My husbands grandfather just passed away,and his grandmother has progressive dementia. She refuses to go to a nursing home,and has stated that we are the only people she would allow to stay with her. We just bought our first house,and are currently renovating it. I am also 9 months pregnant with our first child. I am very upset,but my husband doesn't understand why this living arrangement would be hard with a newborn baby. We have the resources to bring someone in to stay wit her during the day,and we can check on her at night(we live less than a mile away). I really don't feel like I'm being selfish, wanting to move into our new house with our new baby. How do I convince my husband,as well as his grandmother,that although we are more than willing to help her as much as we can,it would be a bad idea moving in to her house? Additionally,she refuses to move out if her house,even to ours.
I think you know that the answer is NO. Being newly married is stressful, renovating a house is stressful, having your first baby is stressful (all of those events are also delightful). Taking care of your husband's demented grandmother could be the straw that could break your marriage's back (or yours).
When someone has dementia, they often become so self-focused that they can't take into account the toll that their needs and demands take on others. It's hard to understand that grandmom is no longer taking into account your feelings or wellbeing.
Bottom line is that his grandmother is asking for help. She doesn't get to dictate how it is given. Personally, I'd be visiting AL communities with dementia units. It's a progressive condition, things will only get worse. And, if this is your first child, you have yet to realize how much you'll need your husband at the end of a work day. You won't be very understanding of his going off to 'check on' grandma (a process that could easily turn into a lengthy visit).
Priority check ... 1 - Baby, 2 - Marriage, 3 - your own wellbeing, 4 - grandma.
Your husband has to grow a set of ba*** and tell her that you will not move in with her, and she has the following options: long term care facility, assisted living, or people to come in to help her out, & let her choose.
If your husband works full time & you will be on maternity leave for 3 months with a newborn, his grandmother will drive you crazy. Depending on how demanding she is, she could actually be jealous of the baby & cause you great distress by wanting her care to be the priority over your newborn's care.
On the other hand, if your husband is dead-set on moving in with her, you could tell him that he can move in with her & you are going to stay in your house with the baby, because even though he sees caring for his grandmother as the priority, in a few weeks the priority is going to be taking care of your newborn & nothing can come in the way of that. So, if he wants to participate in the care of his newborn baby, he's going to have to go back & forth from his grandmother's house to your house & live a "double life", so to speak. See how he deals with that after a couple of weeks, in addition to working a full time job. You'll find out very quickly what his priorities are.
New dads are totally clueless on what it means to have a baby in the house. If your husband is like mine, he probably expects it to be like having a puppy and it is NOT!!!!! You are going to need care post-birth, so who is going to do that? YOU have needs you need to stand up and advocate for.
If darling husband needs a dose of reality, then let HIM move in with Grandma for a week and see for himself how much work and stress it really is. I don't mean to be offensive or rude, but his idea is just jackassery on wheels.
Grandma needs to be in a facility prepared and purposed for dementia patients. Aging in place at home is a nice idea for mostly TV families. There are exceptions out there, but for our situation with my mom, that whole concept would have been a nightmare.
I am 43 and have two teenagers and one dementia/Alzheimers 77 year old is too much for our house. Saying they get demanding is an understatement. Saying they are a danger to themselves and others is an understatement.
This is not TV. We are not the Waltons where Mother, Granny, and the kids are sitting around the big farm table peeling potatoes until JohnBoy gets home. The Waltons never covered what to do when Granny pees all over the floor, won't bathe for weeks on end, and refuses to let anybody change her pooped on sheets. Or what to do when she bites, hits, and kicks. Or what to do when she needs almost 3 hours to eat a meal.
Instead, your darling husband needs to get a social worker involved who can do an assessment. Get granny to the neurologist and get her into a place where they can handle anything she will dish out. With progressive brain disease, it only declines and becomes worse and worse. And this decline can take 8-15 years. Nobody can predict how long it will take.
He can meet his current family needs (you, baby, house) AND satisfy his need to rescue Granny, but he has to be a lot more realistic to understand that a dementia patient has a lot more intense and demanding needs than a newborn, and you can't serve both.
You also don't want to put you or husband in the position of being potentially negligent with Granny by not being able to meet her needs. You do NOT want to go there with Adult Protection.
What about "Granny won't let...." Tough. Granny is no longer in a position to call the shots and define how things will happen in her life. That time is over. Somebody without dementia needs to call the shots and do what is safe for her, even if she hollers & kicks the entire way. Just expect it. Keeping an elder safe is sometimes not possible at the same time as happy. Take it from me, I know. If I put my mom where she'd be happy, she'd be dead pretty fast from not taking her meds, falling and injuring herself, starvation because she can't prep food, dehydration because she won't drink liquids/doesn't feel thirsty, and she'd be filthy nasty until the day she did drop.
I hope we've shed some light on this for you and send in your husband directly if he won't listen to you. We'll help him understand. :-D
I am concerned that the husband is making a decision based on Grandma rather than on his wife & child. If the decision is a good one it will be made mutually with both husband and wife agreeing on the choice.
Sorry , circle of life. Baby needs you, and you need to rest when baby does. Honestly.
What is your husband thinking??
Is either you or your husband employed? If not, why not? Does your husband believe that he is going to gain something financial from this arrangement?
I agree with everything everyone else has written. Make your husband watch every single Teepa Snow video you can find on YouTube because he's an expectant father who must wise up and do it quickly. Baby is coming!