Gifts for Someone Who Is Bedridden

Flowers brighten an afternoon, but weeks in bed are a long time to look at the same ceiling. The people who've done months of it have worked out which things make a day lying down go better.

Each idea below works without getting up, and each one links to its own write-up.

The ceiling becomes the TV

A projector for lying in bed

Flat on your back, the TV is on the wrong wall and a phone held overhead ends on your nose. Two chronic-illness communities moved the picture to where the eyes already are.

Digby the mole lies on his back in bed at night, holding a glowing phone over his face with both paws. His arms are shaking, the phone is tipping toward his nose, and his eyes are half shut above a worried little mouth.

A small projector stands on the nightstand or at the foot of the bed with its lens tilted up, and the ceiling does the rest, with nothing to mount or drill. One reply in r/POTS calls it the best purchase ever.

For someone who spends their days lying flat on their back. The BenQ GV32 is built for it: its base tilts the whole unit from the wall up to the ceiling. The XGIMI Halo+ is the other one owners name, but it stands upright, so it wants XGIMI's tilting stand in the same parcel.

Ask whether the ceiling over the bed is smooth and whether the room goes properly dark, since the picture needs both. Anyone who'd rather try the idea before spending can do what one owner did, and watch TV lying on their back with a cheap one pointed at the ceiling first.

The TV from the pillow

Glasses for watching TV lying down

Some days, just holding your head up is the hard part. One r/cfs member had reached that point, and a pair of odd-looking glasses made their long days lying flat a lot less boring.

Seen from behind Digby's head on the pillow, the two dark arms of a pair of glasses past his ears and, down the bed past his feet, a TV glowing on the dresser, straight ahead of him.

Each eye looks into a small prism that bends the line of sight down the bed, so with the head flat on the pillow, the TV on the dresser sits straight ahead. The Reiliva prism glasses are the plain pair the threads describe.

For someone whose neck or illness makes sitting up the hard part of an evening of TV. Someone whose back was too sore to sit up bought a pair for exactly that, and could lie flat and see the screen.

The glasses assume a TV at the foot of the bed, so check there's one. A glasses wearer wants a pair sold as fitting over their own, which is a different listing, so ask that too. Books are a maybe, and why they suit TV better than reading is worth two minutes before you pick them for a bookworm.

Water all night, no spills

A hiking bladder for drinking in bed

A glass on the nightstand means rolling over, sitting up and hoping it doesn't tip. Pregnant sleepers, a hiker and two people with spinal injuries each worked out the same answer, and it came out of a backpack.

Same view as the cover: Digby asleep under the blanket with a small smile, the clear tube clipped to the pillowcase and running to his mouth, and only a lamp and a book on the nightstand where the glass used to be.

It's the soft water bag hikers carry on their backs, with a long tube and a mouthpiece you bite to open. Hang it over the bed frame or lay it beside the pillow, clip the tube to the pillowcase, and a drink is a turn of the head away. Every thread calls it a CamelBak, and the CamelBak Crux is the plain version.

For someone who can't sit up for a drink, or whose hands can't be trusted with a cup in the dark. A quadriplegic woman in r/spinalcordinjuries keeps one on the side table in place of a cup she'd knock over, and has water all night.

Hang it lower than the head, and give it with the one chore attached: tip it out, rinse it and refill it in the morning, like a glass. For a high-level injury, two others in the same subreddit name the Giraffe Bottle instead, a bottle on a bendable neck that mounts to the bed. Someone who's never owned one will want to know how to keep the water fresh, and the freezer trick for weeks it isn't in use.

Rolling over gets easier

Satin sheets for turning over in bed

Cotton holds on to cotton, so a roll onto the side becomes a slow push once Parkinson's has got into the nights. The forums make one of the two surfaces slippery, with one rule attached.

Digby, in the same striped pajamas, lies on his side on a glossy raspberry satin sheet with his feet on a band of plain grey cotton at the foot of the bed. He looks easy and content, and a folded satin pajama set sits on a chair at the edge of the frame.

Parkinson's UK lists both on its bedroom equipment page, satin sheets or satin pajamas, but never the two together. The slide that helps you turn is the slide that takes you over the edge. The Vonty satin set is the sheets route, and the people who report turning more easily are all on sheets.

For someone with Parkinson's whose nights have become a struggle to turn over. On the charity's forum, one member got satin sheets through occupational health and calls them a revolution.

Only the set's flat sheet goes on, over the cotton fitted sheet already on the bed, so hands and feet keep something to push against. Read how to keep some grip on the bed before the first night, and about the rail two people put beside theirs.

For someone who'd rather wear satin than sleep on it, a short set like Tony and Candice's goes over cotton sheets and leaves bare arms and legs on them for grip. It's a men's set, but the women's version is a search away.

Feet sleep in the air

A frame that keeps sheets off your feet

A sheet weighs nothing until it lies on feet that hurt, or on toes that can't push back against a blanket. People with neuropathy and ALS pitch the covers like a tent instead.

Close on the foot of the bed: the patchwork quilt rises into a small tent over a curved frame, and Digby's two bare pink feet rest in the air underneath.

It's a curved hoop whose flat base slides under the mattress at the foot of the bed. The covers go over the hoop rather than over the feet, which lie in the air underneath. The Performore lifter is the plain under-mattress kind, and its height adjusts.

For someone whose feet can't bear the weight of a sheet, or whose toes curl under a blanket. A member of ALS Forums with drop foot in both feet keeps one at the foot of the bed, and says getting in and positioning their legs is much easier.

It fits one owner's hospital bed just fine. Buy it somewhere it can go back, and read how to keep sheets off sore feet for the lighter comforter two people name, frame or no frame.

Heard through the wall

A bell to call for help at night

At night there's a wall between the person in bed and whoever looks after them, or a whole floor, and a weak voice won't carry through either. Carers on three forums hand over a button.

Digby the mole propped up on two pillows in bed at night, one paw raised toward the open bedroom door and the dark hallway beyond it. His mouth is open on a call, his brows pulled up in worry. A lamp and a glass of water sit on the nightstand.

The button belongs to a wireless doorbell. It stays within reach of their hand, and the chime sits wherever the carer sleeps. One family in r/LifeProTips set one up for a mother home from rehab, unable to speak after a tracheostomy, and it woke them at half past four the first morning.

For a household where one person can't call out and the other can't lie awake listening. The gift made for it is the CallToU caregiver pager, plug-in receivers and buttons on lanyards, which one carer bought for an elderly aunt and says works great.

It calls the carer and nobody else, so it isn't a fall alarm for somebody living alone. Where there's no hand that can press, a baby monitor does the listening instead.

Turn the bell's volume to its lowest before the first night. A second button goes beside the toilet, and which bell suits which person is worth a read before you choose.

Where to start

Start with the prism glasses when there's a TV at the foot of the bed, since they're the smallest thing here and the one every owner reports working for TV. The projector is the big present, for a room with a smooth ceiling. The water bladder can go in the parcel with any of them, the sheets are for Parkinson's, and the bell is for the whole household.