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My son had a small bladder.
In kindergarten we included a bag of clothes.
We got used to waking him up at 11 PM and sleep walked him to the bathroom. It wasn't a big deal. The doctor said he'd outgrow the problem and he did. You could limit fluids after 5 PM.
OP....don't worry!
Up until a few months ago my son who turned 11 in May, wet his bed 5 times/week. He too slept very hard. Nothing would wake him. Even when we woke him up to pee he peed in bed. Very exhausting. His doctor thought he would grow out of it and wanted us to wait.
Well, all of a sudden it stopped, 6 months ago. It just stopped on its own. He sometimes wake up on his own to pee. Just hang in there and don't spend too much money on alarms.
This describes what happened with my son. He was 12, I believe. Our ped said that almost every bedwetter outgrows it when puberty begins.
This describes what happened with my son. He was 12, I believe. Our ped said that almost every bedwetter outgrows it when puberty begins.
That's what I've been told, too. Using the alarm definitely has improved things; it just hasn't gotten us to the point that he's completely dry and doesn't need it. We've gotten to the point where about half the nights in a week, we don't use the alarm and he wakes up dry. We use the alarm on nights when he's had a very active day and I know he's going to sleep too heavily. The alarm goes off when he starts to wet, so we haven't had more than a wet spot on the alarm underwear in about three weeks now.
On a puberty note, my almost-13 year old daughter has been having growth spurts and is taller than her 11 year old brother for the first time since they were babies. He's NOT happy about it, lol. She's gone from being the second smallest kid in her grade to being average height. (He's in the 92nd percentile for height.) Crazy how much puberty can change things. With him, we're dealing with Sever's disease now: issues with the growth plate on his heels and the Achilles tendon due to him going from a men's size 7 to a men's size 9 in two months. He's had growing pains off and on during his entire life, so puberty for him should be interesting, to say the least.
For those who didn't see my previous thread, my just-turned-11 year old (and his younger brother) both have primary nocturnal enuresis. That means that they have never, aside from a small handful of times, stayed dry at night when they sleep. We took them to the pediatrician, and medical complications were ruled out. The issue for my older boy is two-fold. His body doesn't produce enough of the anti-diuretic hormone that tells the body to produce less urine at night, and he sleeps like the dead. Seriously. With Boy Scout camp happening this summer, we turned to an alarm system to try and 'train' him. This thread is to give you the low-down on which alarms worked, which didn't, and how we're doing.
We started off about four months ago with the Wet Stop alarm. Pros for this one are as follows. The alarm is loud. Not loud enough to wake my kid, but it's the highest level of decibels allowed for a night time alarm. It also has a vibrate function which, in conjunction with the audio alarm, was enough to wake him most nights (initially). The sensor is extremely sensitive to moisture and will pick up even a tiny drop. And lastly, you can choose sound only, vibration only, or both. Now for the drawbacks, which led us to give up on this alarm. The sensor is tiny - about 1/2" X 1/2" - so if it wasn't in exactly the right spot, he would be quite wet before the alarm went off. The sensor connects to the alarm box with a cord that you run under your kid's pjs, then the box clips to the neckline of the shirt. This wasn't too big an issue for us, but I can see it being uncomfortable for some. The other big problem was that he became accustomed to both the beeping and the vibration, and started to sleep through the alarm. Crazy, since it was loud enough to wake me in the next room, but that's how soundly he sleeps. We had six dry nights during the two and a half months we used this alarm. Disappointing, even with the caveat that alarms can take up to six months to work, and sometimes aren't effective at all.
Next we moved to the Chummy alarm. He hated this one from the beginning because it has a face on the alarm box and comes with cartoons to color and stickers. Too babyish. However, I it advertised having eight different sounds and a larger sensor - I thought it would work well for us. Nope. The sensor, while bigger, is not as sensitive. Worst of all, it has no clip to attach it to the underwear. Instead, there is an adhesive strip. A completely useless adhesive strip, which only kept the sensor in place one of the (only) three nights we used the alarm. The other problem with this was the advertised 'different sounds'. It's all the same tone, but the pattern of beeps varies. Really, how well is a kid who doesn't wake up supposed to differentiate between beep -- beep -- beep, and beep, beep -- beep? Our unit also malfunctioned one night, and only beeped a single time before shutting off for an entire minute before resuming. Oh, the Wet Stop can be purchased for about $35; the Chummy was $85.
In desperation, and after more searching than I've ever done online before, we found the Roger alarm. This system works a bit differently than the others. The 'sensor' is a section of wire built into a pair of regular boy's briefs. (Two briefs are included, and panties are available for girls.) The wires lead to two snaps, where you attach a transmitter. I was worried the wires would be uncomfortable, but they're not at all (at least according to my son). The alarm is separate, and receives a wireless signal from the transmitter. This was another worry - that it would fail to transmit - but it's been working perfectly. The alarm does have truly different sounds, so if your child gets too used to one, you can change it to something completely different. We had a few laughs with this feature, as one sounds like a fire engine alarm, and one sounds like the Star Trek alarm, lol. I'd have to check, but there are at least six, if not eight, different sounds. Because the wires are stitched throughout the front of the briefs, they pick up the first drops of urine, no matter where it occurs. The alarm comes with an optional "bed shaker", which the instructions say to put between the box spring and mattress. Yeah, sure. Ours is under the pillow. One of the best things about this is that my son can't turn it off without getting out of bed, since it has to be turned off at the alarm, not at a box clipped to his pjs. It does come with a chart to track progress. It's bit childish, but is very good for keeping track. There are four boxes to choose from for each night - two blue and two yellow. The bottom blue means the child has slept through the alarm and the bedding is wet. The top blue means the child woke up, but the bedding was still wet. The bottom yellow shows that the alarm woke the child before the bedding got wet, and the top yellow box is for when the child sleeps through the night without the alarm going off. So far, we've been using it for 17 days. We had one top blue (awake, but wet bedding) the first week, and a dry night (top yellow box) on the last day of that week. The second week, we had one more top blue, but two non-consecutive nights of sleeping dry. The first three days of this week, we've had two consecutive nights dry. My son came out of his room yesterday morning with a smile on his face. Here's hoping for one more tonight. This system wasn't cheap, at $165 with the "shaker" and an extra pair of briefs, but if this works it will have been more than worth the money.
I'll update the post in a couple days with any new progress (or not). Hopefully this very long post is of use to others. Even with all my searching, it was nearly impossible to find a comprehensive and unbiased list of alarms, with detailed information about pros and cons, length of time used, and specific successes or failures. It was also hard to find good, personal accounts of Desmopressin use (the synthetic hormone to reduce urine output at night). Given my family's history of VonWillebrand's (bleeding), and the potential - if infrequent - side effects, we're not going to go that route. I would still be interested in hearing from anyone who has actually used it, though.
OP, You asked for personal accounts of use of the synthetic hormone and I have one. My son was wetting the bed 6 out of 7 nights still in 4th grade. He also had daytime "leakage." The urologist prescribed the hormone and my son never wet the bed again. It was like a godsend. No more fears of sleepovers. No more wet sheets and, most of all, no more embarrassment (I was a bed-wetter and I remember). I let him decide when to quit taking it. I can't remember how long he did (he's 28 now and my memory just isn't what it used to be). I don't remember any side effects for it.
Please consider it...it sounds like y'all are going through so much stress and, unintentionally, putting your son through so much stress.
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