There was so much to read here.
I never could sleep very well when I was looking after MH at home. Now that he is a NH, going to hospital tomorrow, I still can't sleep! Reason? I have discovered TP and it is addictive. If only I had found it 5 years ago.
Perhaps it's not relevant here. I loved putting MH to bed at night. It was the nicest time of the day often.
He could help in undressing himself then. It was often straight after dinner at 6pm, sometimes even before!, I put on a favourite CD, sat on his bed, talked about how I thought he might be needing to rest his troubled mind, ( he rarely spoke for years), how rest restores, sometimes not trying to make sense might be the way to go. The body needs rest as well as the mind... And so on. I can remember my mother saying some of these things from my childhood.
That I would pop in and out for the next few hours, be in the house always etc.
As I say, probably not the least bit helpful for some carers here who have much more difficult situations to cope with.
Perhaps I am choosing to remember the good bits. The times when I actually tried to be helpful. Many times I was pretty useless and worse.