Do you turn down the bed in the morning?

“Breakfast is waiting. Wash your face and comb your hair. Leave the window up and turn your bedclothes back over the foot of the bed. Be as smart as you can.”

source: anne of green gables

I was raised a bedmaker.  We get out of bed, pull the covers up nice and tidy, and then we can start the day.  

The first natural mattress I got had the opposite instructions.  We were to fold (or in my case pile) the covers and sheets on the foot of the bed in the morning to allow the mattress to breathe and dry out.  It also reduces the chance of mites and other insects.  From that moment on, I made the blanket pile on the foot of the bed in the morning because it made sense.

Later on, I learned this was called "turning down the bed" and reading Victorian and early 20th Century household manuals, this was the most common way to do things and was considered vital to the health of the person and the life of the mattress (a mattress - unlike a tick - was expected to have a life of 50-150 years).  After a few hours, after the moisture had escaped the mattress, the housemaid (or whoever did the chores in the house) would come up and make the bed ready for the evening.  Personally, I just leave the pile on the foot of my bed and pull it up when it's time for bed (no one comes in my room but me, so why bother making the bed?)

How about you?

Are you a bedmaker in the morning or do you turn down the bed?  

We don't do anything as intentional as either one. We get out of bed and leave it however it is -- sort of half way between the two options. I've noticed the bed seems fresher when the covers are left off, but our cats will track unpleasant grit into the bed if it's left fully open like that. (It can be swept out, but it's one more thing that has to be done when I'm already dying to just get in bed and turn off for a few hours.)

I have found it is easy to make the bed back up by just grabbing the top corner and putting it near its usual place.

Dear hubby does not do anything so the bed is half made.

We turn it down.  
When it's cold bedding is a flannel sheet and down comforter...otherwise top sheet and whatever else depending on the temperature but all gets rolled to the foot of the bed.  I forget where I read it...reasons for were much the same as you mentioned.

I won't put it on the floor though as most of the year we have brown recluse

Before, I resisted making the bed anyway and now I see it's better unmade so I was quick to jump on this method.

I love opening windows year round to get fresh air in the bedroom.

It isn't as permie as I'd like, but the only shower in the house has a door into the bedroom, and no bathroom fan... So not only do I turn back the covers to the foot of the bed in the morning, I turn the dehumidifier to point it's output at the bed and turn it on for an hour.

Seriously, at one point Hubby and I climbed into bed and it took us over an hour to warm it up it was so damp. I told him we *had* to do something! In the summer, just turning the blankets down is enough, but if we're having weeks in a row of the winter wet, the dehumidifier is required. At some point a bathroom fan would be a help also!

Sometime later in the day, I do make the bed, because I'm also very cold sensitive and we have a bedwarmer. I turn it on about 1/2 hour before bed. It automatically shuts off in 1 hour, so if I'm chilled, I let it run, but if I'm warm I turn it off as I get in.

In my dreams, a RMH heated bed... that would be sooo... lovely... (I'm such a wimp!)

I make the bed as often as the cats allow me.  I have never turned down the bed.

I used to be a bed maker, but now usually turn it down. I work online, and the bed is my workspace. so I sit on it for house a day. If I make it up, my weight flattens the comforters too much. Turning back rather than making straight away also seems to make a nice improvement to how long it takes to warm up the bed at bedtime.

I am not a bed maker.  It was not part of my childhood training; and other than the time I was required to I have never like the practice.  As an adult I still don't.  However after encountering this speech it made sense to me for the first time.  It is an interesting perspective and I can see why it made sense to others.

If I get the chance, I turn the bed down. I like to think of the mattress airing.
However, normally when I get up, my husband is still asleep, and I think he'd object to my turning the bedclothes down with him still under them (!) so they don't get turned down.

I don't turn down the bed or make it. Since my husband works nights, when I get out of bed, he gets into it! There's about 5 hours from when he wakes up before I go to bed, and those are usually the busy hours of making dinner, getting him ready for work, putting the kids to bed, etc.

I make my bed just before I get into it. The only time I'll make it before night time, is if family is visiting and they might see inside my bedroom. Other than that, it's a mess!

We don’t have the kind of bedding to make the bed. Hubs and I each have our own blanket, no top sheet, no bedspread. We leave it however it lands.

Been doing it all my life.  My grandmother was a great believer and also opened the bedroom window to let fresh air in.  In winter it might only be for 5 minutes but you could smell the difference.

Jack Edmondson wrote:I am not a bed maker.  It was not part of my childhood training; and other than the time I was required to I have never like the practice.  As an adult I still don't.  However after encountering this speech it made sense to me for the first time.  It is an interesting perspective and I can see why it made sense to others.

I wonder if Admiral McRaven, when saying 'Make your bed' means what others mean by 'Feather your nest' - https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/feather-your-nest . Seems to me he's smirking in the video.

But maybe it's me.