New challenge -
Mom gets up in the night to go to the bathroom. - usually taking her diaper off. She puts her pajamas back on without a clean diaper. There have been three accidents in the bed after that.
She's so quiet in the night I don't wake up. So I found some bells and put them on her door to wake me. ( These bells sound like the goat bells in the fields of Toiny, St. Barts.
God , that was the best way to wake-up the first morning of vacation.) Now I dread hearing the same sound. After about a week of getting up in the middle of the night, needless to say, I was exhausted and crabby.
I needed a new plan. She's got to wear the diaper ALL night. I thought of duck-taping the diaper on til morning- just one ring of tape around the diaper - or maybe wear the duck-tape as suspenders,
My daughter wanted to know if I was serious. Guess I was more tired than I thought. She suggested I write a note to Mom and leave it in the bathroom. So here's what I wrote:
MOM,
PUT A CLEAN DIAPER ON BEFORE YOU GO BACK TO BED
I wrote an arrow on the sign, pointing to the diaper hanging next to it. I wrote on the back of the diaper in extra large letters:
TAKE ME
I taped the sign to the towel bar directly in front of the toilet so she would see it when she sat down. We read it together before bed. She said she understood. Trial run last night.
I left the bathroom light on instead of just the nightlight. No good. The wet diaper is in the waste basket and she did not touch the one labeled, TAKE ME .
She is still asleep. the health -aid will be here any minute....We'll takle the problem together when she gets here. Maybe that's the way we should deal with this everyday.
Get a strong rubber pad and keep washing and bleaching. Or I could leave more signs.....
Then again -How about if I leave her signs on the mirror and on the back of the bathroom door? What should it say so that she will remember to check if she has a diaper on just after reading it?
CHECK YOUR PAJAMAS...ARE YOU WEARING A DIAPER? YOU SHOULD BE.
PANTIES ON?
DO YOU WANT TO WET THE BED? WEAR A DIAPER
DANGER!!! DON'T LEAVE THIS AREA WITHOUT WEARING A DIAPER
ONLY PEOPLE WEARING DIAPERS ALLOWED IN BEDROOM
ARE YOU SAFE?? WEAR A DIAPER
SAY YES TO DIAPERS
She seems to forget one sentence just after she reads it. How about a cartoon? or diagram? photo of herself to grab her attention. No, she'll just stare at the photo and smile.
I'll keep trying. There has got to be a way..
ARE YOU WEARING A DIAPER?
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Bob DeMarco is the editor of the Alzheimer's Reading Room and an Alzheimer's caregiver. Bob has written more than 1,510 articles with more than 8,000 links on the Internet. Bob resides in Delray Beach, FL.
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Original content Bob DeMarco, the Alzheimer's Reading Room
