Treating twins

Today I'm responding to DT, who is asking when she should be concerned about her children's bedwetting. She has twins who are 4 and an older son, who is 8. All are still wearing disposable pants and wetting every night.

In families where more than one child has bedwetting, it is usually best to start treatment with the oldest child first. An 8 year old who is still wetting most nights would be a good candidate for using a bedwetting alarm. Often, as an older sibling makes progress and gets to dryness, the younger sibs are eager to use an alarm, too. I feel that children who are a "mature 5 or 6 years of age could begin using a bedwetting alarm. If you notice that the twins continue to have wet nights when they are this age, they can begin using an alarm. Until they are a little older, they can continue wearing disposables at night.

If you begin to see some dry disposable pants, you can experiment with having your twins wear underwear to bed. Waterproof overlays, which lay on top of the sheet and are absorbent and washable, are great for transitioning from disposables to cloth underwear. When treating twins, parents have a couple of choices. If one of the twins is more motivated or bedwetting bothers him more than his sibling, you can treat him first. Once he finishes, the alarm can be used for the other twin.

Another choice is to treat both at the same time. Families choose to do this if both twins seem equally motivated and it would be difficult to choose who should start first. I recommend using the Malem Ultimate alarm if treating more than one sibling at a time. The reason is that the different colored alarms make distinctly different sounds. For example, the purple, blue and pink Malem Ultimate alarms make different sounds. Click the speaker icon on this page to listen to the sounds.

Different sounds enable the parents to know which child to respond to. If the children share a room, each child begins to realize which is their alarm sounding and which sound demands a response. Treating more than one child at a time can be done but the initial few weeks can be tiring for parents. Having one parent attend to each child or taking alternate nights or early or late "shifts may be a way to handle this.