Finding a sleep routine for caregivers
When I first started taking care of my mother at home, I gladly answered her calls whenever she needed help. It was the least I could do for her. But over time, my health began to deterioriate because of broken sleep.
It wasn’t that my mother needed more help through the night, it’s that she was calling me when she awoke, which varied greatly. The answer was to schedule a regular time for me to take care of her nightly needs. Of course emergencies were outside of this schedule, but they were pretty rare.
The result was: I could schedule my sleeping time reliably AND my mother could get a better sleep. Turned out she had been only half sleeping, worried that she would miss calling me at some point in the night!
