I'm a caregiver for my mom and been losing a lot of sleep this year. I have a call button in my room in case my mom needs to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. I usually check with her before I head off to bed myself if she needs to use the bathroom. I'll lay down anywhere between 12-2 am and about 3-4 hours through the night my mom calls me. I help her to the bathroom (can take anywhere between 15 minutes to 1 hour to finish the bathroom run) and do everything that needs to be done before I try returning to bed. This is where the problem lies, after helping her and the blaring of the call box my heart-rate is up and I can't get back to sleep for the life of me. So I end up running the day on 3-4 hours of sleep and trying to take a nap is hard because I never know when she's going to call me down. I'll go down in the afternoon and see she's sleeping and if she is I'll try and take the chance to lay down myself. Though it's hard to know if it'll be the next 10 minutes to the next few hours before the next call. I just get frustrated if I get settled in only to be called in the next few minutes. I've tried having my dad help me out by taking a night to see to her, but he's just unable to lift her like I can and ended up catching her arm in the door frame while backing up the transport chair. Now she has a big bruise on her arm and that just worries me more if I do ask him to take a night. I'm thinking of maybe getting assisted living maybe for the first four hours four days a week around say the time of 1 am to 5 am to assure that they be there to intercept the call box and I can get a break four days a week in the middle of the night. The new problem to this is hoping that my mom will allow this person to help her in place of me, but all I can do is try. I'm not sure if anyone has advice in how I can get more sleep? I really running my limits on how little of sleep I'm running off of.
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What if you dad came over during the day, and you could have a 4 hour nap? Getting a 4-hour shift night aide sounds good, too, if your mom could afford that. Or sending Mom to adult day care and taking a solid nap while she is there. But one way or another you have to get adequate sleep.
Your profile says Mom has general age-related care needs. Needing to sleep on the couch and being unable to get herself to even a bed-side commode sounds like considerably more than age-related.
I've really yet to do much with contacting the agency due to my sleep schedule being all over the place. I have thought about a bedside commode(or in her case couch, since that the only thing she can sleep on due to medical reasons). I'm just not sure if she could manage on her own, it basically takes all he strength to just stand let alone move. I would have to have her transfer to it during the time I am awake and she if she would feel comfortable doing so during the night hours.
The call box I have does have a volume control, but the current level I found to be the best. Lower setting I tend to sleep through and Higher is really jarring. I think part of the reason if get the heart going is the lack of sleep and I'm just on edge during the night and when it goes off all my bodies systems have to go basically from 0-60 so that I can perform what needs to be done.
Anyway, thanks for replying and trying to help me with my situation. What I really wish I had was some quick and easy for my dad to assist him in picking my mom up from the couch to the transport chair and from that to the toilet and back again. If we had something like that I think my moms fear of having my dad trying to help her with bathroom runs during the night would be put at rest.
I did manage to get some sleep last night(Even though the first 3 hours were rough). Apparently my dad did manage to help my mom(Despite her being reluctant from what my dad said) and everyone had a decent night sleep for once. Now if something like this could happen most night I think I can manage with a little loss of sleep now and then.
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I'm not sure how much luck you'll have being able to get someone to work a 1:00 a.m. - 5:00 a.m shift. You might be able to find a private caregiver who will work those hours but an agency will pigeon hole you into an 8 or 12 hour shift.
But I agree, you need more sleep. It's not your mom's decision, it's yours. You're the one taking care of her so if you need more help then you should have it.
Have you considered putting a bedside commode in your mom's room? Place it so she just has to pivot onto it. Have some toilet tissue right there, maybe a glass of water, and see if this doesn't cut down on your time spent toileting her in the middle of the night.
Consider another alert system that doesn't "blare". A system that doesn't send your heart rate shooting up leaving you unable to get back to sleep. What about a baby monitor? Train your mom to just say your name when she needs to get up and you'll hear her on your end of the monitor.