Passé composé or l'imparfait

Hi David,

Think of l’imparfait as ‘used to’. In the text,  “She used to sleep all the time’; “she used to find it hard to get up”; “Her mother used to have to entice her with a hot chocolate”; etc. It’s l’imparfait here because she talking about how things were in general.

Then there are the ‘one-off’ events that are not describing the past, we use passé composé here. “At a family dinner I fell asleep”; “I woke up with my head on my plate”; “Everybody laughed.” Here, it’s passé composé, « Je me suis endormie » ; « je me suis réveillée avec la tête dans mon assiette » ; « Tout le monde a ri ».

Hope that helps a little.