Bed wetting alarm/pants recommendations please?

[Nix01]

Morning all,

My lovely little 5 yo DS has been struggling for ages with dryness at night.

We've tried reward charts, positive reinforcement, reduced evening liquids, weeing before bed etc.

He has been dry for about 10 consecutive nights but last night wet his bed. He's very upset about it.

I've researched bed wetting sensor alarms and pants but the last thread I found for recommendations was dated 2012. As technology is moving so quickly, I was hoping for updated recommendations from real mums before I make the big purchase.

Thanks for reading x

[CatWithKittens]

We bought - and used with success for 3 children - the Dri Sleeper Eclipse wireless alarm which has the great advantage of lacking cables to get tangled up or worse when a child is asleep and, if your child sleeps heavily and a little way away from your room allows for a second receiver near to you. It is expensive but we found it worked well, was easily washed and could be set off by a very little wetting. We put it beneath a nappy liner in the crucial area of our children's nappy at first then went onto trainer pants and finally just ordinary underpants or knickers. Worth a look anyway. HTH

[Nix01]

Thank you, I'll investigate that option.

Has anyone tried the Wet Stop 3?

[AugustRose]

We have a Wetstop 3 and it works well as long as you make sure it is clipped on correctly. We got ours because DD had never had a dry night by the age of 7.4.

I'm not an expert but we were recommended not to use an alarm until 6/7 as the child has to be able to understand and use it themselves. Also, I don't know if it will work if your DS regularly has long dry periods and then a wet night as it sounds like he already has the ability to hold it.

I know that's not helpful when he is upset but it's not uncommon for 5 year olds to have occasional wet nights. The Eric website has some useful information but it sounds as if you are already doing what they suggest.

[Nix01]

Thank you August.

I think half the issue is that he only wets the bed on the nights he sleeps through. He doesn't wake up to go.

On dry nights he'd have awoken for something else so will go to the loo as he's already awake.

[Jasonandyawegunorts]

In that case set an alarm to wake him at midnight, so he can wee.

[AugustRose]

It can be difficult to explain sometimes and we have been using the alarm now for almost a year but finally seemed to have cracked it, DD doesn't use it now but is manager to get up either before she wees or just as she starts so is only a little bit wet on her underwear.

I remind her that if she wakes up in the night or starts to toss and turn it is most likely her body telling her that she needs the toilet so she needs to go before falling back into a deep sleep. But she is 8 so maybe able to grasp that a little better. She also tends to wee about 3 hours after she falls asleep and the alarm was helpful in working that out so that could help you if you can work out when he wees.

[odyssey2001]

5 seems very young. If he isn't ready, he isn't ready. Maybe his body isn't consistently producing vasopressin yet. An alarm won't make his body produce a hormone.

I know he is upset but he is 5. Help him understand it is okay if he wets the bed. Also, restricting fluids and extra wees aren't the answer either.

Sorry if that sounds abrupt but I wanted to present an alternate stance.

[CatWithKittens]

I was replying to the request for advice about alarms but perhaps ought to have said that we used the alarm with older children too than OP's son - when they were obviously getting very self conscious about being wet (younger sibling out of nappies) and wanting to stay away overnight. At OP's son's age we simply encouraged them to understand that their bodies weren't quite ready to be dry at night. As I've said on here before a paediatrician friend pointed us to some research which said that a child who is still wet at night sleeps better in a nappy than not and he also very strongly discouraged lifting or potting as simply reinforcing wetting while half asleep and doing absolutely nothing to make a child drier, even if it saved a bit of washing: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3022939/