<p>I don’t use a nightlight, but I’m with Pizzagirl. Sure, if one roommate isn’t too attached to the nightlight and the other is really bothered by it, the sensible thing to do would be to not use it, but I don’t see why claiming that one can’t possibly get a good night’s sleep with a small and strategically placed nightlight on is any less high-maintenance than claiming that one can’t possibly feel safe without it. In fact,there are students for whom the nightlight might actually make a lot of sense - if you’re visually impaired or have another disability that makes getting around in the dark more difficult than it would be for the average person, for instance. And that’s a case of an accommodation that is so mild I would never even think of warning a potential roommate about it, let alone insisting that the burden should be on the student to ask for a single. </p>
<p>Frankly, light sleepers are pretty much going to have to adapt in most roommate situations. Some people snore when they sleep. Some people go to bed later than you, or get up earlier. If you are honestly disturbed by any amount of light, even if you agree to nix the nightlight, what are you going to do if you have a roommate who goes to bed a couple of hours after you do? Even if she is respectful and goes elsewhere after you’ve gone to bed, when she comes back to the room, there’s probably going to be some light involved. </p>
<p>I’m now at the age at which some of my friends are starting to have children. I’m pretty sure none of their natural sleep cycles call for being repeatedly woken by crying infants, but somehow they soldier on. Coping with non-optimal sleeping situations at some point in your life is the norm, not some bizarre exception. </p>
<p>Actually, your position is more nuanced than PG’s. PG was the one who considered those who cannot tolerate nightlights because they need absolute darkness to be “high maintenance” as seen here:</p>
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<p>One major difference in that situation is the parents usually made a choice to have kids and the kids are close family members whereas most college roommate situations are 2 or more strangers being thrown together for a period due to mandated situation of the college dorm environment. </p>
<p>People, especially parents are much more likely to tolerate more and be more relaxed around close family members/their own children than with strangers imposed on them by institutional/situational fiat like college roommate situations. </p>
<p>And people make a choice to go to colleges that don’t guarantee singles, either. If you enter into a dorming situation, you understand that you are going to have to make certain compromises. You shouldn’t tolerate unreasonable behavior on the part of your roommate, but you can’t expect an ideal situation either.</p>
<p>For the record, yes, I do think saying that you need absolute darkness to sleep, to the point that a roommate putting a small nightlight near his own bed would be utterly intolerable to you, that qualifies as high-maintenance. </p>
<p>@Pizzagirl, if you read what I said earlier, I don’t require total darkness. I don’t even use blackout curtains. Somehow those bright point sources of light from clocks or nightlights are more disturbing, especially when trying to get to sleep. I never said I wouldn’t be willing to compromise either. What disturbs me is how people like you don’t even see agreeing to use a night light as a compromise. If it doesn’t bother you, it must not bother anyone. </p>
<p>And yes, i do keep the door closed well because the sunlight coming in if the door is cracked open from the next room in the morning will wake me up at dawn. It’s a lot higher contrast than what comes in through the blinds.</p>
<p>I lived in several suites and apartments in my youth, and not a single one of my 15 or so roommates ever needed a night light. I really don’t think needing a night light is the norm among young adults–in my view, that’s high maintenance. I guess the other two posters who also mentioned the clock thing are high maintenance also. How many of you parents sent your kids off to college with a night light? Do your kids need to have night lights in college, pizzagirl? </p>
<p>What I’m wondering is how the kid who cannot handle being in the dark can go out at night. The level of illumination walking around campus is a lot lower than the overhead light which they say they require. Will they skip dinner in the winter and order pizza? Will they be unable to attend nighttime classes or activities or work a job in the evening? Are they unable to attend movies?</p>
<p>No, neither of my kids have / use night lights at school or home, mathyone. </p>
<p>And Cobrat, I wasn’t talking about night lights. I was talking about much less light than a night light - such as the light emanating from an alarm clock in an otherwise dark room. </p>
<p>Mathyone, if you were my roommate and asked nicely, I’d try to position the alarm clock or whatever away from you, but if you told me I couldn’t have it at all, I think you’d be out of line.<br>
And what if I were in my own bed texting or reading something on my phone (with sound turned off), or reading on an ipad? While it would be considerate to try to shield you from it, the other person has a right to sit quietly in his bed and read his phone messages or whatever. </p>
<p>A refrigerator - a common thing in a dorm - might have a very mild, subtle hum. Would it be appropriate for a student to “forbid” a refrigerator because of that? Or mathyone, what if your roommate opened the refrigerator door in the middle of the night to get a drink? </p>
<p>BtW, my D likes a very quiet, very dark room and is the type who really needs her sleep. She sleeps with sleep mask and earplugs both at home and at school. That shapes her environment the way she wants it, without impacting anyone else. </p>
<p>I also have a physician relative who is on call every week (and from what I’ve seen gets calls every hour or two and sometimes has to leave the house). He sleeps in a different room on those nights so as not to disturb his wife. I don’t call her high maintenance. I call him considerate.</p>
<p>It’s nice that sleep masks and ear plugs work for your daughter. As I mentioned, eye masks don’t stay put when I sleep and I’ve been wakened with elastic in my eye enough times that I don’t bother with them. My relative with the need for blackout use to use sleep masks but apparently also found them lacking and found it worth his while to set up blackout in his bedroom. Perhaps someone who needs light shining on their closed eyes to sleep should slip a small light inside a sleep mask. </p>
<p>Well, that wouldn’t work, as my H is a solo practitioner and is on call 24/7. He’s not going to sleep in a diff room from me every single night. </p>
<p>And why are you moving the goalposts? Yes, the person who “needs light shining on closed eyes” (such as a room lamp or overhead light) needs a single. But we weren’t talking about that. We were talking about a tiny source of light just as an alarm clock or perhaps illumination from a smart phone in an otherwise darkened room. Sorry, “I can’t handle even the light from one small alarm clock on my roommate’s side of the room” is as high maintenance as “I need an overhead light.” Own it. </p>
<p>But being high-maintenance or rigid as to preference is different from phobia and certainly different from mental illness or psychological disorders. I think sleeping preferences like bedtimes and light needs should be matched by the school whenever possible. But if it’s not possible, I expect my child to compromise or deal with it. I don’t think it’s fair, however, for a student to have to live with someone who is, or is prone to becoming, emotionally unstable, ie.whenever something in his environment is not just as he needs it. That’s an imposition. </p>
<p>I agree being high maintenance is different from having a nervous breakdown because something isn’t just to one’s liking. It’s interesting how sometimes people have a difficult time discerning subtle differences in scenarios. I think that’s the point - most people can make minor adjustments in their sleeping/living environments and it might take alittle bit of getting used to however it’s not insurmountable. Some people might be high maintenance and pitch fits when things don’t go their way but can under pressure reach some tenuous compromise, but there will be some people that will become so angst and anxiety filled that they can’t function. It’s the last group that needs to be honest about their issues.</p>
<p>How does a student who has issues that may bother another student, especially if it isn’t certain to be a problem…like the nightlight issue, that may bother some, may not bother others…How does the student who has the ‘issue’ make sure they get a single? If the school offers them, they can request it, but I don’t know that it would be guaranteed. I don’t know how a school could guarantee it, not knowing how many people would request/require singles for any given year.</p>
<p>Nightlights and LEDs from alarm clocks are one thing that most people IME wouldn’t have a problem with unless they’re unusually bright.</p>
<p>Not too sure about smart phones unless they’re lighting levels are substantially dimmed in the darkened room as most of the ones I’ve seen throw off about as much light as a bright computer monitor, something many more folks would have an issue with while sleeping, including yours truly. </p>
<p>I actually had a serious argument with one college roommate over his MUD gaming till 4 am or later because computer monitors throw off so much light in a darkened room before we came to an agreement in which he had to go elsewhere to play after midnight so i can get enough sleep for my early morning classes. </p>
<p>This issue also manifests itself in darkened theaters which has made going to watch movies in theaters far less enjoyable to many than in the pre-smartphone days. The light emitting from most smartphones can really be distracting to those around and behind the user in such a venue. </p>
I don’t know for certain, but I suspect you’d have to document the issue with qualified practitioner and present the documents to your school’s ADA coordinator.</p>
<p>“LEDs from alarm clocks are one thing that most people IME wouldn’t have a problem with unless they’re unusually bright.”</p>
<p>Several people on here explicitly said that they turned around or covered LED’s from alarm clocks. That was the discussion. Now, what married people decide to do is their own business, but if we’re talking about college roommates, I would try to be considerate and move the alarm clock out of direct view if possible, but if it couldn’t be helped because of the set-up of the room, I think it’s unreasonable for the roommate to <em>insist</em> that it be covered or gotten rid of because she’s got to have perfect darkness or else the teeny-tiny light from an alarm clock is a deal-breaker. She, too, can turn her head the other way.</p>
<p>What about bunk beds – I was in a bunk bed situation my freshman year (I had the top bunk). My roommate and I each had one of those angled-arm reading lights so we could read in bed. I’m sure there were times where I read in bed while she slept, and vice versa. If someone like Mathyone couldn’t handle the light from a freakin’ alarm clock, how would they ever handle that kind of light? And is that reasonable for one person in a bunk bed to expect the other not to use an angled-arm light in their own section? I don’t think that’s reasonable, personally. </p>
<p>How about a flashlight? Would Mathyone have a reasonable request to ask a roommate not to use a flashlight or clip-on book light in her own bed? And Mathyone hasn’t answered whether it’s reasonable to ask a roommate not to use an iPhone or iPad for reading purposes when in bed. </p>
<p>“How does the student who has the ‘issue’ make sure they get a single? If the school offers them, they can request it, but I don’t know that it would be guaranteed. I don’t know how a school could guarantee it, not knowing how many people would request/require singles for any given year.”</p>
<p>It obviously depends on the school and how many singles they have and how freshmen fit into the equation. I went to a school where there is a huge dorm of all singles, and freshmen could certainly request to live there. </p>
<p>I think the problem is when someone insists upon extremes. No light whatsoever, complete overhead light, no noise after 7pm (or whenever), no visitors in the room, always has to have the window open, etc. When one person cannot compromise (whether from real mental illness or just stubbornness) then there is a problem. RAs are trained to help deal with these issues and, if no compromise can be reached, then IMO the person with the issue needs to move out to private housing, or pay for a single. Most kids who go to college are reasonable and willing to compromise. Even if they don’t turn out to be best friends, they can learn to live with one another. Every year, we hear stories of unreasonable roommates, but I think these are truly rare.</p>
<p>I would venture to guess that a person who prefers to cover even tiny LED lights could sleep if it were turned away from them. Moreover, I would venture to guess that they could probably grow accustomed to sleeping when something like that was visible. </p>
<p>A person who is truly phobic would need therapy to make that transition. A friend has a kid who has some significant phobias that have impacted his life. According to her, it is quite possible for therapy to work very well for some of these, but the phobic person is so phobic that they can’t imagine confronting the situation. I get that, because the idea of encountering images of the thing I’m phobic about is horrifying, in fact, I can only type this by strictly forbidding myself from envisioning it. </p>
<p>I think aside from curtaining off the bed, some dorm roomies coexist with the use of foldout privacy screens/ room partitions. There’s also something now called a privacy pop tent bed at Bed Bath. Who knew?</p>
<p>I would actually think for most people that using lights in bunked bed situations would be LESS problematic as the light has far less chance of shining towards the roommate’s field of vision while he/she’s sleeping. Then again, I’m not the type of person who requires absolute darkness while sleeping. </p>
<p>Speaking of bunk beds, I never understood why most people hated the top bunk. When I had the choice while staying in a friend’s dorm, I always favored the top bunk…seemed more private and fun to me. :)</p>
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<p>I would think Mathyone would have a much stronger case regarding flashlights or smartphones/tablets considering how much light they often throw in a darkened room unless they’re substantially dimmed. </p>
<p>Undimmed smartphones/tablets IME throw off about as much light as a bright computer monitor which has been one common cause of roommate conflicts in my dorm and others at my college. </p>
<p>Why do you think people having them out in darkened theaters has become such a contentious issue among the theatergoing public? Sometimes to the point some folks avoid going to the theater unless they can catch an early matinee where there’s plenty of free seating to shift themselves away from smartphone/tablet addicts.</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl, This will be my last post because I don’t think it’s productive to keep discussing this when you keep willfully misinterpreting what I say. I never said that I “couldn’t handle” a night light or LED light or that I would categorically veto any such items. I was just looking for an acknowledgement from less sensitive persons such as yourself that yes, this is a significant enough disturbance that I regard such items as a compromise. Again, if it’s so difficult for you to understand that such things really do bother others and not just a tiny fraction of fringe people but a significant number of the people posting on this thread, there isn’t any point to this conversation, no more can be said. You can label me as a difficult person, but I did successfully live with a bulemic with super-intrusive parents, and a person who didn’t often hear his very loud alarm, so I had to jump out of bed and run across the apartment to wake him up every morning when his alarm woke me up, 2 rooms away, only to see him reset the alarm, roll over, and go back to sleep. I also somehow managed to survive living extremely close to a major hub airport. I am not a hothouse flower, nor am I unreasonable. None of my 15 roommates ever found it necessary to label me as such, but you know better.</p>