J.W.
J.,
This is a very sensitive issue for me. I was a bedwetter until 18! YES! I said 18. My aunt and uncle tried the alarm with me, but it just did not work for me. I am not saying they do not work for many children, because they do. My experience was that the noise was so loud that it scared me and I became paralized with fear. All I could do was sit there and finish peeing. My aunt and uncle were furious. It had worked on my cousin, so now I was spanked every time I woke up wet. They did not understand that I was not doing it on purpose. After puberty, which was late (16 years old) I gradually stopped wetting the bed. When I came home to my day and step-mom, I was put in charge at age 7 to do my own sheets and pajamas when I was wet, and we watched my fluids too. It took a LONG time, but I don't feel that there was any other option at that time. There is a medication out there called DDAVP that helps those children who don't make the hormone to slow urine production during the night. This works on 75% of bedwetters.
I am now the mother of two children a boy (9 years old) who is still an every other night bedwetter, and a girl (6 years old) who once potty trained has never wet the bed unless we were up really late with lots to drink right before bed.
I have tried the DDAVP with my son and it did not work, in fact it made it worse. But it does work on MANY children. The only option doctors have given me for him now is wait it out or an alarm. Since I have had such a horrible traumatic experience with the alarm, I cannot bring myself to even try it on him.
I am sorry I don't have any real advice for you, but I do want you to know that most pediatricians do not consider bedwetting a problem until age 8 and most urologists (my son has seen one as well) do not cosider bedwetting a problem until puberty has passed! Also know that I feel your pain. I wash sheets almost every day, go through Febreeze like it is candy, and pray daily that this would soon come to an end as my son is getting older and becoming embarrassed by the fact that he is a bedwetter.
Good luck to you with whatever you decide.
J.