Why does she do this?

She will get up for no reason at 3:00 am and make breakfast for me and her and then go back to bed or get up and cook something in the oven and forget it because she went back to sleep. I worry about the house burning down. She is taking her meds.

Thanks for the help.

Bob, do you know of and like Frank Zappa? Either way, I think maybe the following story I wrote, some years back, may explain your wife's situation. I won't include my recipe for "Radiant Banana Nut Muffins", which followed the story and was also a partial inspiration. It's meant to be a little rap-like (though elementary), despite being in paragraph form. Rap is a great medium for hypomanic/manic and even depressive expression, in my view.

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I don’t have no boss, feeling lonely at home by myself. I have things I could do, I could call my favorite vegetable, but my belly is growling. The kitchen is too clean. Time to mess it up with some cosmik debris. I’m a baking tycoon. Gotta bake my radiant banana nut muffins, good enough for downtown Hollywood.

Put on the music. I think I’m itchin’ for some classic Frank Zappa right now. Joining him in song in the utility muffin baking research kitchen. I put on the oven and dance like a dancing fool around the room, beating and mashing the wet stuff, then adding the flour, scraping it down, whipping it up. Oh, god I am the American dream, I do not think I’m too extreme.

I bake during the day and sometimes even bake in the middle of the night. The house is dark, but my teeth is shiny and the lights in the kitchen are tiny. My mind is racing and I feel my body dancing. Then I chop a line of the nuts here, and fold them in, there. I apply rotation to the batter and start spooning it down, all the way down in little white cups. Then into the zircon-encrusted oven they go. A half hour to wait. I just can’t fall asleep or the muffins will burn. Crank up the music a bit, but not too much to wake my puffin man. I close my eyes, and listen to the show. “Captain Beefheart on vocals and soprano sax and madness.”

Footsteps are heard and then the word “Baaaaaaaaaaaaby?” I turn my head and say “Ohhhhhh! I’ll be done soon, my Love.”

The house is filling with an intoxicating aroma that would NOT level Tacoma. The 30 minute buzzer goes off. Out of the oven they come looking golden and glorious. Gotta try one now. Right now! Yummm! I am a fine girl.

The above is my fun with or modification of Frank Zappa lyric phrases and words.

I think you're right that kitchen mishaps can happen. She should practice safety methods. I have left a gas burner on for hours in the past. Now, though OCD-like, I always practice a ritual of looking at the oven and burners to confirm "Off, off, off, off, off!"

Have you asked your wife why she cooks/bakes at night? If not, it's recommended even before asking us. Perhaps this should be mentioned to her psychiatrist. Or, has she been a night owl for a long time? Any other hypomanic/symptoms along with what could be insomnia and goal/project-driven behavior?

I find time alone in a quiet slightly dark house quite thrilling, sometimes. It's almost a "When the cat's away, the mice will play" situation. Also, I love breakfast, but am often not motivated to make anything special at 6 am. If I am at 3 am, then I wake up that last time to a big treat (muffins, cake, etc). The house smells yummy and it's like a holiday. Definitely feeds a touch of euphoria.

I think as long as you have an oven with an off timer and she uses that it should be ok. Or a small toaster oven that has a timer, or crockpot, etc.

Also, make sure you have smoke and carbon monoxide detectors working.

If she can't stick to that, then you may have a problem and might want to talk to a professional to keep yourself safe.

I wish my wife would wake up early and make me breakfast! (She is good in other ways)

Is she sleep-cooking? I have done it. Is she on Ambien?

Is she hungry in the night? Does she feel more free in the night?