The Ber Months Are Here: Why October Is the Time to Plan for Holiday Respite

Respite is one of the least used supports available to family caregivers, and the months when it would help most are now on the calendar.

September is almost over. The next three months are the busiest stretch of the year in most households, with travel, hosting, school and church events, and a gift list that runs longer than anyone planned for. Families who are also providing care at home take all of that on in addition to the care.

Care at home looks different from one household to the next. It might be a daughter managing her father's medications and appointments, a husband whose wife came home from the hospital in August, parents who have supported an adult son with a disability for twenty years, or someone driving a spouse to infusion every third week. The holidays add to each of those weeks in their own way.

The gap between what family caregivers need and what they use

AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving surveyed 6,858 family caregivers for their 2025 report, Caregiving in the US. Its respite findings are below.

Family caregivers who want respite, and those who use it

Each dot is one family caregiver out of 100

39% say respite would be helpful to them

13% report using it

The report attributes the difference to structural and personal barriers, including difficulty trusting someone else with a person's care, concerns about quality, and shame. Family caregivers in the same survey reported providing an average of 27 hours of care a week.

AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, Caregiving in the US 2025 (n=6,858).

Cost and availability are part of the reason, but the barriers the report lists show they are not all of it.

An earlier AARP holiday survey found something that coverage of family caregiver burnout usually leaves out. In 2017, 32% of family caregivers said they felt more positive about the holidays since they started caregiving, mostly because they enjoy helping and their person is close by. For many families the season is demanding and good at the same time.

What the season adds

Caregiving continues through December at the same intensity. On top of it, the season adds:

• Shopping, wrapping, and shipping, most of it against a deadline
• Cooking and hosting, or traveling to someone else who is hosting
• Out-of-town relatives arriving, sometimes with views about the care
• Church services, school programs, and work gatherings
• Holiday closures at medical offices and pharmacies, which move refills and appointments earlier
• Shorter afternoons once the clocks change on November 1, which in households managing dementia often means harder evenings

Very little of that is optional, and in most households one family caregiver handles all of it.

What respite coverage involves

Respite is paid coverage. A direct care worker provides support for a set block of time so the family caregiver can take care of something that is hard to do while providing care. The family caregiver stays the decision maker, and the care plan stays the same.

Gilgal's home care services run on a three-hour minimum per visit and a nine-hour weekly minimum, with blocks arranged up to full nine-hour shifts. We build schedules around the week a family actually has, and we change them when the week changes.

One week in December

Three respite blocks, shaded, within an ordinary week

• Monday, 10am–2pm. Errands and gift shopping, or the hair appointment that has been put off since summer.
• Thursday, 9am–12pm. The family caregiver's own medical appointments, including the ones already rescheduled twice.
• Saturday, 1pm–5pm. Cooking ahead, seeing a friend, or sleeping.

11 hours in total, which clears the nine-hour weekly minimum.

Families often use the hours differently than they planned. Some spend the first block catching up on the house. Over a full season, the plans that tend to hold are appointments someone else is expecting you at, like a standing hair appointment, physical therapy for your own back, a weekly class, or lunch with a friend who does not ask how your person is doing. Those hold because they are on someone else's calendar too.

An extra block during a holiday week gives the family caregiver time to get ready and to sit down at the table with everyone else.

Why October is the month to arrange it

Getting a direct care worker cleared to start takes less time than most families expect.

Under Pennsylvania's home care regulations, agencies and registries must complete criminal background checks, screen direct care workers for tuberculosis, and verify competency before assigning or referring them, subject to the Commonwealth's rules on provisional hiring. Most of our direct care workers are Pennsylvania residents, so background check results generally come back within a few days. Training runs a few days. Competency evaluation follows, and then the direct care worker starts.

What October gives you is time for a routine to form. A household and a direct care worker need a few weeks of ordinary visits to get used to each other, including where things are kept, how your person likes the morning to go, and what gets said and what does not. That is much easier to work out in late October than in a holiday week with relatives in the house and a schedule already under strain.

What has to happen first

Clearances for Pennsylvania residents usually come back within a few days. Most of the lead time goes to the household settling in.

Starting in October gives the routine time to become ordinary before December.

Why families wait

Most family caregivers already know respite exists. The reasons they give for not using it are more specific, and most of them are reasonable.

It does not feel bad enough yet. Families tend to measure need against a crisis that has not happened. The work of the last several months does not register as a reason, because it got done.

Your person does not want a stranger in the house. This one is real and deserves to be taken seriously. It is also why a short, regular block started in a quiet month tends to go better than a long one started in an emergency. Your person gets used to someone by seeing them on a regular schedule.

Nobody knows what it costs. Families often decide against respite without ever asking for a number, on the assumption that it would be out of reach. A published rate and a straight answer about minimums usually settle that quickly.

The siblings do not agree. One sibling is providing the care and another is weighing in from out of state, often with less information about what the week actually involves.

It feels like failing. The AARP report names this barrier as shame, and it is the hardest one to talk someone out of. Nobody else will provide care exactly the way you do, and respite does not ask them to. It covers a set number of hours so the family caregiver can keep doing the rest.

Start the conversation now

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Tell us what your week actually looks like. We will talk through what kind of support might help, what it would and would not include, and whether now is the right time to arrange it.

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Sources

• AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, Caregiving in the US 2025, July 2025, n=6,858 family caregivers
• AARP Research, Family Caregiver Survey: Holiday Stressors and Emotions, December 2017, n=1,002 family caregivers
• Pennsylvania Department of Health, Home Care Regulations, Chapter 611 requirements for home care agencies and registries

Gilgal Home Care & Registry · Pennsylvania licensed home care agency and registry
Respite support is subject to client needs, staffing, clearances, competency requirements, and scheduling availability.
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania · Serving Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Bucks & Philadelphia counties