Insomnia is not uncommon in the elderly. If your mom is having a difficult time falling asleep or sleeping through the night, she could be dealing with insomnia. Here are the tips to try to help her get a good night’s sleep.
Purchase a Comfortable Mattress
Make sure your mom’s mattress is comfortable. If it’s too hard, too soft, or lumpy, she’s going to wake with back or hip pain. She should try several mattresses to find the right match. A gel memory foam mattress that adjusts to her body may be ideal.
Eat a Few Hours Before Bed
Instead of having a large meal an hour or two before your mom’s bedtime, try to get her to eat several hours before bed. If her stomach is still full, heartburn or acid reflux may occur. That’s going to make it hard for her to sleep.
Limit Beverages After Dinner
After dinner, she needs to limit what she drinks. If she goes to bed after drinking a full pint of water, she’s going to wake up needing to use the toilet. Instead, she can hydrate all day and limit what she has after dinner.
In addition to watching how much she drinks after dinner, she needs to avoid alcohol and caffeine. They can impact how easy it is to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Create a Soothing Environment for Sleeping
White noise helps drown out noises from the street or neighboring properties. A fan is a good source of white noise. She can also try sound effects like ocean surf, singing birds, or rain.
Aromatherapy can also help with the environment she has for sleeping. Spray her pillows and bedspread with lavender. Lavender is supposed to help calm and soothe.
Adjust Her Daily Routine
Your mom needs to get into a routine so that her body and mind expect bedtime to arrive. She should get up by a certain hour, take walks, eat at regular times as much as possible, and be in bed by a specific time. She might find it best if she goes to bed an hour before she plans to go to sleep. She can read for that hour and help the body to relax and transition into a mode for sleeping.
It may be time to have someone spending time with your mom each afternoon. If she has caregivers to help encourage her to go for daily walks. Home care services aides can make sure she avoids too many caffeinated beverages and doesn’t nap all afternoon. Home care services are available as often as your mom needs it. She can have caregivers stop by each day or a few times a month. Call our home care services agency to make arrangements.