Alarm Clocks

[CopperzMuze]

Just wondering if anyone has dealt with this situation. I'm a very light sleeper and the slightest noise or whatever will wake me up. Shane on the other hand is such a heavy sleeper. We have two alarm clocks in our room that I set to help wake him up in the morning along with the cell phone alarm. I have tried clustering them all together on his nightstand to spreading them throughout the room. He will sleep through all of them. The alarms end up turning themselves off because he does not wake up to them. It's kind of funny but it's kind of not at the same time. I am sitting here in our office and all of the alarms have been going off for almost an hour now, which means they will turn themselves off here pretty quick. My mom told me that I should go and buy one or two of the wind up alarms because I can get them at wal-mart. She thinks that they sound a little bit higher and more annoying than the one's we have now. I used to think that he was just so used to the alarms that they didn't bother him, but I buy new alarm clocks once a year, so I have no clue. When I have to go to work before him, I am always worried about him oversleeping and I will constantly call him to make sure he is awake and up. I don't know what else to do. All three of our dogs could be in the house barking and he will sleep through that also, so any suggestions would be very much appreciative, not just for me, but for the both of us.

[Mel Taylor]

I know this is not a viable solution for you, as I'm assuming you and he sleep in the same bed, but I saw this pneumatic bed alarm clock and immediately thought of your situation...

[Ellen J]

I presume that he's no longer taking the Ambien! Because that would be step #1. I have the same problem with sleeping through alarms, though not as bad as your husband. Unfortunately I've been unemployed for a while, so I've gotten into the habit of sleeping in. This is great unless I have to get up early for something, and I dread the day I start working again and have to make it a routine. I may take some of your ideas, and I will watch for others. The only thing I know will work for me is a phone ringing. Is there a wake-up call service anywhere, like the kind you can get in hotels? (Business Idea!!)
Good Luck!
PS: My daughter, who has ADD uses a clocky, the thing that jumps off the nightstand and rolls around the room making tons of noise and you have to chase it to turn it off. It seems to work for her.

[CopperzMuze]

you name it, we've done it, he sleeps through the doorbell, the smoke detectors, cop and ambulance sirens, my cell phones and pager (for when I am on call), his cell phone, pagers, and radios (when he is on call, when he is on call and his pager or whatever goes off, I wake up and have to wake him up), the dogs barking, storms, the telephone, i have put the alarms (several of them) right in his ears, put the ice pack in bed, whispering in his ear, regular speaking in his ears, shaking him, nothing works. It is so hard and frustrating. I could just set the alarms, go to work and let things fall in place. HOWEVER, we live in a very small town, he is a Lieutenant at the Sheriff's office and he has been there for 8 years now and I do not want him to lose his job. There is nothing for jobs in this area and so I need to make sure that he gets to work and doesn't give the sheriff any reason to want to fire him, i'm not willing to take that chance. Falling asleep used to be very difficult for him when he was on his ADD medication that he was prescribed Ambien and he took that almost every night. Now that he hasn't been on his ADD medication, he has no problem falling asleep, just waking up, lol.

[Mel Taylor]

The last summer that I lived at my parents' house and was working, I would set three alarms for myself and place them in difficult to reach places in my room so that I would have to get out of bed and think a bit to turn them off. I usually slept straight through them, and my mom would start phoning the house form her office if she hadn't heard from me yet that day. There were days when she would let the phone ring through to voicemail, hang up, and redial five or six times before I woke up and answered. I was on antidepressants at the time, which seemed to exacerbate the problem for me. Now, living on my own, I find that if my alarm is novel, it will work for a while. I switch frequently between my cell phone alarm, the buzzer on my clock radio, and my computer -- I have an add-on for winamp called clockamp, and have it set to play music at full volume until I get out of bed, deactivate my screen saver, and click the button to turn it off. I always have my winamp playlist on random, and there is a healthy dose of metal in my library... nothing like underOath screaming in your ear to wake you up in the morning!!

Used alone, any one of these eventually starts to fail. As soon as that happens, I know it's time to switch or double up. If I have a really important reason to be up at a certain time, I still ask my mom to phone me. Sad but true. There are few things I cannot sleep through. The phone ringing is one. Others include the doorbell, fire alarms, someone speaking my name in a certain tone of voice, and the door of my room opening -- don't ask why, it just wakes me up every time. Does he have any things like that which almost always wake him up? Sometimes they can seem really weird. My little brother slept through the fire alarm in Rez until his roommate whispered his name, and he leapt out of bed wide awake.

This is an embarrassing problem, and one that I still struggle with on a regular basis. I am not proud of oversleeping and running late all the time. And like your husband, it does not matter what time I go to sleep -- once I get to sleep (which is sometimes a hard thing to do!!!) I stay asleep.

[CopperzMuze]

Just to let everyone know, it doesn't matter if he goes to bed at 11PM or 3AM, he can sleep and sleep and sleep. when he and I first got together, he didn't have to be at work until 11AM and he was on medication. When he got off the medication and started having to work 12 hour rotations and be at work at 8AM, he won't wake up. Here recently we had such a severe storm that I was pretty sure there was a tornado nearby, this happened at 5AM. I've been involved in 2 tornados before and so I was real sure that was what was happening. I tried to wake him up and I told him I was scared and he barely acknowledged me and slept through the whole thing. It was a tornado that hit a town 5 miles west of us, but I was so scared and I told him that I had tried to wake him up several times and he would NOT wake up. Same thing with the alarm clocks, he will NOT wake up. He has come up with the suggestions of clustering the alarm clocks, buying new one's, putting them throughout the room, nothing works. My work schedule revolves around the days that he works. I would much rather go into work at 7AM and be done by 3PM. On the days that he works, I have to always get up first, get ready and then wake him up to get him up and going so he can get to work. I then don't get into work until 9AM, which then means I have to stay until 5PM or so. On the days that I have to travel and get up and leave the house by 3AM, all I can think about is making sure I call the house like a mad woman to make sure he is awake. So, that is how our morning routines go for when we work. On the days he is off, I set alarms for him to get up and he will just sleep right through them. There was one day I took the afternoon off and came home at 2PM. He was still in bed, I was so upset because we had plans for the afternoon and I had to wait for him to get up, drink his coffee, and get dressed. This is a constant battle.

[Sally]

How does your husband feel about this problem? Has he come up with any solutions? It sounds like you have done your best at trying to help him get up. If it were me I would tell him it's his responsibility to get himeself up you have done your best at helping him and you've thrown your hands up to it. If he is late to work a few times he will come up with something that will get him up. How did he wake up before you met him? As you start to get counceling try and write down or remember behaviors that are related to ADHD and behaviors that he can do but has not been doing because someone else does them for him. You are going to have your hands full with all the changes that are ahead of you. Help him but don't enable him. Try hanging a bucket of water over him with a rope tied to the bucket and the door, leave the door open make sure the rope is just long enough with no slack so when you close the door the water will dump out on his head. Close the door when you hear the alarm. :) You might have to get that drastic for him to do something about the problem. I hope not. Good luck!

[Bryan Hutchinson]

Hrmmmm, this sounds very familiar. I used to have this problem for a long time, since childhood until it was discovered that I am allergic to wheat. After I stopped eating wheat I did not feel so exhausted and started waking up on time, even early. This might not be the case with your husband, but it wouldn’t hurt to have this checked out. Could also be that he has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome along with his ADD. However, I would seriously consider asking the doctor to run some tests on food allergies. On the other hand, if he’s going to bed at 4am and needs to get up at 8am, that would explain it too :-)