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This is a common question this time of year. I am re-posting some suggestions that I wrote last year about this time. Parents wonder what to do??

First, if your child is currently using an alarm, we would not expect him or her to take it to camp with them. They can interrupt usage and restart when they come home.

Secondly, a back up plan should be in place, even for kids who wet intermittently. There are a few choices:

• Wear disposable pants, with a plan for putting them on discreetly and disposal in the morning. Disposables come in all sizes, even small through extra large adult sizes. If your child has outgrown traditional children’s pull-ups, there are still many options. Disposable male guards or women’s incontinence pads can be secured to regular underwear to catch a small amount of urine. Disposable underpads that lie on a sheet or in a sleeping bag have tape strips to hold them in place.

• Use washable bedtime pants to preserve dignity. These can be a nice back-up for kids who are dry most nights but want to make sure there is no leakage onto bedding.

• Waterproof sleeping bag liners fit into a regular sleeping bag. They provide a comfortable, waterproof surface for sleeping without raising questions from other campers.

• Mattress overlays can be used on top of a sheet or used inside a sleeping bag. The overlays can be discreetly pulled into place when your child is ready to go to sleep. The new blue cloud overlays are colorful and look like a regular piece of bedding.

• Make arrangements with the camp counselor to have toileting twice before bedtime and to continue a lifting routine if this is used successfully at home. (Lifting is when a caregiver walks the child to the bathroom at a designated time.)

• Medication, such as desmopressin, can be used temporarily to decrease the amount of urine produced that night. The correct dosage should be determined a week or two before camp begins. Only a small amount of liquid (2-4 ounces) should be ingested once this medication is used. It is best dosed shortly before actually going to sleep.

Lastly, make sure that your child knows that they are not alone and most camps are very helpful in discreetly handling any wetting episodes. Fluid of choice after dinner is water. Double voiding before going to sleep is helpful. Staying well hydrated during the day is helpful so the kids are not so thirsty later in the day.

This pad could be used for any situation that required a little waterproof protection. Providing a play pad for baby, a cover for the furniture or the seat in the car are a few ideas that come to my mind.

I am frequently asked this question, especially by parents who have more than one child in Good nites or other disposable underwear. Keeping children dry and sheets clean can be frustrating for parents so using disposable pull ups and plastic pants can certainly help with this. Until a child and their family are ready to move to the next step, this can be a huge time saver. Wearing Good Nites and other waterproof protection is certainly important in situations where laundry facilities are not handy or sleepover/ camp situations where being discreet is of utmost importance. It’s a great advantage to have these products available.

If you begin to notice that your child is waking up with a dry pull-up more often, trying a challenge of a couple of weeks without protection is recommended. During this time, using a mattress overlay, which is a waterproof pad that lies on top of the sheet, is prudent. Overlays are a fabulous product for decreasing laundry load and keeping children comfortable. If wetting occurs, you simply remove the overlay, replace it with a clean one, and have your child go back to a dry bed.

When your family is ready to take the next step toward dryness, a great time to transition to cloth underwear is when you begin using a bedwetting alarm. The bedwetting alarm senses the moisture from the underwear, alerting parents and child that wetting is occurring. A bedwetting alarm is an effective tool to help your child’s body make a change in the way it responds to a full bladder. If your son persists in having nightly wetting with the pull ups over the next few months or year, he is a great candidate for using a bedwetting alarm to help him get to dryness.

PLM, first of all, reassure your son that there are still effective options available. Because children and teens with bedwetting usually sleep very soundly through the bedwetting episode, it usually takes more than a discreet vibration to alert them that wetting is taking place. Parental assistance is important, even at this age. Pager alarms, which vibrate only, do not allow the parents to be alerted to provide the necessary assistance. The only way for a parent to know that the wetting is occurring is for them to hear a sound. Once you hear the sound, go to your son’s room and remind him what he should do next. Remind your son that he needs to get up and walk to the bathroom, especially if you notice he is trying to roll over and go back to sleep. Be persistent. Over time, his brain will make the association that he needs to respond to this sound and get up to go to the bathroom. He will become more independent and stop the flow of urine more quickly as time goes on. The average time it takes to get to dryness is 10-12 weeks so make sure he has realistic goals. Committing to using the alarm for this long is important to his success but the results are well worth the effort that it takes initially. I have personally seen hundreds of hopeless teens get to dryness using a bedwetting alarm that works well for them.

My alarm pick for this age group is the Rodger wireless, which sounds from a unit plugged into the wall. The user has to get out of bed and walk over to the wall to turn it off once it has sensed the moisture. Once he or she is out of bed, they should just head into the bathroom. The Malem wireless is another option. The receiver can be placed anywhere in the room since it is battery powered. It isn’t quite as loud as the Rodger alarm, however. The Selectable Malem Ultimate is a third option. This alarm provides sound and vibration both and allows the user to choose the ring tone that alerts them best.

A fitted or zippered premium mattress cover for your own bed is a good choice. I have these on my own bed and pillow and forget that they’re even there. These waterproof mattress and pillow covers are lightweight, have a terry cloth top and can be laundered in the same load as the sheets. They dry quickly and are easy to put on the bed. The breathable premium covers cost more than the vinyl waterproof mattress covers, but they last longer and have a 10 year warranty.

Many moms and dads talk to me about the frustration that they sometimes feel when faced with their child’s bedwetting. It’s hard for families who have not experienced ongoing bedwetting issues to be empathetic and it’s hard to take health care provider’s advice “don’t worry; he’ll grow out of it”. Learning about techniques like using bedwetting alarms to help your child learn a new behavior speeds up the resolution of bedwetting.

Let me know what you have “learned” along the way to solving your child’s bedwetting so I can learn from you and share with others. Thanks!

When you set an alarm clock, you are picking an arbitrary time to alert your son. His body doesn’t necessarily work on this schedule. Some nights he may not need to urinate at all, some nights it might be midnight and sometimes it may be 3:30. There is no way for you to predict precisely when his bladder needs to empty.

A bedwetting alarm, which senses moisture, is able to pinpoint when the wetting is occurring. It will alert your son exactly when his bladder needs to empty. Behavioral conditioning works to help him learn to wake up to the sound that occurs when the wetting happens. Over time, his body will be able to make the connection that a full bladder means get up and go to the bathroom.

Parents often ask, “Isn’t it too late to be alerted if the urine is already coming out?” In the beginning, the bladder may completely empty before the child or parent can respond. Over the first few weeks, however, the usual response is that the urine flow stops at the sound of the alarm. Instead of a large wet spot on the bed, the spot is reduced to a quarter sized spot on the underwear. Urine remains in the bladder and can be emptied in the toilet. Ultimately, the brain alerts the child to wake up before urination happens.

I see many children with bedwetting who are 13 years or older. Many describe feelings of hopelessness or frustration with not knowing what to do to end this quickly. 97% of children and teens with primary nocturnal enuresis (bedwetting that has always been there) have no urologic abnormalities. Since there is often not an easily identifiable cause, families do not know where to turn and have mostly tried measures such as limiting fluids, reward or punishment, setting alarm clocks, or waking when the parents go to bed. These measures will sometimes enable the teen to have a dry night, but do little to insure permanent dryness.

The good news is that bedwetting alarms work as effectively in teens as they do in younger children. It usually takes teens a little longer to get to complete dryness, but a few extra weeks to change a behavior that has been going on for years is quite tolerable. I’ve found that the key to success for teens and older children is to use an alarm that is easy to use and acceptable to them.

The wireless alarms (such as the Rodger and Malem Wireless) are my recommendations for teens for a couple of reasons. One, wearable alarms require that the user wear a shirt so that the alarm unit can be attached. Many teen boys sleep without a shirt so that could be a roadblock to consistent use. Two, many tech savvy teens quickly disconnect the sensor from the wearable alarm unit and roll over and go back to sleep. They rarely remember this is the morning and wonder why their alarm is disconnected but their bed is wet and they don’t remember getting up. A positive feature about the wireless alarms is that the teen must get out of bed to turn off the alarm. Since the receiver is located in an outlet or on a dresser, it will continue to sound from that location until it is turned off.

A third reason why wireless alarms are recommended is that there are few steps to attach them. The Rodger alarm comes with two pair of specialized briefs. (More can be purchased). The teen simply puts these on when getting in bed. The transmitter stays plugged in the wall or on the nightstand. The Malem wireless alarm fastens to underwear he already owns (close fitting, not boxers) and can be an advantage if your family doesn’t do laundry very often. If there is no wetting, the underwear go back in the drawer. If wetting occurred, the underwear is laundered with the sheets. I have all my patients sleep on a waterproof, absorbent overlay on top of their sheet. When the alarm sounds, it’s easy to remove the wet overlay and go back to a dry bed.

Even with teens, the parent’s role is important initially. Listen for the alarm and make sure that your son is getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom as the correct response. The quicker he learns how to respond to the bedwetting alarm, the more quickly he will be on the road to dryness.

One last point is to make sure the alarm is worn long enough. Having 14 consecutive nights of dryness is important before beginning to use the alarm every other night for 14 nights. Often, my teen patients are so excited to have 4 or 5 dry nights in a row that they stop their alarm use prematurely. Wet nights begin occurring sporadically and further progress is delayed.

Wireless bedwetting alarms can be used for any age child but they are particularly well-suited for teens. Persistence and patience will help insure success.

The first two weeks of using a bedwetting alarm are the most difficult for parents, when your involvement is needed to make sure your child is getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom when the alarm sounds. Since the kids go back to sleep immediately when returning to bed, they do not feel sleep deprived. Parents may lay awake for awhile, however, depending on where you are in your own sleep cycle. Knowing that this disturbance in your sleep is only for a couple of weeks allows most families to make it through this challenging time. Working on conquering bedwetting at this time of the year before work and travel commitments are in full swing is easier for many families.

Another advantage of treating bedwetting this time of the year is that summer camps and other vacation plans are still a few months away. The average child takes 10-12 weeks to get to dryness when using an alarm. Some children stop wetting more quickly and some take a little longer. By beginning now, your child will have ample time to get to dryness and build up the confidence necessary before sleep away situations present themselves.

Make a New Year’s Resolution and let 2009 be the last year that your child has to face waking up in a wet bed. Call the Customer Care Team at the Bedwetting Store (800-214-9605) to get your questions answered or for product recommendations specially suited to your own child.