They say sharing is caring, but in Denmark, that mantra certainly does not extend to bed linen.
A typical Danish master bedroom is decked out with a double or queen bed, a foamy top mattress, bottom sheet, two square pillows and two single-bed-sized doonas, neatly folded in half.
My first impression was confusion and disbelief. Was it washing day? Had I accidentally stumbled into a child’s room? The set-up looked not at all conducive to horizontal recreation.
But don’t judge before you try it. After two years swanning about in the Danish kingdom, I can attest that this Scandinavian sleep hack is genius for pure practicality.
Sleep-deprived Aussies should jump on the separate doona bandwagon. Research shows about half of us have trouble falling asleep and even more do not have quality sleep most nights. And couples who are not sleeping well have more anger and conflict in their relationships and worsened perceptions of relationship quality.
Mismatched temperatures could be a culprit. Dr Neil Stanley, a British independent sleep expert, says women generally prefer a warmer sleep environment compared to men.
“My partner seems to thrive under a TOG [thermal overall grade] 15, whereas I seem to be happy under a TOG four – so it will never work for us to have the same duvet, or both of us would probably be miserable if we tried to compromise,” Stanley says.
It’s a conundrum I’ve also experienced first-hand. When I moved from South-East Asia to Europe, Copenhagen greeted me with minus 7 degrees. I’d never been so cold in my life.
That first night, I slept with a beanie on and my Danish sweetheart laughed at me from beneath his year-round, wafer-thin single bed-sized duvet.
I quickly invested in a 10-centimetre thick fibre-down doona (the warmest in the store), which Viking Man likens to sleeping next to a container ship. But cue sweet dreams for both of us.
I’m not the only Aussie here who thinks a Danish doona divorce is the way to go.
One ex-Sydneysider mate and her Scandi hubby initially shared a big duvet because she “thought separate doonas were a slippery slope to a sexless relationship”.
“I remember the precise turning point when I saw the light. We stayed in a Danish summer house that had two single doonas. I had the best sleep ever. As soon as we got home, I bought two single doonas and we’ve never looked back,” she says.
As someone who thrashes about in my sleep like a racehorse on meth, it’s also reassuring to know that Viking Man is undisturbed.
Danes tell me this separate doona caper is old school: “It’s the way it has always been, for as long as anyone can remember.”
A Danish friend says: “I’m a big fan of collectivism in societal structures. But when it comes to individual property – my bed … my covers. I want to keep it for me. No one else.”
Copenhagen couples therapist Julie Bohr, who previously lived in the UK and briefly road-tested the Commonwealth’s penchant for shared doonas, has returned to the Danish way.
She says poor sleep quality, left unaddressed, can become a source of relationship tension.
Using separate doonas is a good middle ground before opting for separate bedrooms, as championed by celebrities such as the Beckhams and Cameron Diaz and her husband Benji Madden.
However, it is important to discuss the separate doona concept before going shopping and surprising one’s spouse, Bohr says. Otherwise it could cause offence.
“I don’t get any sort of feeling that it interferes with [intimacy or snuggle time] … the duvets can overlap,” she says.
As Australians gear up for that annual winter manchester swap-eroo, there has never been a better time to try sleeping like a Dane.
Lisa Martin is an Australian journalist living in Copenhagen.
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Lisa Martin is an Australian journalist living in Copenhagen.
