Bed Wetting Alarm for Kids

When I was older than I want to admit and still wet the bed, my mother bought me one of these alarms. I don't remember the brand, but yes it worked. It only took a few times for my body to catch on. I was "fixed" in a matter of weeks. It was a life saver.

I got desperate enough to shell $100 out for the "Potty Pager" brand alarm a few years ago. It did "work" for about a month; my boy was about 6 then and stopped wetting at night for 3 or 4 weeks. My son then started to sleep through the alarm and it no longer woke him. Then the pager promptly broke. I sent it back to the seller, they took about 3 weeks to fix or replace it. We started using it again and it was only a few weeks before I realized it was not helpful at all. My son HATED the feel of it, it was heavy and bothersome. And it broke again within a month anyway. Pure Junk. His was the vibrating kind.
Incidentally, my brother wet the bed til about age 14 and my mom tried the alarm that made a siren noise when it got wet. This was about 15 years ago. The alarm simply woke everyone in the house except my brother. People who wet the bed tend to be very heavy sleepers.

Save your money for the pullups. Kroger (Smiths) carries an inexpensive brand that comes in a package that looks like denim. They are $7.50 or so per package of 15 and work well. My son will be 9 in a few weeks and still wets sometimes, although the amount has decreased a lot over the last year. Things honestly became a lot less stressful for the whole family when I stopped worrying about finding a "cure" and mentally resigned myself that there was a chance he would wet till teenagerhood as my brother did. BTW, it it helps, this is so very common. Many of our neighbors have mentioned their children suffer from this. AND it could be worse...My aunt, who had 8 children, had 5 boys who all suffered from this AT THE SAME TIME! Before pullups. There was no way for her to keep up with the laundry. Let's count ourselves lucky!!

There isn't one that works. There is nothing accomplished by setting an alarm to wake a child if they pee. It makes tons more laundry, it keeps them from getting the sleep they need, a person is not supposed to wake up during the night to go pee, they are not supposed to be making urine during the night when they are asleep.

There is nothing to be accomplished by doing this to your child. He will stay dry when his brain turns on and starts sending that chemical signal the the kidneys to stop producing urine when he falls asleep.

If that chemical is not being produced there is nothing that will make him stay dry at night. Nothing.

If you think about your own body, if you drink tons of stuff in the evening you might wake up due to the urge to pee. But it should not be happening every night, not even once a month.

When you go to sleep you stop making urine, when you wake up and stand up you can feel your bladder filling if you are paying attention. That is what is supposed to happen. You go to sleep and are supposed to sleep all night and not wake up. Then you wake up and feel the urge to eliminate.

You might take kiddo to a pediatric urologist but he's going to say make sure kiddo is not constipated. He may not be getting enough fluids, especially if you are limiting them. Constipation is one of the main reasons for bed wetting outside of the body's readiness. The weight of the feces pushes the urine out of the body when it is laying on the bladder all night.

I think you need to just buy some pull ups and save money. Laundry costs more than a box of pull ups each month. Plus your time is worth something.

Look at some of my other answers on this topic. I have bills laid out so moms can see how much more expensive it can be to add all the laundry in, buying a box of pull ups each month is really cheaper that doing all the laundry.

We used an alarm and it worked great! I can't remember the brand, but it basically clipped into her undies. We had her wear undies and a pull up over them, just so she didn't get the whole bed wet. It took maybe one week and then like magic, she was fine and never looked back.

I will say we got the one that had different tones to choose from, and also a feature where you could record your voice saying something like "wake up Susie!!". Was a good idea, but the recording wasn't loud enough to wake her up. Maybe they've solved that problem by now, we did this a few years ago.

I say give it a try, use the one that clips into undies, wear pull ups over for comfort and less mess. And if after two weeks or so she doesn't stop, maybe wait another 6 months. It's likely she just hasn't made the mind body connection yet and this should do the trick. But if it doesn't then maybe she isn't ready. But we had great luck. I think I paid $75 or so on Amazon. Good luck.

First - alarms can and do work, in the right situation. Your child, not you, has to want to stop wetting the bed. You can want it till the cows come home, till she's willing to take ownership the alarms won't work.

Second - bedwetting is normal up to the teens. I've had a pedi, a urologist, and a urologic nurse practitioner all tell me that. Your daughter is young, it's quite possible she's just not mature enough yet.

Bedwetting alarms work by linking the 'gotta go' sensation with waking up. That takes time. Child wets, sensor goes off, child gets up to finish urinating and change clothes. Repeat lots. Over time the child's brain associates the 'gotta go' with waking because you have retrained it to think that way. You CANNOT just put the alarm on the kid and expect them to start waking up to use the bathroom. Most people who say alarms don't work did just that. You have to help the child learn to wake up to the alarm first, then they will begin to associate the waking with the need to urinate. Think about it, if the kid can already sleep through a tornado they're not going to wake up to a shrieking alarm even if it is only inches from their face. You have to TEACH them to wake up, which means you are in bed with them for a while.

My son came to me at age 9 1/2 wanting an alarm because he wanted to go on sleepovers. It took 2.5 months, 4 weeks of it with me sleeping with him, for the alarm to work. He's been dry since (6 months now). In the beginning the alarm went off 1 - 2 times a night. I had to physically kick him out of bed repeating "feet on floor, walk to bathroom, potty". That lasted about 2 weeks. Then I just had to shake him, after a while I just had to touch him. At that point I went back to my room. For a couple nights he was wetter, but eventually we started having dry nights.

www.thebedwettingstore.com has a couple good alarms. Don't get the remote one, too easy to just hit the button and go back to sleep.

Yesterday there was a question about bedwetting with many good responses, I don't know if there was anything about an alarm in there though but all that responded had good advise/wisdom with this issue.

Maybe her little system hasn't yet developed, no biggie, it will. Hang in there.

If your child is a heavy sleeper, don't waste your money. We bought 2 different types and our son slept through both of them. The pediatrician said he would just have to outgrow it. He eventually did shortly before he turned 9. Our pediatrician also said not to wake them up. He said it doesn't help with bladder control, only creates a poor sleeper. Not sure about that since we found it didn't make a difference anyway.

My son was a bed wetter later as well. When talking to my sister I found out it is a hormonal issue. The gland that secretes the hormone that says wake up you need to pee isn't fully developed yet. She told me about a nasal spray you get from your family doctor. They use it once in each nostril before bed. You only have to use it until the gland catches up with development for our son it was less than a year. It was awesome! He was no longer embarrassed and could stay the night at friends house's. Talk to your doctor and see if this might be a good choice. Good Luck!

Please don't use an alarm. If your daughter cannot stay dry, it is because her body is not physiologically ready. The only thing an alarm will accomplish is to further upset she, and she is probably already aware of the fact that most of the other kids can stay dry all night.

If the doctors say by 7 she should be able to stay dry, then make an appointment to have the doctor find out why she is unable to stay dry. It's possible she simply falls into the category of those who take longer (I have actually heard that before). It's also possibly that there is a health concern, and if that's true you really do want to investigate.

In the meantime, just buy the pullups or goodnights. No extra laundry, no waking up in the middle of the night, no embarrassment.

The "home remedies" you mentioned are not going to effect the situation one way or another. This is a physiological issue. Let her drink as much as she wants whenever she wants, and please stop waking her up to pee. Let her sleep. If there is a health problem, let her doctor investigate. If not, just let her be. She will grow out of this one day.

This whole alarm business sounds too much like Pavlov's Dog and the bell tone..... I would hate to be conditioned so that when I hear an alarm... I wanna go to the bathroom :) ok exaggerating.. but that is what came to mind when I saw your post.. fast forward ahead to an adult: Fire Alarm , excuse me while I run to the bathroom.. car alarm, excuse me, but I really need to find a restroom.. sitting in therapist office... gee doc, all I remember is when I was little there was this strange alarm going off in my room and then I'd be running to the bathroom....... :)

Anyway, my son wet his bed up until about age 7 1/2... I read that regardless of someone's bladder being developed or not, you can in fact have a smaller one than someone else and hence.. NEVER hold as much..
We tried different things... eventually it came down to this.. we let nature take its course. We did use a plastic padded mat that we had for changing diapers and put that on his bed to try avoid the urine getting on his sheets.. We had discussions trying to find out if something was bothering him .. it really came down to his being in such a deep sleep that he did not awaken.. by about 7 1/2... he finally stopped wetting the bed... and we never spoke of it again. I tried not to make a big deal out of it.. I didn't want him to feel there was something wrong with him...

In our case, waiting it out is what worked... it meant a lot of changing of the sheets.. but he is now 10... well adjusted and doing great..

I am no expert, but maybe your daughter just needs a little more time...

Good luck in whatever you decide to do..

No alarm needed. Dump the pull ups. Get several mattress pads (at least 3). Get extra changes of sheets for her bed and extra pajamas.

Have the doctor check her out to rule out and medical causes for her bed wetting. Continue to limit fluid intake. Make certain she goes to the bathroom one last time before she goes to bed.

If she wets the bed help her change the sheets and get cleaned up.

I was a bed wetter from 9-13ish. I will PM you my story.