Learn to make your bed the military way

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Didn’t everyone have to make their bed with hospital corners? Or is it just those of us of a certain age with moms who were nurses or in the army, or both in my case?

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I didn’t use hospital corners until I went to camp with the Air Cadets.

ETA: and my mother was a nurse.

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I disappointed they don’t regulate the condition of the tucked portion of the sheets/blankets. Says to me they only care about surface appearance and not the quality of the entire job. :wink:

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I went through 2.5 years of nursing school before I decided it wasn’t for me. To this day, I always use hospital corners, regardless of whose bed I’m making. The task just feels incomplete if I don’t.

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But can you bounce quarters off the bedding, though?

That’s the real question.

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One of my instructors was an honorably discharged Marine (now an NP). I never asked him, but I’m confident he’d be able to give a demonstration.

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I’ve never seen it for myself in real life; I’d ask.

:slight_smile:

I have fitted sheets. In a pile. In the corner.

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File this under #oddlysatisfying. Now if you excuse me, I have some fitted sheets to install.

I make the bed by walking away from it.

I think of it as Da Da housekeeping.

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“install”

Army manuals are very interesting sometimes.


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Three years at Military College, I think I got that down…

Now the rest of it, that’s another matter.

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As a person with many sleep issues, it was long ago pointed out to me that the “right” way to make the bed is to not make the bed. Particularly in the rigid and absurdly tight way preferred by hospitals and the military. Along with being a bit uncomfortable and restricting your movement (or even breathing), tucked in sheets trap moisture in your bedding. That moisture causes comfort issues of its own (stinks, less capacity to absorb your sweat). But the biggest issue is that the moisture trapped down in the mattress makes a really hospitable environment for dust mites. More dust mites = itchier skin. And itchy people can’t get to sleep.

The proper way to do it is to loosely drape your sheets and blankets over the bed, neat or messy as you like. But only after you’ve left them where ever they sit when you wake up for several hours so that moisture can get a head start venting off. It doesn’t look as fiendishly neat. But you’ll sleep better.

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I like ‘hospital corners’ but I completely agree that otherwise the sides should be allowed to drape, both for movement and, as you said, aeration.

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  1. Leave the bed uncovered/unmade so your mattress can dry out. Hospital corners make sense and look good, but stop after the corners, please.

  2. For my work, I have to sleep in hotels rooms often. When the beds’ top sheets and blankets are made like those in the photo, I friggin’ start swearing out loud 'cuz I have to get out of bed (again) and pull the gawdang sides out from deep under the mattress.

  3. Just because the military does it one way, doesn’t mean it’s a good way. For example, the way the military deals with people they disagree with…

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I learnt how to make a bed properly when I was a cadet as well (and was pretty good at it if I do say so myself), but at night I’d pull the blankets off and sleep with them just draped over me, then remake the bed in the morning.
I did know people who would just make the bed and then sleep on the floor, rather than get up ten minutes earlier to remake the bed.

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I remember that I used to wriggle into bed at night, sleep with everything still tucked in, then wriggle out in the morning and my bed still looked fine for inspection (I got told off once because things weren’t tight enough, but otherwise, I think it worked out well).

It was the only time I’ve ever been able to sleep comfortably on my back.

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Make…bed?

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