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I organized in-home care 3 half days per week for Dad with dementia and copd and primary caregiver Mom with arthritis so could stay in own home and so sibs can have relief from 24/7 care. I had met with parents and home care agency to discuss specific needs and tassk and to sign up. Also I was there first full day to monitor caregiver, answer questions, show her laundry, kitchen etc. I also wrote down, with Mom, Dad's morning routine (from getting up, to meds, shower, shave, breakfast - minimum two hour routine) and what light housekeeping/cooking chores the caregiver would do each day I had suggested to the family that I be the one person be in charge of this to avoid confusion and frustration on part of parents, caregiver, sibs. Like we do forone person ordering and organizing meds, one doing finances and this has worked out well. I stay out of meds except for giving them to Dad when I am there. When a parent asks when meds were ordered or needs help organizng pill containers, I say "Susie" is in charge of that with Mom. She'll take care of that with Mom when she comes over or we can call her to ask a question. One sib spends more time thatn others at parents' home by her own choice. I guess therefore natural she wants to be helpful on all things that occur when she is there. But she butted in, re-wrote "duty sheet" and asked caregiver to do lots of things not discussed. Mom and Dadshould have had time to get used to caregiver and "managing" what chores are needed and caregiver to get to know Dad, spend time with him and Mom. First caregiver asked her agency to re-assign her after second day. Sib blamed Mom for "not being nice" to caregiver. I told sib it's OK if she would like to be in charge of managing home care with Mom. She said "No I'm just trying to be helpful". How to communicate with sibs on thiese matters?

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Many thanks to you both for your wisdom. I had previously used the medicine and finances examples to suggest that I manage the home care. And why. But we dont always "get" something the first time around. So I have just thanked sibs for handling single-person-in-charge tasks, with the example of "most helpful sister" being the one person person to take Dad to his doc and handle all phone contact with that doc. Quoted "Things just work better if one person has accountability"
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You really have a good thing going in your family! One person in charge of medicines, one doing finances, etc. -- Celebrate! Truly you are on the right track. And you can use those examples to discuss managing in-home care with the helpful sister, gently and without accusations. Things just work better if one person has accountability.

I suspect that before too long helpful sis will time her visits when the in-home help isn't there most of the time. So perhaps the issue will go away on its own. But to avoid going through this multiple times, I hope you can convince your sis to let you handle this aspect of caregiving.
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How? Patiently.

My heart sinks for you at the thought of wading through this diplomatic swamp. But as you already recognise, it's early days, there are bound to be teething troubles, and dear darling lovely sister is - oh GOD! - only trying to help.

Take as many deep breaths as you need until you can thank her lovingly and remind her about the desirability of short - i.e. one person - communication chains.

And it's possible that your mother wasn't very nice to the caregiver *as well* as the caregiver being driven nuts by conflicting instructions.

Your approach is spot on. Don't get deflected by short-term technical hitches. Best of luck, hope everything shakes down nice and quickly.
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