How to limit toilet paper?

I wish I had a solution for you. Unfortunately I have the same problem as LadeeC...I'd give anything for a "happy medium"! I get the tissue blizzards in the washing machine too, but ya know what's worse? (This may be more fitting for the Grossed Out thread too...) Back before my MIL started wearing Depends she sometimes used Poise pads...the big, extra absorbent ones...and sometimes she'd "forget" to remove them before tossing her panties into the washer. OMG talk about a mess! Those things shred into a zillion wet clumpy bits that stick to everything!! She lost one into the toilet once too, and because she wasn't sure what to do about it she just left it there for us to sort out "later". FYI, the "extra absorbent" feature is as advertised. By the time she got around to telling us what happened ("oh...by the way....") it had grown to the size of a baby seal.

There is a solution, but it takes quite a bit of upkeep. On the other hand, we were paying a plumber almost every week because of all the clogs. What we do is save the cardboard centers of toilet paper rolls and then we feed a small number of squares (12 or so) onto the roll from whole rolls of TP and put that on the TP holder. So when mom needs to use the bathroom, all there is are 12 squares. Of course, everyone else knows where the whole rolls are hidden and our pre-prepped 12 square rolls that we keep just for mom are constantly replenished.

if the parent is toileting without assistance and cleaning themselves up i would consider exessive tp usage to be something i could live with. i think the wet adult wipes are much more effective. urinary infections can be caused by less than adequate cleanliness.
if quirky personal habits is the theme here my mom farts when shes walking thru the house sometimes continually. it doesnt embarass me a bit. getting rid of gas must be a real relief for her. caregiving has taught me a lot about humility and patience..

This almost belongs in the "Grossed out? Need to vent? .. " thread, but ..

Almost wish we had that problem. Ours is the reverse. No more than 4 squares. EVER. Guess what's all over her hand before she's done? And, I'm here to tell ya that she uses those four squares as many times as she can fold them over.
Ugh!! Oh .. I forgot to mention .. she loves biting her nails. Soooooooo gross.

We finally got her to use wet wipes and we managed to drill it into her that it HAS to be thrown in the trash. At least it doesn't plug up the toilet, that way. And supervise. Really. And ignore her 'shut ups' .. you're doing what's best for her and her home. Sometimes YOU gotta be the mom.

Traded in tp for baby wipes. Get the dispenser that gives out one at the time. That way at least it will slow her down having to get one at the time. Also a baby diaper disposal system is great for disposing the wipes without stopping up the toilet. And wetness means cleaner wiping, too.

Rolling on the Floor Laughing ROTFL

sometimes you have to look hard to find the small blessings in life. be thankful that mom still knows the difference between s**t paper and a shower curtain..

Every single post on this thread got a Helpful Answer "tick" from me. I was nearly doubled over with laughter. I'm telling you, if stand up comedians ever read these stories, their audiences would be rolling in the aisles!

But, seriously, its so healthy to find the humor in the quirky behavior of dementia. My caregivees have all done some version of these descriptions but I agree with Captain, if they're doing a good job of cleaning up, I'd rather have them using more than less.

This is a subject near and dear to MY heart as my mom harassed me from the time I started accomplishing my own personal hygiene until I moved out of the house. She thought I was always using too much toilet paper. lt was my thinking that I wanted to come away from the task with reasonably clean hands. It wasn't until her disabilities and illnesses, where I was either observing or supervising her bathroom activities, that I came to find out she was one of the "4 sheet" ladies. Unlike myself, she never cared if she got pee on her hands or poop under her fingernails. Ewwwww.

Once I realized this, I asked her, Mom, why do you do that? She informed me that toilet paper was expensive (cheap, like many others?!). I told her not to worry about that, the price had been lowered and we have plenty of money to buy toilet paper. She said that didn't matter, that "you never know when it might be hard to get". While further questioning might have allowed me to ferret out additional information about her thinking, it was obvious that the conversation was irritating her, so I had to let it go.

But my elder relatives, and most likely many on this site, who went through the depression, were taught to live on less money and to conserve in the extreme. On top of that, my mother's father died when she was 2, and her mother when she was 8. Between those ages, she sometimes lived in "the country" outside of St Louis with her maternal grandmother, 1/2 indigenous Indian descent. My great aunt told me that they didn't always have toilet paper (they didn't use corn cobs, haha, but they did make use of vegetation such as inedible weeds).

Just for reference, my mom was born in 1918. They ate differently in the city, but out in the country, they often had gruel for breakfast and rattlesnake with dandelion greens for a late dinner (which would be like a late lunch for us). For "supper" (our dinner), they might have tea and leftover bread or biscuits.

Makes it easier to understand how their generation came to be "cheap" as well as feel the need to save a scrap of anything, because they never knew when they might need it. This belief is so internally strong, it just gets magnified during dementia.

LSHIAPMP, Captain you're too funny. Momma too, sounds like a choo choo going down the hall.