Making the bed. What's the point?

Its to keep spiders and snakes from crawling inside and scaring the crape out of you, when you stick your feet inside the next night.

I don’t make my bed daily, but I do like when the bed is made.

It’s nice to get into a well made bed at night. The sheets feel a little crisper, even if they have been on the bed for days already.

The whole room looked neater and more organized when the bed is made.

What will prompt me to make the bed today is I am going to have a house showing later on; I am trying to sell my house.

Sometimes I make it as a quick fix so it looks like at leas I did some cleaning on a lazy day. You know, when my hus and comes home and wonders what did I do allday. Bit, he actually doesn’t caare specifically if the bed is made. Wiping the kitchen down with pinesol is actually more impressive to him. The smell of clean.

Making the bed takes about 30 seconds. Then it looks nice for 16 hours.

I hate making the bed! But @nikipedia has a good point.

I do it out of habit, My mother encouraged all us kids to make our beds when we got up :-/ it’s stuck with me ever since. I’m what’s known in America as a “neat freak” ……except I live in England.
Besides it would be embarrassing if you have company & you have to make the bed at the last minute :-/

My answer is discipline. You may want to call this a slippery slope fallacy, but I have enough personal experience to know that the following holds true for me.

If you don’t make the bed because it is just going to get dirty, it wont be long until you extend that idea to other parts of your life. Surely the existence of entropy in our universe would render any house hold cleaning task pointless, after all, it will just get dirty again, ye canne change the laws of physics.

I have just discovered a reason not to make the bed. It appears that dust mites prefer a moist environment to live and breed. Thus, if you make your bed, then you are creating ideal conditions for dust mites. If you don’t make your bed, the sheets and bed clothes have a chance to dry out.

I love myself. I like my bed to reflect that.

When I get into bed at night I prefer the sheets to be smooth, not bunched up. My fluffed pillow feels good under my head.

Making the bed takes thirty seconds if you have a bed that only takes 30 seconds. My current bed takes several minutes.

True about the moisture staying in the bed. Making the bed should not be done immediately when you wake up. At least give it a little time to air out and dry if you get sweaty at night.

If you use a contour sheet on the bottom and a down comforter on top, it takes about 10 seconds.

However, leaving it unmade gives Milo a place to burrow, romp, frisk about and shed hair on.

Another mystery to me is the use of all those throw cushions of various sizes that get tossed to the floor at bedtime.

There’s no point. It’s just as comfortable either way.

I have happily spent my entire life leaving my bed unmade. My husband on the other hand likes to make the bed every day. Since we moved in together the bed has been made. I am loathe to admit it, but at this point I really prefer having the bed made. I have even been heard asking my kids to make their beds! They look at me like I have two heads then ask me to teach them how. I find I like it because it just looks nicer than a messy bed.

If gimmedat stumbles upon this thread she will probably faint dead away after reading that response.

Looks nicer during the day and it is more pleasant to get back in to at night.

I started making my bed daily when I lived in a dorm. Since I did most of my homework and had most of my meals on my bed, I found myself sleeping in crumbs and eraser dust. Since that was less than pleasant, I began making my bed.

Now I make it primarily to keep the cats off the sheets. It’s no good when kitties track litter into the bed. I also find that within a few days of not making it, the blankets are so tangled that they are no longer useful or cozy. For those reasons, I make my bed daily.

What’s the point of brushing your teeth if they’re just going to get dirty again next time you eat?

OK, that doesn’t really measure up to making your bed…

No one in our family have ever been bed-makers, I don’t see the point either…unless you have guests around who like to walk into your room and inspect your bed. I guess it looks nice, but it’s not even worth 30 seconds of work TBH.

I get this question every night from my daughter when I put her to bed. But her sheets and blankets are always a complete mess from not being made and from coming untucked. She’s an aggressive sleeper.

Living in a dorm or place where your bed is a surrogate couch you have to make your bed every day, otherwise you’ll get all kinds of dirt on your sheets.

Also, it’s a good lesson in a discipline that actually builds a little self esteem/self respect because you’re being good to yourself. When you go into recovery it is one of thr first things you have to do in rehab; a good AA sponsor will tell you to make your bed every morning.

I have to make my bed everey morning. I find that it helps to freshen the room and get rid of the smell of sleep after the night.

I don’t hate making the bed… I hate sleeping in a made bed. To me, it’s so much more comfortable when the pillows are flopped around everywhere and the blankets are a loose pile. I just crawl in and get lost.
I only make my bed when I change the linens once a week.

I only “make” my bed when I wash the sheets. Every other day, I simply pull the covers up to our pillows, to keep my kitties from getting hair on the sheets.

I insist on the wife making the bed, because she’s an unabashed sheet stealer who tosses & turns like a pig on a ferris wheel. You made the mess, you fix it…...darling diddy bonce!

I typically sleep with the comforter around my feet, so for me making the bed is inconvenient. There are a few instances where I will do it, however: sometimes I’ll make the bed if I’m going to lie on it to watch a movie or something. However, even in those cases I often lean against the comforter and bunch up against the wall, so making the bed is, again, inconvenient. My mom would ask us to make our beds when we cleaned the room or when people came over, and she always made the bed in the master bedroom, but that was about it. Otherwise I find it impractical and only necessary if you really want the look of a made bed. In most cases, I don’t care enough to want to do it.

Because Mommy said to.

Making the bed gives me a flat surface to toss the laundry I don’t feel like folding.

@Blueroses Folding laundry. What’s the point?

@erichw1504 Lol, we tend to not fold clothes much in our house, I keep clothes I wear the most in a pile on a chair. I’m cool with it.

@Keep_on_running If I was single… not a piece of clothing would be folded or hung up.

The made bed keeps my room looking taken care of, makes me feel tidy.

The made bed feels cleaner at the end of the day, smooth, cool and comfy.

The made bed just begs to be messed up with great sex!

Makes it look nice. Also, when people climb on the bed, it’s less likely to sand and other schmutz in the sheets. If you have kids, you know what I mean. As far as they kids are concerned… if they keep their doors closed all the time, we never have to see it.

No point. So I don’t. I teach my children to just in case they end up with someone who thinks that kind of arbitrary norm is important.

I rarely make my bed. Sometimes friends come to visit me and tell em to make my bed. I don’t.

The only time our bed gets made is when I put clean sheets on it. Our bedroom is upstairs so no one ever sees it. I pull the sheets and comforter up when I get out so that cat litter doesn’t get in the sheets when they sleep on the bed. Neither of us really cares about the bed being made, so we don’t.

I prefer the bed be made; my husband doesn’t see the point. So I made the bed. Now we have two adjustable beds due to medical necessity. I’d make mine, but his was in a set position that I had trouble duplicating, so I let it be. Finally, since it looked so messy, I gave up and added to the mess. I straighten our sheets and blankets, but no bedspreads. Good heavens, why am I taking time to think about this?

It’s part of the beginning-of-the-day routine, and helps me wake myself up and get in weekday mode. Other reasons: the cats like it more when it’s made, I think it looks nicer, and I enjoy the silent teamwork thing my SO and I get going on when we make the bed together. However, I don’t bother on the weekends.

I’m thinking this is a conversation between @robmandu and his wife and I’m guessing his side of the debate is that the bed doesn’t need made.
It looks nice to have the bed made and on every episode of Cops where there was a crime committed in someone’s house, they showed a messy bed. Really, you don’t want to be that victim.~

@wildpotato: We also have that silent teamwork thing when we make the bed and then go around the room picking up stuff to be tossed. We have both said on numerous occasions that we like that about each other.

@chyna: When our room is messy, I totally think of the way crackhead beds are shown in movies and TV!

I’m can be extreme in my need to have the house clean. I doesn’t make me a particularly happy person to be around if I’m in that mood. I have three kids who are pretty messy so I have learned to pick my battles.

The most I’ll do for my bed is toss the comforter and sheet towards the top. But many days I don’t even do that. I don’t see the point anymore. But as others have stated the bed gets made to hotel standards when I clean the sheets.

Oh, and now you can come into my house and run a white gloved finger along the tops of some of my furniture and come away with dust. So be it. My house is happier for it.

2nd Answer.

Before my border collie died, he was so intelligent that he knew not to jump on our bed, if the bed was unmade. Having the bed made the next morning, was a signal to him that jumping and lying on our bed was okay.

If we left the house, he knew he could lay on our bed, since it was made, and to guard our house.

Like I said, Mikey was a very intelligent dog.

It does minimize dust from settling in the linens and pillows. I like the bottom sheet to be sorta tight before getting in.

I love making my bed. I love soft things like blankets, comforters and pillows, so for me it’s a joy to make it. Plus, when I go to bed, it’s all neat and in order. I don’t want to have to mess with tangles blankets and pillows everywhere and fix shit up when I’m all tired or drunk.
Although I admit, on some weekends it stays messy for a long time lol.

I do not like making it, but as trivial as it sounds, it is my first sense of accomplishment for the day. It also sets a good example for my daughter and it would be hypocritical to press my daughter to make her’s in the morning if I didn’t make mine.

I make my bed almost everyday. It makes my messy bedroom look a tad cleaner ; )
Plus, I just like the look of a made bed. With all the pillows, it’s comfy and very inviting.

kinda like now…

Its just a way to control kids and solders in boot camp… I belive in freedom…I only make the bed when I am anticipating guests or when I’ve moved the furniture in the bedroom.

It’s just one of those things you do: clean your room, make your bed, write grandma at least every major holiday, call your folks, etc… Life goes smoother that way. And I’ve always found a room is more peaceful when a bed is made… It just is.
Plus making the bed can lead to making it in bed. Cleanliness can get you laid. ; )

If someone likes the look and feel of a made bed then it’s logical they should do so.

But I don’t find a made bed more enjoyable and I hate that the covers pinch my feet so I have to untuck them totally so I can get to sleep.

Unless I have company coming over, I simply don’t see the point for me personally.

To each his own.

I kill two birds with a single stone by sleeping in my clothes atop the covers. I neither have to make the bed nor dress and undress.

There is a spectrum of housekeeping ranging from the obsessively clean nest to the Collier Brothers or Grey Gardens.

If you have four baby birds stuffed into an undersized nest with no convenient flush toilets, you as mother bird are scrupulous. If you are Big Edie and Little Edie Beale and choose to live in a house… infested by fleas, inhabited by numerous cats and raccoons, deprived of running water, and filled with garbage and decay, you opt for squalid.

Most of us fall somewhere in between and justify our behaviors. Bathroom and kitchen hygiene make sense for health reasons; many of us get pleasure from the esthetics of our home, and we are all hoping that exercising some sort of control will stave off death.

I still hear rmy mother’s voice; “Wear clean underwear and don’t use a pin to repair a bra strap. What if you have a car accident and get taken to the hospital?”

@Gail

Excellent point ! So true.

Personally, I would invest far more of my time and effort to make certain there are zero fleas in my house than I ever would to make a bed which no one but me will ever see.

Let’s face it, even the most elaborately made bed (even tho looking fabulous) will be horrendously uncomfortable and unhealthy if it contains but a handful of unseen fleas chewing you up at night and reproducing a hundred fold with each passing hour.

It’s all a matter of perspective and priorities.

I’ll take a rumpled bed without any fleas in it any day.

:D

Also: making the bed discourages you from getting back into it on a lazy Sunday…

@nikipedia That’s one of the main selling points for me not making the bed.

I don’t use pillowcases or sheets. Just a blanket. I make it as I sleep and kick off as I get hot.