In this article
Most people who call us about respite have been caring for someone alone for months. They are not sleeping properly, they have stopped seeing friends, and they open the conversation by apologizing for asking.
Nobody needs to apologize for this. Here is what respite is, why it works better when you set it up early, and how to start without upsetting the person you are caring for.
What respite actually is
Respite care is somebody else providing the care you normally provide, so that you can stop for a while. That is the whole of it.
It can be three hours on a Tuesday morning so you can go to your own doctor. It can be a full day each week so you can work. It can be a fortnight so you can take a holiday for the first time in three years. The care itself is the same care your loved one already gets, delivered by somebody who has learned your routine.
The important part is that nothing changes for the person being cared for. Good respite is invisible to them.
Why families wait too long
Almost everybody waits longer than they should, for three reasons.
The first is that caregiving expands quietly. It starts with a bit of shopping, then a bit of cooking, then help with washing, then broken nights. No single step feels like the moment to ask for help, so the moment never arrives.
The second is that spouses often do not see themselves as caregivers at all. They see themselves as married. Asking for respite can feel like admitting the relationship has changed into something else.
The third is money, and that one is legitimate. But a few hours a week is usually a smaller number than people assume, and the alternative, which is the arrangement collapsing entirely, is far more expensive.
What it looks like week to week
The families who get the most out of respite tend to use it in the same way: regularly, on a fixed day, whether or not they feel they need it that week.
Occasional emergency respite is much less useful. You cannot plan around it, you cannot make a standing arrangement to see a friend, and the caregiver is unfamiliar to your loved one every time.
A fixed Tuesday afternoon, on the other hand, becomes part of the week for everyone. Your loved one gets used to the person. You get something you can rely on. And if a crisis comes, there is already somebody who knows the household and can step up.
The guilt part
Worth saying plainly: taking a break is not a failure of love, and needing one is not a sign you are doing it badly.
Round-the-clock care is a job that would normally be shared between several paid people working shifts, with days off and holidays. One person doing all of it, indefinitely, is not devotion. It is a staffing model that eventually fails, and it usually fails at the worst possible moment, when the caregiver's own health gives way.
The hardest calls we take are from families where the person doing all the caring has been taken ill suddenly and nobody else knows the medications, the routine, or where anything is kept. Regular respite is what prevents that.
Starting well
A few things make the first few weeks go better:
- Start while you are still in the house. Two or three short visits with you present lets your loved one meet the caregiver without feeling handed over.
- Write the routine down. Times, preferences, what is said at which point in the day. It saves you briefing somebody from scratch every time.
- Start small and regular rather than large and occasional.
- Leave the house. Sitting upstairs while somebody else provides care is not respite. Go out.
- Give it a month. The first visit is rarely the smoothest, for anyone.
And do not wait for a crisis to make the decision for you. Setting this up while things are calm is far easier than arranging it from a hospital corridor.
Read more about our respite care, or talk to us about what your week actually looks like.