Overnight in-home care so the rest of the family can sleep at night?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't a cate facility medicate her at night? They would not have someone sitting with her...

Care facilities use bed alarms to monitor when a patient gets out of bed. That wouldn’t solve OPs current issue though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again - the basement bedroom is legal.

It has a window big enough for firefighters to enter / exit? Also has hard wired smoke detectors?(Sorry if it does! A lot of people don't know what legal basement bedroom entails)

NP. Why do you care? God, Americans can be such insufferable busy bodies. Mind your own business!

Uh they care because they don't want to read on the news that there was a fire and OP's mom couldn't get out and the firefighters couldn't get in fast enough....?

[Anonymous]

We had 24 hour care for my Dad. All the overnight people came to us after a full day of work. They helped our dad as needed to use the rest room and get him ready in the morning, but no way were they doing "housekeeping" tasks for the family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again - the basement bedroom is legal.

It has a window big enough for firefighters to enter / exit? Also has hard wired smoke detectors?(Sorry if it does! A lot of people don't know what legal basement bedroom entails)

NP. Why do you care? God, Americans can be such insufferable busy bodies. Mind your own business!

Regulations are there because of what happened before they were there.

Still happens in many areas of the world where those regulations aren't in place.

[Anonymous]

Given that you expect the caregiver to be actively working for you during the shift, not resting, they will need to get all of their sleep during the day. In other words, they won't have a "day job" and you will likely be their sole, or at least main, employer and source of income. Be prepared to pay accordingly. You should "guarantee hours"--meaning you hire them to work specific shifts/hours, and you must pay them for that, even if YOU don't need them.

[Anonymous]

Medicate.

Once the screaming and crying at night starts, an aide won’t help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom has mild dementia and lives with my immediate family. Lately she has been waking up in the night very confused. She seeks me out asks me to take her to the bank, or the doctor. Sometimes she wants me to take her to work (she's retired), or she says her friends are on their way to pick her up. Getting her back to bed is challenging -- I have to talk her into it and she does not hear well so speaks very loudly. In the process, she usually wakes up one or more of my kids or my husband. This doesn't happen every night but is happening more often and sometimes multiple times a night. The sleep disruption is not sustainable for me or them and I'm thinking of moving her to a bedroom in the basement and hiring a couple of aids/companions to sit down there and get her back to bed when she wakes up so the rest of us can get some sleep. Given that there will be a LOT of downtime, I'm fine with the aid doing whatever while mom sleeps but would also ask the aid to do laundry and maybe some advance meal prep as well. Is an arrangement like this workable? Any experience with this?

Definitely not a skilled aide’s job. They can do some things like heat up a meal for the patient or put urine-soaked clothes in the washer to pre soak , but they aren’t supposed to do meal prep or laundry for the whole family.

You need to hire someone off Care.com and be honest about all you want to them to do.

This is why one of my young adult kids stopped nannying on the side. You’re hired to care for one person and then they try to foist responsibilities for everyone on you without increasing your pay or hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again - the basement bedroom is legal.

It has a window big enough for firefighters to enter / exit? Also has hard wired smoke detectors?(Sorry if it does! A lot of people don't know what legal basement bedroom entails)

NP. Why do you care? God, Americans can be such insufferable busy bodies. Mind your own business!

Who voted you board monitor? Zip it.

[Anonymous]

This is why there is dementia care, in facilities. And it's ok-care. What is the money situation Op? Are you, your family, going to live like this until your Mom passes?

[Anonymous]

Yes, but you’re also going to need to deploy medication if you can. The reality is that even a really good aide is going to have a hard time getting them back to sleep and you’re likely to hear/be woken by them frequently.

[Anonymous]

OP I would also point out that you can hire aides overnight, but that doesn’t make them nocturnal. They’re not going to beaver away all night on laundry and meal prep. They’re going to sleep/doze between patient wake ups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I second the poster about the effects on your children. Just be aware of how fearful and unsettling it can be. I was 12 when my grandma was in this state and it was frightening. And this state inevitably leads to the next (and worse) one. You are treading water and should be considering next options (memory care).

I am still paying the price for what I exposed kids to with my aging parents and problematic behaviors. The needs of your kids need to be a priority too, especially with regard to sleep. People talking about modeling what is right for your kids. Absolutely. Good boundaries are important for them to see. You can love your parents and provide proper care while making your kids and spouse and self a priority. Deciding everyone must suffer instead often turns people off those roles. They need to see you can prioritize a health nuclear family and still do right by grandma.Find the right memory care and visit often.Much easier for everyone to be at their best visiting when they have gotten enough sleep. The challenges with dementia start to increase exponentially. I've lived it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I would also point out that you can hire aides overnight, but that doesn’t make them nocturnal. They’re not going to beaver away all night on laundry and meal prep. They’re going to sleep/doze between patient wake ups.

I'm not OP
Plenty of people "beaver away all night" on graveyard shifts. That's when large store shelves get stocked, office buildings get cleaned, sometimes major roadwork, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I second the poster about the effects on your children. Just be aware of how fearful and unsettling it can be. I was 12 when my grandma was in this state and it was frightening. And this state inevitably leads to the next (and worse) one. You are treading water and should be considering next options (memory care).

I am still paying the price for what I exposed kids to with my aging parents and problematic behaviors. The needs of your kids need to be a priority too, especially with regard to sleep. People talking about modeling what is right for your kids. Absolutely. Good boundaries are important for them to see. You can love your parents and provide proper care while making your kids and spouse and self a priority. Deciding everyone must suffer instead often turns people off those roles. They need to see you can prioritize a health nuclear family and still do right by grandma.Find the right memory care and visit often.Much easier for everyone to be at their best visiting when they have gotten enough sleep. The challenges with dementia start to increase exponentially. I've lived it.

I was a teen when my parents took in my grandparent with dementia and it was fine. We saw my parents taking care of their elderly parent, which was a great example for us. We also got a realistic look at what aging is really like. This experience was a good one for my family in many ways, even though there were difficult times as my grandparent journeyed toward their final days. Eventually we siblings also took care of our own parents, one of whom also had dementia.

I know what it’s like to live with a person with dementia in ways most people today do not. I have a more realistic idea of how to plan for my own needs when my spouse and I reach those ages. Most importantly, watching your parents doing the right thing and then eventually doing the right thing yourself gives one a good feeling of having shown love and caring to your relatives when they need you the most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I second the poster about the effects on your children. Just be aware of how fearful and unsettling it can be. I was 12 when my grandma was in this state and it was frightening. And this state inevitably leads to the next (and worse) one. You are treading water and should be considering next options (memory care).

I am still paying the price for what I exposed kids to with my aging parents and problematic behaviors. The needs of your kids need to be a priority too, especially with regard to sleep. People talking about modeling what is right for your kids. Absolutely. Good boundaries are important for them to see. You can love your parents and provide proper care while making your kids and spouse and self a priority. Deciding everyone must suffer instead often turns people off those roles. They need to see you can prioritize a health nuclear family and still do right by grandma.Find the right memory care and visit often.Much easier for everyone to be at their best visiting when they have gotten enough sleep. The challenges with dementia start to increase exponentially. I've lived it.

I was a teen when my parents took in my grandparent with dementia and it was fine. We saw my parents taking care of their elderly parent, which was a great example for us. We also got a realistic look at what aging is really like. This experience was a good one for my family in many ways, even though there were difficult times as my grandparent journeyed toward their final days. Eventually we siblings also took care of our own parents, one of whom also had dementia.

I know what it’s like to live with a person with dementia in ways most people today do not. I have a more realistic idea of how to plan for my own needs when my spouse and I reach those ages. Most importantly, watching your parents doing the right thing and then eventually doing the right thing yourself gives one a good feeling of having shown love and caring to your relatives when they need you the most.

Not all dementia patients have the same behaviors.