them (uncomfortable).
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