Bedwetting alarm

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My daughter is 6.5 and not reliably dry at night (about 50/50 since taking nappies away in September). Spoke to doctor yesterday who said we need to try a Bedwetting alarm for 4 weeks before she can do a referral for further investigation. We need to buy this, none available for hire or loan or anything.

they seem to vary in price HUGELY - the ones on the ERIC website start at about £60 (unless it’s just a sensor that connects to a phone - obviously no good for a 6 year old who doesn’t have a phone!) and go up to £150 🫣 Yet there are some available on Amazon for less than £20…I’m inclined to think the ERIC website should be trusted but money is tight at the moment and I don’t really have a spare £60 if I can get away with spending £20. But then will the £20 be crap??

Also I can’t get my head round the safety of wires in bed with my wriggly child? Wireless ones obviously are more expensive.

Any advice on cheaper ones very much appreciated!

other thing is my child is very scared by loud noises (I suspect she may have ASD). I think she is going to find being woken up by an alarm very upsetting. I see you can get vibrate only ones but I suspect she’d sleep through that…anyone else had a child who was scared of loud noises not be traumatised by a befwetting alarm?

I had one as a child and was traumatised. I refused them for my son. 6.5 is very young to be looking at interventions. As far as I know there is no teal treatment
other than time and possibly desmopressin.

No just use pull ups at bed encourage getting up to go for at least another few months. It takes time. Also are they definitely wetting in the middle of the night. We discovered mostly ds was being lazy first thing.

If you do get one it's best to have a parent sleep in her room with her so you can make sure she wakes up quickly (and isn't scared, although mine wasn't scared - too deep a sleeper) so that connection is made.

An alarm totally sorted it for my child but I suspect we are in the minority - and as a pp said DC was sometimes weeing before even going to sleep, just didn't occur to get up to the loo, or didn't want to.

We just got a cheap one off Amazon but ds slept through it. Instead it woke me from the other room and then I had to go and try and wake him. Desmopressin didn't fully fix things either as it only worked for about 5 hrs on him by the time they prescribed it because he is massive and they are only licenced to give a certain dose to kids. In the end he was given drugs to relax his bladder, the one which worked the best and had the least side effects was solafinecin. Continued with that until 14 when his body finally sorted itself out.

Both my children had to use a bedwetting alarm before they reliably dry at night OP. They are extremely loud and disorientating for the child, but they did work well for us in the end. We bought them from the ERIC website.

DD1 was referred to the clinic but we had to wait until she was about 8 I think. That was a while ago and I think it's good that they are happy to refer earlier.

However, nothing she did worked.

Liquid in/out charts.
No dark/acidic/caffeinated/milk drinks in the evening.
No drinks at all from 2 hours before bedtime.

Bed wetting alarms (hideously loud! Woke the whole household but did NOT wake her).

Desmopressin.

We were told really it was a case of waiting for her bladder to mature and that the necessary hormones would kick in.

She was dry at 13 finally, which was very difficult for her considering her younger sister was dry at night the instant she was dry in the day and would innocently question why her sister was in pull ups at night.

We went to our doctor about our child and they told us its all done through the school nurses now. We had an appointment with the school nurse and had to try some strategies before they gave us an alarm. These didn't work so we had to wait for an alarm but it wasnt long. Could you make an appointment with the school nurse to see if you can get an alarm through them?

After using the alarm briefly, our son was dry within about 1-2 months, though we only used the alarm for about 10 days so I am unsure if it worked or it was just coincidence but either way he is now dry.

Agree. A £20 one off Amazon works fine. But you MUST sleep in the room with the child as it will wake you first and not them for the first few nights, more likely 1-2 weeks. But it’s very effective.

Obviously, it will be hugely scary and disorienting if you aren’t in the room with them and then it would take time for you to wake up and get to their room. So be in the room on a spare bed with easy access to them. You need to be there so as soon as the alarm sounds, you are there. They’ll be in such a sound sleep you cannot expect a child to wake up and know what to do. You need to wake them and take them to the loo even if they are fully wet. Eventually they will wake up at the sound of the alarm and then they eventually they will be dry and the alarm won’t sound.

See I was going with ‘she’s young, time will fix it’ but then I read on the ERIC website that anyone not dry at night over 5 should be investigated. And the doctor didn’t question investigating it either.

Sleeping in her room is going to be hard. The only spare mattress we have is a double and it just doesn’t fit on the floor. I’m not actually sure a single will fit even as it was the length that was the issue.

It’s definitely happening in the night and I think at a specific time - she’s always dry when I go to bed normally but whenever I’ve checked on her after I’ve been out in the evening and it’s a bit later (say midnight) she’s wet.

I had one as a child and was traumatised too. Scared of actually going to bed. They are cruel and cause anxiety.

Honestly just put her in pull ups, there is a reason valuable supermarket shelf space is given over to pull ups for older children.

We had the exact same experience as @DrMadelineMaxwell monitoring input/output, drinks and the alarm just meant he woke up completely in distress and it woke all of us up. He wasn't able to turn the alarm off himself as he was half dead with sleep so just sat up in bed with the alarm blaring out his heart racing.

Desmopressin worked but I was not going to medicate my child every day. He was reliably dry at 10. His younger brother was dry at night before 3. I just made sure the bed was protected with waterproof bedding and had spares ready to go with a duvet on if he leaked through the pull up.

I think they are super disruptive! Agree with PP lots of pull ups go to an 8/9 now and Drynites go even bigger!

They are supposed to be "disruptive" - that's how they work, by forming a connection between the weeing feeling and waking up.
I wouldn't stress too much at 6 though.

If you can't commit to being right there and leaping into action when it goes off (sorry, that isn't meant to sound snarky - if you don't have the space you dont have it) then it won't be that effective anyway. I think we did it for two weeks but that sorted it completely.