bedwetting teenager - Page 4

[dotcommama]

Hmmm. . .I feel like some of you may be taking my post as criticism and it is not meant to be. I'm just saying to anyone who might think of trying it - don't not try it because you think your child won't wake from it and therefore it won't work.

I'm just sharing my success story and hopefully encouraging others who have children that don't want to wet at night anymore to give it a try. I was absolutely amazed that using it could take a child who never had one dry night into two weeks later being a child who never wets the bed. I also know many other parents who have had similar successful experiences with it. Of course there will always be exceptions to the rules and nothing works for every child.

For the record, my child doesn't wake well either. We tried just waking him several times a night ourselves and it did result in full-blown tantrums and such. Also I’m not saying that waking him with the beeper was a big joy either. When we'd get him awake he'd be totally disturbed by the noise and cry asking us to make it stop - etc. . .but hey who said parenting was all about fun and convenience for the parents? I would not have forced my child to do this - but he wanted to start being dry at night and he wanted to undertake this challenge, even though it sucked at times.

1. It disturbs YOUR sleep.

Yes it does. It was a sacrifice we were willing to make as a family to help our child achieve his goal. Nursing my baby every night disturbs my sleep too, but you know what? I do it anyway.

2. It makes the responsibility of waking the child up yours and not the child - who want to stop wetting more?

It makes it both our responsibility. It was an agreement we made with him to help him. Since you have had first hand experience as a bed wetter - If your parents could have helped you by sacrificing a few nights of their sleep wouldn't you have wanted them to?

3. Unless they are 2 feet away from you, by the time the alarm wakes YOU up and you scramble out of bed and into his/her room it will probably be TOO LATE. Technically, by the time the alarm goes off it is already too late because the flow of urine has begun, and unless the bladder is super full, the whole process will take what? 30 seconds? Can you make it to his bed that fast? At best you'll stop the last few drops, and what good does that do.

Too late? I think you are not understanding the point of the alarm. It’s not that the alarm is going to wake you before you wet. The first few times the alarm is going to go off and the child is going to be soaked by the time you get there. But the plan is for the child to wake up (or be woken up if necessary), have them stop the alarm by themselves and then go stand in front of the toilet and try to pee. The child is learning to make the connection: I need to pee - must wake up and go to the bathroom. By the beginning of the second week with my son the alarm would go off and he would #1: wake up to the alarm himself and #2 would have only peed a little and would be able to go to the bathroom and finish.

[dotcommama]

Here is a quote from the wet-stop directions - maybe this will clarify it better than I did:

The Parents' Role with Bed-Wetting Alarms
If your child doesn't awaken immediately to the sound of the buzzer, he needs your help. You may need to help your child every night for the first 2 to 3 weeks.

When you hear the alarm go to your child's room as quickly as you can. Turn on the light and say loudly, "Get out of bed and stand up."

If that doesn't work, help your child sit up. Wipe his face with a cold washcloth to bring him out of his deep sleep.

Only after your child is standing, remind him to turn off the alarm. By all means, do not turn off the buzzer for him. Your child has to learn to carry out this step for himself.

Make sure your child is wide awake and walks into the bathroom before you leave him. If necessary, ask him questions to help awaken him.

Your goal is to help your child awaken immediately and get out of bed when the buzzer sounds. Stop helping him as soon as he appears to be able to wake up and get up without your help. Going to bed with the radio off, going to bed at a reasonable hour, and using a night-light can help your child respond faster to the alarm.

[fatherSONokayHERE]

"Since you have had first hand experience as a bed wetter - If your parents could have helped you by sacrificing a few nights of their sleep wouldn't you have wanted them to?"

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! If anything my goal was to desperately try to CONCEAL these incidents! Then again, in my case the accidents were sporadic so it wasn't already public knowledge - and certainly at that time I would be horrified to learn that they knew or furthermore, gave me an alarm that announced to everyone in the neighborhood of my accidents.

Don't take my criticisms of the alarm seriously - my situation, my son's, and yours are all completely different. Besides, I never even used an alarm before and just know how it works theoretically. Now I know how much more involved the parent must be, so I wonder if the alarm's often reported failings is a result of those directions not being faithfully followed.

As I said, in my case the wettings were rare or even incomplete - though no less horrifying to me - and I did everything to hide this from my parents. I suppose if it happened nightly I could not hide it and the cat would be out of the (wet) bag. With an infrequent problem like mine I doubt the alarm would have worked to TRAIN me, even though it would wake me up right away, since my problem wasn't deep sleeping (these incidents always seemed to happen towards morning). I think I was able to sweat through the cleaning up better than an alarm would have done, betraying me to everyone or at least arousing suspicion.

I have to say though this is all hindsight because I never even considered an alarm back then nor heard of one. As for my son, it would only be useful if there were a "privacy" setting, like a vibrator of headphones, since his problem is different and need not and should not involve us. I could imagine nothing worse than having a nocturnal emission and waking up from those wonderful images and feelings to hear an awful alarm and witness my parents hovering over me.

And I already considered the relatively small quantity and short duration of an emission compared to wetting the bed - of course an alarm wouldn't prevent it - HOWEVER, if it is true that there is a lengthy "arousal" phase consisting of steady drops of pre- fluid, then waking up from that would be sufficient prevention.

All theory, probably never to be tried. I've resolved to allow him to grow through the experience, which hopefully becomes more pleasant and less frequent, at least by next summer where he is brave enough to go back to camp.

[dotcommama]

I could imagine nothing worse than having a nocturnal emission and waking up from those wonderful images and feelings to hear an awful alarm and witness my parents hovering over me.

Of course you wouldn't use it for nocturnal emissions that is something completely different from wetting the bed!

[fatherSONokayHERE]

Yes yes, I know, sorry. There's a couple things going on here - I keep drifiting between these two topics which are actually in two different threads in this forum. Also I am brainstorming OTHER APPLICATIONS of products used for one thing because of a lack of information or support about the other. Finally, as I stated before, my original (personal) experience with wet dreams was very much so tangled up with confusion of and worry over wetting the bed - which transferred several nights into reality which, while during the dream, I was not able to tell which of the two possibilities were happening - that is to say, if I was that lucid at all in the first place!

I still stand by the idea that an alarm (if fitted with headphones) would actually work better and faster and without parent intervention at stopping wet dreams than it appears to be in stopping bedwetting - the intended use of the product. Will there ever be an awareness or demand for such a thing? Probably not. Hence: brainstorm...

Actually I wish I was able to offer some of you help in certain areas like I feel I'm asking for from you. But our kid was a dream and a piece of cake to raise and since my bedwetting was so sporadic there was no clear victory or method leading to victory that I could offer other than an out-of-the-ordinary attention to overlooked details, overanalysis of the situation, and utter committment to succeed by myself, seated in a holy fear of anyone else discovering the problem.

So that might be why I come off as holier-than-thou when I criticize a 13-year-old child who wets SOMEONE ELSE'S bed and leaves the sheets there, doesn't shower or bother changing his clothes - simply because I can't relate to behaving that way in that situation (even in my OWN bed if NOBODY knew about it) which leads me to judgements that they are somehow anti-social, irresponsible, or perhaps have some other mental or cognitive handicap.

Sorry - just as a teacher AND a musician I'm caught between the politically correct attitude of artists taking responsibility for the effects of their work on society, and the artistic attitude of not wanting any censorship since PARENTS should teach manners and control what they see and hear.

Not that that aside has ANYTHING to do with this forum! Just an insight into my beliefs on certain things.