Bed wetting alarms

[Whatafustercluck]

8yo ds has never been dry at night and is still in night time pants. He's a heavy sleeper and has a history of drinking very little during the day. We've tried going cold turkey without pants, we've tried encouraging him to drink more during the day, we've tried lifting him, we've tried desmopressin (both low and high doses).

The gp won't refer him for tests until we've tried a bed wetting alarm, but didn't really give any advice on which one we might try. I know that some (the cheaper ones) are worn on PJs, whereas others include a mat to lie on.

Beyond that, I have no idea about recommendations and which one is better for children in particular, and heavy sleepers, how comfortable the body worn ones are, whether we might need additional pads etc for the mat variety etc.

If anyone has any advice or recommendations I'd be really grateful. In the meantime we're back to monitoring what he drinks and how often he uses the toilet. Thank you.

We used the one thst clips to pjs, but we were lent it by the school nursing service. It worked very well.

We’ve used one for DSS. Worked pretty well though it was given by the incontinence nurse rather than through the GP. It clipped to his pants, as we found if he was wearing baggy pyjamas then the alarm wouldn’t necessarily get wet. It did the job, however I think we stopped using it too soon as he is back to being wet most nights now.

I’ll check the brand for you when I get home.

Thank you. We've been told we have to purchase one, so no idea how we'd even get access to one any other way. We're not skint but £100+ for a lie-on one is a big outgoing. Obviously we'd do it if those kinds were more highly recommended, but wonder why we weren't offered more support/ advice.

My daughter was the same, heavy sleeper and wet every morning. We had to wait until she was seven before the doctor would refer her to the clinic which we attended for a couple of months. They provided lots of information which mainly consisted of drinking plenty of water during the day to try and increase the bladder size and for her body to get use to holding lots of liquid. It took months before she was mainly dry at night and its only now that shes ten that she's finally dry every night . Other tips were no dark liquids like hot chocolate, blackcurrant drinks etc in the evening as this increased the chances of accidents happening. This is a good site for information www.eric.org.uk/. You may want to see if another doctor will refer him

Do you have an enurisis clinic, you might be able to self refer through childrens health. Our GP was rubbish about bedwetting.

Please confirm he is still using desmopressin though. My DS needed to use it until he was 15. If the body is not producing the hormone nothing will work except that.

even then we had to go to quite a high dose and had various attempts at reducing/stopping to see where we were and had to keep going back on until as I said above he was 15.

He is past the age where a GP should be referring to the enuresis clinic. I would see another GP and insist on a referral.

I had this with DS....

I bought a bedwetting alarm that clipped to his pants from amazon for about £30.. within two (very tired) weeks he was dry and has been since. The main thing with them is if the alarm goes off you have to FULLY wake them up (my DS slept through to begin with), within about 4/5 days he was waking after just a dribble - it really did work well for my heavy sleeper

MrDarcy, how old was your ds when you did this?

I think about 6? It was at his request because it was upsetting him.

He's now 9

The rodger alarm is I think the best one, www.amazon.co.uk/Rodger-wireless-bedwetting-enuresis-system/dp/B01BGXJNUM?tag=mumsnetforum-21

I wouldn't hold out hope though, DS1 resolved with just the alarm, With DS2 we tried alarm (multiple attempts), "cold turkey" (DS2's idea btw!), now we are on to drinking 1.5 litres of water a day and desmospressin, but if he forgets then he just wets the bed.

So that long essay was to say, basically, you just need to box tick to move on to the next stage "try" the alarm. but be aware that it's unlikely to work if desmopressin doesn't.

And at the end of the day at his age there are still many boys who are not dry at night at that age, night pants are fine...

Thanks all. A few things for us to try (even if to tick the right boxes).

Ds isn't too bothered by it (thankfully, as we haven't made a big fuss), but he's getting to the age when he'll be offered residential trips at school and he's left us under no illusions that if he's still in pull ups by the time the residentials come around he won't be going (nothing we've said to reassure him has changed his mind on that).

If we don't do something soon he'll miss opportunities and I don't want to let that happen. Waiting for the ADH to kick in (as advised) hasn't worked, but we can't keep waiting purely on the off chance his body will start to produce more of it.

He's not on desmopressin any more as it didn't work for him (slightly less wee, but not a single dry night so gp discontinued use after upping the dosage didn't work). Will invest in sheets and a mattress protector too.