Potty Alarm?

I completely agree with Gamma G. My daughter wet the bed, less and less frequently, until she was 9. Some kids do until they are 12. We did not use an alarm, we did not limit fluids, we did NOT punish or shame the child. I just did the laundry until she grew out of the problem.

I am assuming you mean one that works under the child while they sleep.

Here's what a child is supposed to do when they go to sleep.

Their body is supposed to send out a chemical signal to their brain to send a message to their kidneys to stop producing urine, this way the child sleeps all night and doesn't have any accidents.

When they are still having accidents during the night there is nothing that will change that except time.

Having an alarm under them that wakes them up after they wet only wakes everyone up, makes at least double and often triple your work load with extra laundry. Kiddo's are going to keep peeing during the night time until their body is ready to stay dry.

One night they pee and then the next night they wake up dry. They might have an occasional accident but for the most part they'll stay dry.

Fighting this over and over and over doesn't help you. It doesn't make any difference to kiddo, it only makes you more tired from being up several times per night and you'll be tired of more and more work.

Please just get some pullups and let kiddo sleep and you get your sleep too.

He's going to be ready someday and until then it's just easier to work with the stage his body is at.

Limiting fluids can also be detrimental to staying dry too. If he's getting dehydrated at all he's going to retain water during the day and when he relaxes and falls asleep it's all going to come out. So let him drink.

I wouldn't bother with alarms. Kids learn in due time. You just have to make the best of things and have patience. Besides what is the point of an alarm if it goes off AFTER they pee??? Just a thought.

No, I wouldn't do an alarm.
Don't wake him from sleep.
It's a biological developmental stage.
He will eventually stop peeing in his sleep as he ages.
Just have him pee right before he goes to bed.
Have him drink a little less before bed. Don't limit him to no liquids, just
cut back a little.
Layer his bed like this: a fitted sheet protector over the mattress, fitted sheet, towel, fitted sheet. That way if he pees the bed in his sleep & wakes up, all you have to do is change him & peel away the wet layers
leaving (hopefully) the dry layers.

Ugh - no, I wouldn't bother! They only go off when the child is already wet, so what good to they do? What we wound up with was a wet child often awakened from a sound sleep, and then there's the mad panic of the parents trying to rip off the pajamas to unplug the alarm!

We found, through reading and talking to our pediatrician and a pediatric urologist, that you can't "teach" a child to wake up to pee. It is a totally developmental stage, and different kids reach it at different times. The brain has to get the signal that says "Full Bladder" and the alarm does nothing to facilitate that. All you wind up with is an even more exhausted and cranky child. The alarm is actually punitive because it says "If you have not developed naturally, we're going to scare the hell out of you in the middle of the night." It's just as unnatural as yelling at a child who doesn't walk at 9 months but only at 14, or doesn't talk at 12 months but only at 16.

In fact, waking them up in the middle of the night to go pee doesn't do anything either, except to disrupt their sleep cycles and create exhaustion.

What worked for us was keeping him in a diaper or pull up (and they have so many more options now, including larger sizes and extra pads), then putting a waterproof pad on top of the fitted sheet and then a 2nd fitted sheet. If he got wet, we stripped off the wet pajamas and pull up/diaper, doing a quick wipe, and stripping the first sheet and pad. Then he had a clean, dry sheet to go to sleep on.

When he was old enough to go to sleepovers, we revisited the issue with the urologist, and opted for a simple nighttime medication that completely stopped the bedwetting. The urologist explained that he has many patients, usually boys, who just don't get over the nocturnal enuresis (the official term for nighttime bedwetting) until 7 or 10 or even 18. Our son stayed on the meds until around 10, went off, but the problem came back. So he went back on them until 12, then did fine.

I don't LOVE medication when other things work, but this was affecting his life and social relationships - he couldn't have or attend sleepovers, couldn't go to overnight camp, and so on. So we sent him to a friend's house with one little pill in a plain container, and alerted the other parents that he needed to be reminded before bed. The other kids just thought it was an allergy pill and no one knew the difference.

I'm not saying you have to go that route, and you don't say how old the child is. If they are under 6, I'd keep the child in an appropriate absorbent garment, be sure the child understands that it's NOT something he/she can do anything about, and make sure there is no shaming or ribbing from anyone else in the family. It is purely a growth issue and it's more important to highlight all the things the child is already doing "on schedule" - it's also a great tool for educating kids that their friends are doing things in a different order as well, so never to make fun of someone who hasn't grown yet or can't ride a bike yet or still speaks like a little kid or anything else.

We used one, it ABSOLUTELY worked - and was recommended by our pedi urologist. Son was 9, hated wetting the bed, and wanted to try. That is key, child has to be old enough (over 8) and really want it to work. Without that, and true commitment from the parents, it won't work. I slept with DS for over 6 weeks. The first 3 weeks I was the one who woke to the alarm and got him up (although he got to restroom by himself and changed his own clothes). Weeks 4-6 was a mix, sometimes he woke up, sometimes I shoved him out of bed. He backslid a bit when I went back to my bed, but was dry full time by 8-10 weeks. It takes commitment and consistency, but they can be effective - just keep in mind they are a LOT of work for a couple months.

ETA: he rarely woke up soaked once we started the alarm, it sensed the smallest amount of wetness so he was up before he was really wet. After about a week I didn't even have to change the sheets unless he'd been lying on his stomach when it went off; clean undies were all that was required.

After your SWH: don't waste your time and money right now, you'll just end up with a tired, cranky household. We tried once when DS was 8, he wasn't ready, epic failure. It didn't work till he wanted it to work. For us, summer camp and camping with friends were the catalyst. He'll get there eventually, just be supportive till he is.