Hi, this is my first post, and i just wanted to say to people that may be looking for advice, that there is hope. I admit that I was somewhat daunted when reading the posts as the majority of the people posting seem to have faced real challenges with helping their children to achieve night time continence; and I was preparing myself mentally for the long haul.
I have an 8.5 yr old boy who had only had 3 dry nights in his life. We had followed the school nurses' self help measures (increase fluids, double void, fibre etc) to no avail. During the 9 month wait for a clinic appointment I had a chance conversation with another mother and mentioned my son's bed wetting. My friend lent me a 'Dry easy' bed wetting alarm and somewhat sceptically we thought we would 'give it a go' whilst waiting fir the appointment.
The first 3 weeks were hard work- my son was wet at least twice nightly. My husband and I spent the first month sleeping on his floor so we could get him up straight away. After the 3rd week, he was wet once a night and this was getting later and later. After about a month he stopped having accidents. We kept the alarm on for another month and finally removed it a couple of weeks ago. It was hard work, and I am absolutely amazed that something so simple worked for my son.
I am so grateful for the conversation I had with my friend. If we hadn't discussed bed wetting I am convinced that my son would still be wet, and still waiting for his appointment. I wholeheartedly recommend buying/ borrowing an alarm whilst waiting for professional help.
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NellaC
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Thank you so much for posting this and for your encouragement!! We are up for trying the alarm, but my son is ADAMANT that he won't use it. He's scared that it will wake him up with a scare and that he won't go back to sleep again. Also he's a seriously DEEP sleeper... we can go in and turn the lights on and have a full on conversation in his room and he won't wake up... Do you think the alarm would still work with such a deep sleeper? And you mention sleeping in his room... was he not able to wake up quickly enough to go himself? Just so that I can understand and mentally prepare ourselves if we are going to have to go down this road!! Thanks again for your success story and I'm so glad for you and your son...
Hi JBT, our son is also the deepest sleeper. The first night the alarm went off we thought he was awake, he went to the toilet, took off his underwear but then when he was getting back to bed he freaked out screaming and crying and talking gibberish - obviously in a semi sleep state. It's awful to see and to try and calm him down, this is why we've never had success with the "dream pee" as it wasn't worth the stress of waking him. He had no recollection in the morning and since that first night he's woken properly and we haven't had any drama - touch wood. It feels cruel to be waking him but at the same time we need to do something to help train his brain that when he pees, he needs to wake up. We are only on day 4 so it's early days and I'll admit, I'm pretty tired as I've been waking every hour or so in anticipation. My husband is such a deep sleeper he doesn't hear the alarm and can't function even if I wake him so it's easier for me to do it. I'm hopeful we can have this resolved before the year is out! Good luck and I hope we can all look back on this in a year's time with relief
Thank you so much for this!! We are only on day 4 of the same brand of alarm and this morning I just thought "is this really going to work" as he is wet twice a night. Your story is a carbon copy of ours, he will be 9 in April and exactly the same as your son, only been dry a handful of times since he was born. He seems to be wet around 11pm then around 6am, luckily he is waking with the alarm so by the time I go through he is standing up and taking off his wet underwear before resetting the alarm. He is such a deep sleeper but I'm glad this is waking him. I'm also glad I read a post about layering 4 sheets with bed mats, it makes it so much easier for him to strip and get back into bed. I am really hopeful now that I can post a similar success story in a couple of months! Thank you so much again.
So glad to read about the alarm that has taken slightly longer than the 1-3 weeks I keep reading about on the amazon reviews. My 6yo son has been using this alarm since Christmas and has had a few dry nights but only because he has woken up and had a wee in the middle of the night all by himself. He still wets himself once a night at the moment because he is such a deep sleeper and his body isn’t telling him to not wee until he wakes up. Hopefully we will get there as we intend to use it now until we have success. It has improved as he has wets himself later and later. So fingers crossed. Happy that it worked out for your son
JBT1- before using the alarm I had read up on how to use it and one recommendation was to be in the same room so you can respond to the alarm as soon as it goes off. We were out bed like a shot to make sure my son got up, switched the alarm off and went to the bathroom to use the loo. He was also meant to change the bed sheets, and he helped strip the wet ones off but that was the hardest part! He is a deep sleeper and most mornings he couldn't remember the alarm going off, but even so, the alarm must have had the desired effect with training his bladder/ brain response. It was like having a new born baby again, and I was shattered for the first month lying awake waiting for the alarm to go off- but short term pain for long term gain!!
My son likes gadgets so he was quite happy to use his 'contraption' and chose which alarm to have each night. Fortunately the type of alarm we used has several tunes and volume settings ranging from gentle(ish!) to very loud!
We used a star chart and in the first week or so he got stars for wearing the alarm, turning it off, going to the toilet and stripping the bed. He's very motivated by Lego so I bought a few small sets as a weekly reward. He would decide how many dry nights to aim for- first week was 2, which he didn't achieve, but he was rewarded for all the alarm related things. That reminds me, now he's been dry for a month I owe him a big Lego set!
We bought 4 'umbrella sheets' and used 2 at a time, so could just strip off the top one and have a dry one underneath. This also helped to reduce the amount of laundry and effort with changing the bottom sheet twice a night! The umbrella sheets are lovely and soft and super absorbent- I found a supplier on Amazon who had them on offer so it's worth shopping around.
For the first couple of weeks my son's duvet cover was getting soaked twice a night as well- so that was a bit of a pain. Our solution was to use an old flannelette cot bed sheet as a top sheet and sort of position it so it wrapped round my son's midriff and we found that it soaked the urine up and stopped the duvet from getting wet. Over the weeks the quantity of urine passed reduced as well so that helped.
One other thing that definitely helped was that my son was ready to try using the alarm. Up until we started using it, he had not really shown any motivation to become dry at night and was quite happy to wear pull ups. He has a residential trip coming up so I think the thought of this played a part in motivating him to try to become dry.
Nella thanks for sharing all of this, I'm just about to buy an alarm for my girl and if that one is good I'll just go for it. Did he find it comfy enough at night? (It's one of my daughter's worries, that it might be bulky and she won't be able to sleep.) Cheers Ali
Hi Ali, I thought the alarm would be huge but was really surprised how small the alarm is. It has a small clip onto the pants (I think with a girl the clip is positioned lower down) but it didn’t bother my son at all. The alarm part attached to his pyjama top and that was fine too.
I’ve just looked at when I first posted- and have realised that my son has now been dry for 5 months. We’re off camping soon so fingers crossed it continues- I don’t fancy soggy sleeping bags!
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