Bed Wetting Tools

Sometimes a few simple tools will help your child stop wetting the bed. We take a closer look at some bed wetting tools.

Bed wetting can be stopped through behavioral methods of treatment or using medical methods of treatment. Behavioral methods can range from bedtime routines, reward systems, limiting of fluids to enuresis alarms.

Medication can also be prescribed for bedwetting. This is usually used as a last resort, as most children do outgrow bedwetting.

Although medications do help, after use of them is stopped, the bedwetting may resume. Behavior methods therefore, while they can take longer, tend to have their effects remain.

There are many behavioral treatments which you can try to help your child control bed wetting. While medication may show faster results, behavior methods are more effective and have no side effects. Be patient, as behavior methods do take longer than medication.

Night Waking – Use your alarm, and wake your child in the night
Alarms – Moisture and PC alarms can help
Retention Control – This method works by strengthening the muscles that prevent urination in your child’s bladder. Check with your doctor before trying this: Ask your child to control urination during the day, first by 30 seconds and then by gradually increasing. This is probably best done over the toilet.
Hypnosis – Hypnosis can be a very effective form of helping your child to overcome bedwetting. By repeated hearings of a hypnosis or subliminal message tape, your child’s brain is retrained so that your child responds to the message from the bladder that it is full in the same way the child responds when they are awake.

Bed Wetting Alarms

Enuresis alarms

If your child is a deep sleeper, and simply sleeps through his or her body’s cues that they need to go to the washroom, an alarm may help them to train their bodies to wake up in response to the cues. Alarms are one of the main treatment methods for enuresis. You can buy special alarms for bedwetting on the internet, or at parenting stores. You may wish to ask advice of your pediatrician or, if your child has one, your child’s therapist. These alarms should only be used for children over the age of 6, as it is not necessary for children under the age of 6. They are appropriate for children who wet the bed because they are deep sleepers, and thus might not work as well for children who wet the bed due to stressful situations, as they will disrupt the child’s sleep patterns even more. There are two types of alarms:
•    Moisture based alarms are available. These attach to the pyjamas and an alarm goes off if any moisture is detected. This alarm is expected to train the child to wake up when they need to go to the bathroom, in the same way that some adults wake up a few seconds before their alarm goes off. This method requires the entire family to be working together, as the alarm may wake everyone up.
•    PC based alarms. These alarms run through a computer, playing soothing music during the night, and setting off an alarm at a time which you program that the child is expected to need to go to the toilet. This is expected to train the child to wake themselves up at regular intervals to go to the washroom, and help them sleep well the rest of the time.

These alarms need to be used for several weeks or months in order to be effective. They will also only work if your child actually wants them to work, which is another reason that they should only be used on 6 – 8 year olds.

You as the alarm

A method which you may wish to use with your toddler, and which some people have had success with, is to determine (through trial and error) at about what time the bed wetting occurs, and set your own alarm for that time. You then wake yourself and your toddler up, and walk your toddler to the toilet or potty. Some doctors have said this method may not work, as the toddler will still be mostly asleep and not really realizing what they are doing, but some parents have had success with this. It can also make life easier for your toddler if they are embarrassed about wetting the bed, as it will decrease the number of accidents until they grow out of wetting the bed.

We Recommend

Stop Bedwetting Forever   
101 Tips to help your child stop wetting the bed at night. Danielle has put together an ebook that's packed full of easy to use and hand-on advice you can start implementing right away. If you have a child that wets the bed, this is a must-read.