Do you take your phone to bed?

Fire brigade representative who came to fit alarms and advise on fire safety in the home, told us to always have charged mobile phone in the bedroom at night in case of emergency. Made sense to me.

I recently attended a fire drill course as part of my job. The fire service showed us some horrendous film footage of fires caused by charging phones in the bedroom and the loss of life. It is ok to have your phone near your bed as an alarm or for emergencies but please make sure your phone is charged beforehand. It is also better for your phone’s battery life not to have it on charge for a long period of time like overnight.

I take my book and DH to bed with me.
Neither of us has a smart phone, I have a "dumb" one which stays downstairs. We have a landline in the bedroom in case of emergencies - twice wrong numbers from NZ! and once an emergency from my beloved DS2 in 8 years...

I take my mobile upstairs to bed but turn it off. I never leave it charging downstairs overnight because of fire risk. I plug it in to charge as soon as I get up in the morning and it's ready within a couple of hours. If the battery looks low, I give it a quick recharge in the evening before bed.

Family would ring on the landline in an emergency and I have an extension by the bed.

No screens in the bedroom at these have been proven to disturb sleep and I have enough trouble sleeping at the best of times.

Mine is upstairs but I'd on a 'do not disturb' setting from 11pm to 7am.

I keep my phone by my bed but it is switched off. I just like to know it is near me in case I had to use it for an emergency and I would just need to switch it on instead of having to go downstairs to retrieve it, especially since our bedroom is on the second floor.

I have a sleep tracker on my mobile phone, so it sits on the bedside table overnight. Ipad is my radio.

Charge mine up through the day. I do turn if off in the night apart from Thursday when my greengrocer comes at 6.30.
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I don’t understand why your BIL is complaining. How he manages his phone is not your problem- if he’s getting woken by messages why not put it on silent overnight? He can set it so that emergency messages will still get through.

I do take mine to bed. The last thing I do every night is an onscreen cryptic crossword - sends me to sleep nicely!

After many disturbed nights sleep and much investigation, I realized that having my phone beside me...switched off or on..was preventing me from a refreshing sleep. Without getting into the science, for me, my melatonin production is certainly disrupted! Alarm now set while phone sits in hallway!

I use mine for the alarm. But other than that its on silent and face down on the table so that if the screen goes on for any reason I dont get disturbed (eg during an update which it does overnight)

I do, bit of a habit from when Mum was in a nursing home; now for family, if urgent. We have no landline.

kittylester

The mobile signal in our village is useless and we have to have a land line so we have a 'proper' phone in the bedroom.

Same here kittylester, tin cans and string would be better than the mobile signal here!

I have a landline with extension in the bedroom for emergencies. All mobiles are turned off during the night too.

monk08

DH switched off downstairs, mine in bedroom on silent have always had a fear somebody cutting phone wires so having no landline. ( think I watch to many murder programmes )

I wish I could leave my OH switched off downstairs, monk

Interesting comments, seems if one has a husband or partner folk are more inclined to leave screens downstairs. If living alone a whole different pattern, nothing worse than being unwell in the night and no means of contact.
Maybe Kittylester worth making special note not to send messages during BiL nights ?

Same bedside landline extension for the past 45 years. Happily, never used in emergency yet.

mine sleeps under the pillow next to me!! I always have it on charge overnight and keep it on silent. I like to have it with me, in case there is a problem with one of my children, or grandchildren.

My phone is my morning alarm.

My DiL used to switch to flight mode overnight as they lived in the States and her Whatsapp groups and other friends would be sending messages when they were in bed. Now she has moved back to Germany, I expect she still has to do this as her friends in America will be sending messages when she is asleep over here!

I try and remember to do this, but then I forget in the morning to switch off flight mode, but as I am unlikely to be getting messages in the middle of the night, it isn't so much of a problem. Saves a bit of power though. I have the phone by my bed as I listen to podcasts and radio too.

We don't have a TV in the bedroom.

My phone has a do not disturb mode. I have the people I most care about on the list that will disturb in emergencies.
The phone is silent for everything else at night.
Maybe suggest to your relative he uses his dnd mode?

My phone is next to my bed every night, I use it for my alarm clock, it's on charge and I play games on it IF I cant get to sleep.

I too have relatives who are 5 hrs behind and so I know not to send a message until 1pm, 2pm .....

Yes, fire safety you should always have a charged phone accessible in your bedroom to call for help should a fire break out.

Great care needed where and how you charge appliances.

There is a fire safety video, one of many that fires services use for tutorials, which shows a teenager in their bedroom. Their mobile phone is plugged in charging under the pillow where they are lying on the bed. The teenager gets up to go to the bathroom. On returning the phone has ignited helped by the gust of air as the teen lifted up from the pillow.

It is always worth chatting to the fire service or having a precautionary visit to check fire alarms and safety etc. They will update you on any fire safety precautionary measures.

I always take mine to bed, and my husband takes his. We each have alarms to wake us

My brother sent me a text at 5 am today, which woke me up - he's retired, so it was very inconsiderate of him, as I'd been working until 10 pm yesterday and needed to be up at 6 this morning again.

BIL should put his phone on silent then in the night. We leave ours downstairs .