Germans SLEEP DIFFERENTLY than Americans?! | Feli from Germany

when I first came to the US for my exchange semester I rented a furnished room and an off-campus house with American roommates and since I obviously didn't own anything in the US yet and only brought two suitcases for the whole semester I couldn't really bring things like bedding towels and other Essentials so I actually ordered those things on the internet in advance and had them delivered to the house in the US so that they'd be waiting for me when I arrive for my first night there I made sure that I ordered fitted sheets a pillow a pillowcase a duvet and a duvet cover just regular bedding or so I thought [Music] [Applause] hello servos and welcome back to my YouTube channel today in a whole new setting in my bedroom fitting to the topic in case you're new here my name is Philly I'm originally from Munich Germany but I've been living here in Cincinnati Ohio on and off since 2016. so I ordered my bedding to the house in the US I arrive I'm super happy that I already have bedding for my first night there at least something I sleep great but then my American roommate checks up my room and says oh you got a duvet that's so fancy and I'm just like huh what do you mean how else would I sleep that's what I realized that I was right in the middle of my very first culture shock and learning experience because turns out sleeping and bedrooms are done quite differently in the US and in Germany that includes bedding the beds themselves how many mattresses are used that was actually a huge shock for many Americans that visit Germany for the first time and even certain furniture that you may or may not find in the bedroom so in Germany it's standard to have a duvet with a duvet cover in German we simply call this peteque and petit or betfashion in the winter people often put in a thicker duvet like this one in the summer you can use a pretty thin one the trickiest part about this is definitely the process of putting the cover on it's something that we start practicing pretty early in Germany I remember when we went on school trips in fifth or sixth grade we always had to make our own beds at the Jung tabaga the hostel so my parents would practice with me at home how to properly put on the bed sheets the pillowcase and the duvet cover in the US a lot of people actually sleep with a top sheet where your cover basically consists of a thin bed sheet with some kind of blanket on top of it or if it's too warm you can just use the Sheep by itself but the sheet is usually the only part that touches your skin and the part that gets washed most frequently I mainly knew that type of bedding from vacations to warmer countries in southern Europe or Asia and I think I had seen it at American hotels before too but I was actually quite surprised to find out that the majority of Americans also choose to use that at home in their own beds especially with air conditioning being so widespread so I'm assuming it's not necessarily a choice based on temperature actually if you're or someone who sleeps with the top sheet at home I'd be curious to hear what your reasons for that are maybe you can let me know in the comments below because for me personally the sheets always end up in a crazy Mess by the end of the night and making your bed with the top sheet is honestly a mystery to me the other option that seems to be quite popular in the US and that was completely new to me is using a comforter where the outside is attached to the inside of the blanket these are typically not put inside another cover but they're used just like that as one piece some people do put them on top of a top sheet but some people also just use them without one and if you wash them you wash the whole thing now having a duvet with a duvet cover is also a thing in the U.S but it's definitely not the most common option according to this survey only 11 of Americans use a duvet and to get back to what I said at the beginning especially among college students and younger people in general I feel like this is considered a little fancier and maybe more grown up than just using a top sheet or a one-piece comforter before Ben and I moved in together he always just had a comforter but fortunately he prefers the concept of a duvet as well so that's what we have here in our bedroom I mean I honestly couldn't imagine it any other way I'm definitely German at heart in that regard to wash it you just take off the cover and wash that there's no need to wash the whole thing every time and it doesn't get as messy as the setup with a top sheet for pillows it's common to have pillowcases in both countries by the way and same goes for the bottom sheets that go on the mattress I'd say fitted sheets are preferred in both countries but some people also just use regular flat sheets now before we get to the most shocking differences let's take a second to talk about the things that you and your partner or just you alone do at night before you go to sleep no not bad I'm talking about 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enjoy now let's talk about beds the main difference is that in the US one of the most common bed models is the box spring bed well in Germany we mostly have sled beds but what's the difference so box spring beds look like this and kind of consist of different layers if you will you have the bed frame then the box spring which kind of looks like a mattress but it's actually just a structure that's supposed to support the mattress and then the actual mattress on top a traditional box spring actually has coil springs inside hence the name box spring but sometimes they're also just a metal frame like this one many people then also add one of these mattress toppers often made from memory foam for extra Comfort due to all of these layers American beds are often a whole lot taller than German beds and I've heard from a lot of Americans that they found it super weird when they slept in a German bed for the first time and their arms suddenly touched the ground but they let it hang out of the bed be because the bed was so much lower than what they're used to now over the last 15 to 20 years box spring beds have actually become more popular in Germany as well when I was 17 I even got a box spring bed from my bedroom because my family had just come back from a road trip through the US and I loved all of the American beds at the hotels and since I still had a twin bed at the time and needed a new bed anyways I picked a box spring bed but even though those beds are becoming more and more common they're definitely not what we would consider a normal bed in Germany people will specifically call it a box spring bed or an American bed even normal beds in Germany and in many other European countries just consist of the frame and then the latneros as we say in German the slats that are kind of flexible underneath the mattress to absorb movement and then one mattress or one mattress layer I should say and the same goes vice versa these type of beds are definitely available in the US and I think thanks to Ikea they're actually becoming more popular but at least in my experience if you don't have a box spring bed I'd say it's more common to have a platform bed instead where the mattress simply sits on a flat support structure like this one especially among college students having these foldable platforms is actually quite common and you might also see platform beds with these wood boards but they're not usually flexible like the European slats now let's get to the controversial part of this video imagine you travel to Munich or Berlin for the first time you book a room for two in a nice hotel and then you find this and you're left completely confused that they run out of big beds and just push together two twin beds but wait it's one big bed frame that they run out of big mattresses and bedding or why in the world are there two mattresses and two blankets when you clearly booked a room for a couple well I wish I could give you a clear answer for the why because to be honest I was never a fan of this either growing up in Germany but what I can tell you for sure is that this is pretty standard in Germany having one big Doppler bed as we call it I bet for two but instead of having one large mattress it'll just have two single mattresses in it and two separate duvets my parents bed is like that too the weirdest part about that setup is definitely the crack in the middle of the two mattresses some people add like a filler piece to kind of close that up but at least in my opinion that doesn't really make it better so why would a whole country choose to sleep like this well most Germans explain it with practical reasons having two mattresses means that each person can pick a mattress that fits their individual body weight and sleeping preferences some people need a firmer mattress others want their mattress a little softer Some people prefer spring mattresses others prefer memory foam my dad even had a waterbed mattress on his side of the bed for a while many people also say that it improves their Sleep Quality because it doesn't affect them as much when the other person moves around and I'm assuming that's the same reason why there's two separate duvets you don't have to worry about your partner being a blanket thief and it doesn't wake you up as easily when they roll around like crazy now as I said I was actually kind of the odd one out when I still lived in Germany I never liked the idea of two single mattresses so when I moved into my first apartment in Munich with my boyfriend at the time we got one big mattress for the bed but I remember that when we went to a mattress store they basically turned us down as soon as we asked for a big mattress 999 you don't want to do that because you two have different Fates so you need a softer mattress than him so I'm telling you do not do it so then we ended up ordering it online what's interesting though is that the two mattress thing really only starts at a bed size of 180 or 2 meters smaller beds that are 160 or 140 centimeters wide do usually have one big mattress which leads me to the next difference about beds the sizes I feel like beds kind of Fallen perfectly with the overall sizing differences between the US and Europe or the rest of the world logical metric sizing on the one hand and what seems like randomly made up units that don't relate to one another and make no sense on the other hand so in Germany some of the most sanded widths for beds are 90 centimeters 120 140 160 180 and 200 centimeters AKA two meters with the most common length all also being at 2 meters there are other models available as well but these are kind of the standards that people usually refer to and when you have a big double bed of 180 or 2 meters that's when you might put two mattresses in it in the US the most common sizes are called twin twin XL full size queen size king size and California King which is longer but not quite as wide as a king bed and it's not just the sizing of the beds that's different but the bedding as well so we're kind of circling back to point one and this is actually another bedroom culture shock that you might experience if you travel to Germany for the first time German pillows that look like this yes they're big square and usually pretty fluffy and soft so to many Americans they're simply not supportive enough now in my family we always had rectangular pillows those are also common but most of the pillowcases in Germany are actually made for the square pillows so if you have rectangular pillows you often find yourself tucking in the pillowcase to kind of manually adjust the size to your actual pillow and at hotels it's pretty likely that your bed will come with square pillows so consider yourself warned but for the most part German pillows come in those two sizes the square or the rectangular and blankets usually either come in a one person size or a double bed size for people who do want to share their blankets which is why in the U.S I was surprised to find out that with every bed size the blanket and pillow sizes change as well so for a queen bed you usually have a different size of pillows than for a king bed even though your head obviously stays the same size but I think this has to do with how the pillows fill up the bed and since your blanket is also usually supposed to cover up the entire bed here those come according to the bed sizes as well let's take a step back from just looking at the beds and focus a little more on what's around it or what's missing because when Americans go into a German bedroom they often miss one very crucial thing a closet in American bedrooms you typically find a door that basically leads to a hidden chamber or Alcove or even a small room to store your clothes watching American TV shows growing up I always just thought that these kids just had a particularly cool bedroom with that extra little space that was perfect to hide in or play time machine with but turns out those were actually just regular American homes in fact a room without a closet is oftentimes not considered a real bedroom Germany bedrooms don't usually have a built-in storage solution like that instead we just put a piece of furniture for that in our bedrooms a Sliders in English usually referred to as a wardrobe so yeah even though German bedrooms are already smaller than American ones typically you do actually need to fit in even more furniture come in all different shapes and sizes the Ikea packs is a very popular one for example and some people also have a built-in wardrobe like this one dressers are pretty common in both countries though one feature that's really cool about German bedrooms though that doesn't exist in the US are rolling shutters a lot Laden in German I've mentioned these in my video about house differences between Germany and the us because a lot of German homes have these they're attached on the outside of the window and they're pretty heavy duty actually they're fully room darkening and reduce noise levels too in the US people usually just install indoor blinds and curtains of course but those aren't always quite as practical and room darkening as German rolling shutters speaking of Windows another big sleeping difference is that a lot of Germans prefer sleeping with open Windows even in the middle of winter some people like to open them all the way others just put them in the tilt position that German windows can do and that's not really something that I've seen people do in the US on the one hand Americans usually say it's too dangerous to sleep with open Windows especially in urban areas on the other hand most American households have air conditioner positioning so they don't actually need to rely on open Windows to cool down the temperature inside and if they want a little breeze in their bedroom they can just turn on the ceiling fan at night again make sure to check out my home differences video but both AC and ceiling fans are not very common in German homes last but not least let's talk about Aesthetics and different interior design preferences when it comes to bedrooms the first thing you'll notice is flooring Americans seem to love carpeted floors and rugs so a lot of American homes have carpet in the bedrooms and other living areas and in bedrooms with hardwood floors you'll find that more often than not there's at least a rug underneath the bed it's all about that cozy warm soft feeling when you step out of bed in the morning in Germany carpet in general isn't nearly as popular in homes and I've seen a lot of German bedrooms with hardwood floors or Paquette or laminate usually and no rug to be seen and that's actually another aspect where I've always been American at heart the house I grew up in did actually have carpets which again isn't very common in Germany these days and Ben and I also have carpet at our house here in the US we even renovated the bedroom last year and put in brand new carpet instead of going for hardwood floors because I personally just find it a lot Cozier and just a little more homey aside from the flooring you'll notice that a lot of Americans love decorations and making their bedrooms look like out of a magazine a lot of beds here are full of throw blankets and sometimes even several rows of decorative pillows that people take off each night when they go to bed and then they put them all back on in the morning not every American is like this of course but I've seen this a lot here even just in guest rooms whereas in Germany bedroom decorations are typically a little more minimalistic and big surprise more practical now I would like to know from you guys how do you sleep what does your bedroom look like do you sleep with a top sheet a comforter a duvet are you a fan of the two mattresses and why or why not you sleep with the window open or with the ceiling fan on if you're in the US let's share our preferences and experiences in the comments below and if you've ever traveled to the US to Germany or another country how did he do with the different type of beds also if you think I forgot to mention something about bedroom or sleeping differences please make sure to add it in the comments thank you guys so much for watching I hope you enjoyed this video I feel like talking about sleep and bedrooms sounds kind of trivial but it's actually such a fundamental topic because obviously we all deal with this every single day and good quality sleep is so crucial for our overall well-being by the way if you like my channel definitely make sure to also check out my podcast understanding train station there's actually only a few more episodes coming before we're ending the podcast and on our latest episode we talked to Ava Miss Merlin a fellow YouTuber and German actor in LA and he told us all about what it's really like trying to make it in Hollywood you can check it out right here and of course don't forget to hit the Thumbs Up Button subscribe and if you want to support my channel send over a super thanks down below or buy me a coffee on kofi.com thank you guys so much for your support and I hope I'll see you next time cheers [Music] thank you

Channel: Feli from Germany

Views: 1,074,208

Keywords: Germany, USA, America, Cultural Differences, Culture Shock, Kulturelle Unterschiede, Deutschland, Amerika, Kulturschock, USA vs. Germany, Living abroad, Move to Germany, Life in Germany, Move to Europe, Life in USA, Deutschland USA Kulturunterschiede, Unterschiede Deutschland Amerika, bedroom differences germany vs. usa, box spring beds usa, european beds, german bedrooms, german pillows, sleeping differences germany vs. usa, why do german beds have two mattresses, american beds

Id: 2HVhQ_D-Eq4

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 31 2023