My (22M) brother (18M) has always been an extremely tight sleeper. Even in his childhood, our parents have tried to shake him awake and it’s still difficult to get him up. In his later years, he had started to sleep through his alarm and, even though we sleep in separate rooms, I could still hear it and would have to go into his room to get him to turn it off.
Last year, he got a job at a retail store. He loves his job and his coworkers. Unfortunately, recently, he has been late to work a couple of times. What had been happening is, although he does wake up when his alarm goes off, he had been falling back asleep afterwards. Now, I know this happens to a lot of us (I’ll admit, it has happened to me at one point).
The second time it happened, while I was driving him to work, he had asked me if I could start checking on him to make sure he was up and going to work. I refused to do this. I told him that if he wanted to play the "closing your eyes after your alarm goes off" game, that was on him. I am not going to be there to wake him up. The other thing is, if I were to agree with this, he would probably start blaming me if he ends up being late again. He would consider it a new responsibility of mine and would get upset with me if I were to fail to wake him up. I refuse to have that responsibility when he is an adult now.
I was talking with mom about this and she told me that it would be a nice thing to check on him if I were already up and moving. Now, truth be told, when his alarm goes off, I usually try to go back to sleep. But, maybe she has a point about it being common courtesy to do a simple check.
AITA for setting this boundary?
Has he been medically evaluated?
Sounds like he needs to be.
NTA. It better happen now at a relatively “unimportant” job than later in his life. He needs to learn how to get out of bed.
Is he going to bed on time? All the people I know who say they’re heavy sleepers just seem to go to bed at crazy hours.
NTA As someone else said, there may be a medical reason for this. More likely, he’s staying up too late, probably on his phone after he goes to bed. That needs to change – he needs to make sure he has enough sleep hours. Meantime, I suggest he get a second alarm clock and set it 5 minutes later than the first, and keep it across the room from his bed.
It wasn’t until my thirties when I finally got a sleep test done. Turns out I have sleep apnea and would stop breathing (and wake up breifly) upwards of 18 times an hour when sleeping on my back. Now that I have that under control I actually get rested and can wake up normally in the mornings.
NTA
Your boundary is perfectly reasonable. As an adult, he is responsible for finding a way to get to work on time that works for him. Using you as a crutch is just kicking the can on a very real problem hes going to need to contend with eventually.
NTA. He needs to learn to get himself up. He won’t do that if you take on that responsibility. Tell him to go to bed earlier.
NTA. Your mom wants what’s best for her son, but she’s not thinking through the long term consequences. Your brother needs to learn to be responsible for himself. That might mean going to a doctor to see if there is an underlying medical issue, or it might just mean going to sleep earlier.
Sure, in the short term, it would be “nice” of you to help him out, but in the long term, it would be detrimental for both of you. You aren’t an asshole for recognizing that.
NTA. You are correct, if you accept this responsibility then it’ll become your fault.
If he’s having such a hard time waking up then he needs to either change his sleep habits or see a doctor to find out what is going on.
NTA but how has he not figured out how the snooze button works?
NTA, but no one says how you have to wake him up.
NTA. Technology can be your brother’s friend, however. Search up “Clocky alarm clock.” It’s an alarm clock on wheels that scoots off the night table and rolls around the floor when it goes off, forcing the person in bed to get up and chase it.
NTA he could set multiple alarms. My ten year old son used to go back to sleep now he has 3 alarms set 7 min apart and he gets up. What will happen when your brother lives alone ? Will he sleep until he loses his job? He will most likely figure it out and maintain employment.
NTA.
Dipshit should move the alarm across the room so he has to get out of bed to turn it off.
If he fails to wake up then should deal with the consequences.
Don’t feel obligated to nerf the world for people.
NTA it’s his own responsibility. If he wanted to he could get an alarm on the other side of the room or one of the many many other gadgets